What I Read: Oct-Dec 2024

Once again, I’ve fallen behind in blogging, and I have no doubt it’s going to get worse as I work on my thesis over the next few months. But to catch up you up on the event most relevant to this blog, I attended Dragonsteel at the beginning of December with my two teenagers, who are also huge Sanderson fans. We didn’t cosplay ourselves but had to take photos with some of the amazing cosplayers we saw there. Also pictured is my son’s soul caster: immediately after putting it on, his first instinct was to do the Thanos snap, so I guess that puts “the Lesson” into an interesting perspective.

And of course, we have some of the cool merchandise pictured like the collectible card game that absolutely broke the convention. My boys have always loved the con games at Dragonsteel, but this one really went over the top. Through some hard work, we managed to collect all the story cards and even a good number of the more rare cards (even Heralds 7 and 9!). There was a really interesting panel on philosophy and religion in the series–I still definitely need to get in touch with the panelists about some of their ideas. As always, I enjoyed Brandon’s book launch speech, and the excerpt from the new non-Cosmere short story to be released. I’m finding it interesting that Sanderson keeps returning to write in the police/detective work genre (see also Snapshot, Legion), but I suppose it makes sense when you consider how many of his fantasy plots are also information-based. Definitely planning to come back next year, when hopefully things will be a little more chill since it won’t be a Stormlight year. (One can dream, right?)

Besides the convention, the end of the semester went well. I wrote an interesting paper on the uses of imagination for learning about God, as well as the dangers thereof, which I’ve already submitted to a conference. I finished my internship teaching persuasive writing and made a first pass at a teaching portfolio, which makes me feel like the end of grad school is in sight. There’s just one semester left, during which I’m writing my thesis, teaching two classes, and taking one class on women in Arthurian legend. I am savoring my graduate experience but also kind of ready for a short break. Orchestrating Christmas for a family while trying to write papers and grade was not very enjoyable.

As if that wasn’t enough to do, my conference schedule for this next semester is also packed. Here’s a summary of where you’ll find me this winter:

Feb 13-15: LTUE Symposium (Provo, UT) – I’ll be presenting my paper on LDS premortal theology in The Maze Runner and Matched, as well as a paper on The Mandalorian and religious clothing with my coauthor and podcast cohost Carl Cranney. I’ll also be on two panels discussing Dune and the work of Hayao Miyazaki.

Mar 19-22: ICFA (Orlando, FL) – I’m presenting the first half of my master’s thesis on the postsecular portrayal of religion in the Stormlight Archive.

April 4-5: Eaton Conference on Speculative Fiction (Riverside, CA) – I’ll be presenting the second half of my master’s thesis on secular and religious ways of knowing in the Stormlight Archive.

I’ve got a few more presentations lined up for spring at the MHA and MSH/AML conferences, but we’ll save those for another time.

As for my reading, I was forced to declare bankruptcy on actually writing full reviews for most of my reading for the past few months, so I’ve instead ordered them by my star rating on Goodreads, with a few sporadic notes below.

Speculative Fiction

5-star

The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis – Still my favorite of the Narnia books.

4-star

Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis – A necessary step to get my kids to Dawn Treader and Silver Chair. There are points in this book that are more pointedly allegorical than Lion, but also points that are more neo-medieval-classical than the other books as well. I didn’t remember nearly so much dancing!

Rhythm of War by Brandon Sanderson – Re-listened to this in prep for Wind and Truth. It’s the only one in the series that I never went back to since first reading it. The technical details felt a bit more organic this time around, but I still find the Kaladin plotline to be a bit dull and stretched out (though the final scenes are excellent). I would rather have Sanderson drop a few of the characters and actually focus on the ones who are the nominally stars of the book. (This problem gets even more intense in Wind and Truth.) However, it wasn’t as much of a trainwreck as I remember, so that’s something.

The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke – Really liked this except that it was too short. I would read a whole novel about this.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini – Overall, a fun SF book with some interesting remixes of ideas that have been done before. One thing that made the book tough for me to get through was the way that it keeps changing the entire conception of the plot every couple of chapters. You think you are reading one type of SF, then it becomes another, and just as you get used to it, it changes again. I got rather annoyed and resisted caring about our third set of characters, thinking the author would soon dump them. But this third set of characters turns out to stay put for the rest of the book, so not caring about them made it hard for me to want to keep reading. Something about the structure of the novel is just a bit off for me. The ending “standalone with series potential” ending kind of annoyed me after all the other switches the book pulled on me, but once I was done with it, I realized it made sense. Still, I don’t know that I’ll follow up with future books.

3-star

The State of the Art by Iain M. Banks

Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson – I am working on a longer review, plus writing my thesis on the series thus far, but here are a few initial thoughts:

The book doesn’t justify its length. At a panel with the editors at Dragonsteel Nexus 2025, they said they were proud of how they used typography tricks to avoid having to cut anything to fit the maximum page restrictions. I think this was a mistake; the book should have received more developmental editing. Perhaps this is a hazard of all authors that get too famous to delay publication in order to get the book right. I hope in the future, Dragonsteel avoids assigning launch dates before the book is finished (probably impossible).

The book is also marred by the heavy influence of current therapy culture. Mental health has always been a focus of the series, but it’s been done in a universal timeless way until Rhythm of War. Even the Rhythm of War version looks subtle compared to the therapy-worldview statements in this book, and not just in the Kaladin, Therapist to the Gods, plotline. I worry that this book will read as extremely dated in a decade.

On the positive side, this is Sanderson’s most fascinating book from a theological perspective. More elaborations to come, but at minimum, we have a real Paradise-Lost-ish explication of the Mormon Satan and an interesting argument for the need for an atonement. Also lots of interesting implications about the importance of belief in character’s lives, especially those who aren’t traditional believers. And Jasnah’s development in this book makes me extremely interested in where Sanderson intends to go with the character from here.

I am about to embark on a re-read to prepare for all the writing I need to do about this book, so I’ll report back with more considered opinions eventually

Fiction

5-star

Silence by Shūsaku Endō – Read this book again for the graduate class on divine silence. I’m pretty sure this is my fourth time reading it, some assigned and some by choice. This time around, I saw a lot of more of Endo’s intentionality in setting up Rodrigues’s conflict with God’s seeming silence in the face of suffering. I also read the ending as a lot more hopeful than I did as a college freshman. This time, I assumed that Rodrigues maintained his faith even though he was forced to remain silent about it, a reflection of God’s own silence towards the Japanese martyrs. I saw more hints in the strange economic log of the last chapter that Rodrigues kept secretly practicing his faith, especially with regards to Kiichijiro. Perhaps this is just contamination from watching the (amazing) film, but it just seemed so obviously intended to be read this way, which would surprise my college freshman self who read it as absolutely atheist in its ending.

Nonfiction

5-star

The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ – Finishing this week with the kids for our family scripture study. On to church history next year!

4-star

The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis – Still very readable even after all these years. Whereas in the past I’ve really focused on the educational implications, with the recent rise of AI language bots, the last chapter reads as very prophetic and important.

Zero at the Bone: Fifty Entries Against Despair by Christian Wiman

Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

Cup My Days Like Water by Abigail Carroll

All Manner of Things: Meditations on Suffering, Death, and Eternal Life by Jeffrey A. Vogel

Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days: Volume 2: No Unhallowed Hand: 1846–1893 – The release of volume 4 finally inspired to make my way through all the volumes of Saints. This one does an excellent job of exploring the early days of Deseret and Utah, and doesn’t shy away from the tricky stories of polygamy.

3-star

Experiencing God in a Time of Crisis by Sarah Bachelard

The World of Silence by Max Picard

Dark Night of the Soul by John of the Cross – Read bits and pieces of this in three different translations, none of which were easier than others.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach – Fun read for Halloween season. I liked this better than my previous Mary Roach readings, though she’s still not my favorite writer. Some chapters were more interesting than others, but some were more nauseating than I could handle. Still, I have brought up some of the interesting facts I learned here in conversation, so I suppose the book worked well enough.

Willingly Trapped in Our Own Suffering

I’ve been hard at work on school things and some extra projects, so this blog is continually neglected. But I thought that this reflection, composed for my class on divine silence, might be interesting to you even though it’s not connected to speculative fiction aside from Lewis’s The Great Divorce, which comes in at the end.

I am fascinated by the way that Christian Wiman’s Zero at the Bone describes humanity’s strange attachment to its pains and limitations. In the introduction, he exactly nails the feelings of many young writers: “When you’re young, if you’re at all ‘artistic,’ despair has an alluring quality. You affect it, deploy it, stroke it gently like a sedated leopard” (3). He speaks of a young writer “attached to” his “toy despair” (57). This description makes me worried that he has seen the emotional, self-absorbed poetry I scratched into a small notebook in my lonely high school years. But Wiman generalizes this beyond just the romantic poets: he claims, “We are our wounds, it seems, and without them will not exist” (29). Quoting Emily Dickinson, he says that “A prison gets to be a friend” (59). 

This seems like a strange idea: why would we be attached to something that limits us, that causes us pain? Yet it’s so clearly the way our current culture works. Many young people self-diagnose various mental health issues to find a sense of belonging to an online community of people that is both misunderstood and marginalized. (I myself have been tempted by various videos explaining how female autistics are different and rarely correctly diagnosed, wondering if this could explain why I found it difficult to sustain friendships. I always ultimately decide that I understand people too well for this to be the case.) We seek to excuse our current behavior as something conditioned by past traumas inflicted upon us. The other week, I watched in mild fascination a woman in a YouTube short series who explained all the future behaviors of an adult based on the role they fulfilled in their family of origin. Were you (like me) the oldest child, the one who was responsible and never needed parental support, who became a third parent to the younger children? Then you would inevitably be someone who had trouble being emotionally intimate, who finds partners who need caring for, who never lets yourself have a bad day. Honestly, guilty on all counts, which is why this stuff is so insidious. By finding a prison we can hide within or a wound we can define ourselves by, we absent ourselves from responsibility for our present actions. We negate the ability or need to change. (Is this that different from blaming the devil (or God?) for our actions?)

From this perspective it’s easy to worry that the idea of Christian peace, “the notion that one could make a clean break with the furies of one’s time and mind,” (58-59) is a false optimism, a toxic positivity in the modern vernacular. How can we simply decide not to be affected by all these contexts that clearly affect us? Yet I’m reminded of something someone told me as a young adult which changed how I thought about my own wounds, my own prison: “As soon as we realize that all our problems come from the way we were raised, we become accountable for those problems and can no longer blame them on our parents.” Weren’t Laman and Lemuel raised by the same parents who raised Nephi and Jacob? All of them were dragged away from their home and suffered the privations of eating raw meat in the wilderness. Our experiences affect us, but they are far from being deterministic. Wasn’t Mormon raised in a godless society that seemed to know no accountability for its own actions? His parents certainly don’t make an appearance when he’s taken aside as a ten-year-old by Ammaron and entrusted with the future guardianship of the spiritual records. Were Mormon’s parents absorbed in the spirit of their times? Did they also feel the “sorrowing of the damned, because the Lord would not always suffer them to take happiness in sin?” (Mormon 2:13) How did Mormon choose such a different path from the prevailing circumstances of his time?

an illustration of the dwarf and the tragedian in The Great Divorce, found here, artist unknown

Wiman finds some answers to this dilemma in the same place that I also found them: in the writings of CS Lewis. In Wiman’s poem “The Eft,” he references Lewis’s The Great Divorce. He specifically looks at the characters of “the dwarf and the tragedian,” who are actually one character split into two people. The tragedian insists that all of his troubles are caused by a lack of love and acceptance from his wife, while the dwarf becomes emotionally stunted by this refusal to accept responsibility. Wiman calls their state “the pleasure pain becomes when it becomes a thing to wield/a means of extracting meaning from someone else’s heart/when your own has run dry” (258). He resolves the poem by quoting Lewis again, who is in turn relating the words of his own mentor George McDonald in his fictional Virgil-guide form: “Hell is a state of mind—/ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind,/left to itself, every shutting up of the creature/within the dungeon of its own mind—is, in the end, Hell” (259). The only way to escape the prison we create of our own circumstances is to seek a connection with God, for “Heaven is not a state of mind. Heaven is reality itself./All that is fully real is Heavenly” (259). I had much the same realization reading Lewis as a college student: the unique suffering that the artistic youth becomes attached to is an illusion. All sinners are the same. But all saints become more and more themselves by letting go of their small obsessions, their little hurts, and coming fully into relation with God.

What I Read: August & September 2024

I don’t know why I’m constantly behind on these book reviews, but it seems to be a fact of life, so I suppose I should stop apologizing for it. August started out with my daughter was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It’s a big milestone for our family since she’s the youngest child. Now they are all in. The baptism itself was a really special event where both her grandfathers gave talks about their testimony of the gospel. Thanks to all the family who came to support her.

Also in August, my mom and I also went to go see Further Up and Further In, Max McLean’s sequel play to The Most Reluctant Convert. I didn’t think it was quite as thematically unified as the first play though he does a good job of piecing together CS Lewis’s works from the period surrounding the second World War. It was really interesting to see him portray Lewis in person. I sent the info about the show to the BYU campus event coordinator; I’m really hoping to get the show (or both of them!) to campus.

September saw the start of a new semester. I’m only taking one seminar class, a theory-based course on the concept of divine silence–meaning our reaction to not receiving the answers or comfort we may desire from God. You’ll see the beginnings of the reading for that class reflected somewhat in the reviews below.

I’m also starting work on my master’s thesis, which right now is going to be an examination of the Stormlight Archive as a post-secular epic fantasy. My prospectus was approved by my committee, and I’m having an absolute blast doing the research for it so far, which I think is a good sign that I’ve found the right topic to discuss. I’m also teaching first-year writing again and training to teach advanced persuasive writing. It’s been an interesting experience so far working with juniors and seniors instead of freshmen; it’s a lot easier to fill out a discussion because they always seem to have opinions on what to say.

On the research front, Carl and I handed in the final draft of our paper on religious clothing in the Mandalorian. We’ll be presenting that work locally at LTUE in February, and I’m thinking I may submit it to ICFA this year as well (either that and my thesis research).

This weekend, I’m presenting at VICFA, delayed slightly due to the hurricanes in Florida. The theme is on “Pantheology in World-Building and Magic Systems,” so I’ll be presenting my paper about LDS premortal theology in YA dystopias. I’m excited to see lots of other research combining an interest in real-world beliefs and fantastical literature as well. Perhaps I’ll write up a report for the blog, if you’re interested.

Continue reading “What I Read: August & September 2024”

What I Read: May & June 2024

Summer has begun! Although I love being back in school (I’m one of those weirdos), there’s definitely something to be said for summer. I’ve had a lot more control over what research I want to work on, though never enough time with kids at home. In May, I also got to participate in a workshop of youth print culture at the Church History Library, which opened up my eyes to a lot of interesting resources from past eras. I love this “Bookish Corner for Bookish Girls” column from an early Church magazine and the title of this musical made me laugh.

At the end of May and into June, we went on an extended family trip to Disneyland, which was fun and exhausting. Then I made a quick turnaround to attend the Mormon History Association conference the next weekend. I’m still not sure whether this will get a separate summary post, but I am pleased to report there were at least three panels relevant to speculative fiction, which was an improvement from the last time I attended. My panel was nice and full and people asked very thoughtful questions. I came away from MHA with at least two new research projects to complete, so I consider that a win.

at MHA in Kirtland

On the writing front, “Through the Wardrobe,” my piece for Wayfare Magazine on the Chronicles of Narnia and the LDS temple experience, is now available for free on their Substack. I’ve been getting a lot of great reactions to it, which makes me really happy since I worried it was too esoteric for anyone else to be interested in. I’ve also finished my paper on YA dystopias written by LDS authors, which I’ll be presenting next weekend at the AML Conference. I’m really excited about all of the other panels and presentations. The whole conference will stream live on the AML YouTube channel, so come learn about the history of Mormon writing for children and young adults.

Due to my co-host breaking his knee and moving to Utah, Pop Culture on the Apricot Tree has been on a bit of a hiatus, but we did release an episode on Dune at the end of May. Also, just last week, the Association for Mormon Letters announced we were a finalist for this year’s podcast award. The other finalists are also amazing, so I don’t know if we stand much chance of winning, but it’s an honor to be listed with them.

Continue reading “What I Read: May & June 2024”

What I Read: April 2024

Tulips make running better

I thought that it would get easier to keep up with blogging when the semester ended, but I guess things just keep on piling on. I finished up two really good papers–one on teaching students with dysgraphia in first-year writing and another using C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves as a lens to interpret Fatima Mirza’s novel A Place for Us–and all of my grading, and promptly collapsed.

Then I got back up again and promptly made up for my lack of mom-hours during the semester by chaperoning my daughter’s field trip the zoo and running all the last-minute errands for various school projects. My husband and I also ran a 5K at our local tulip festival with my teenagers, who we’ve been forcing to run all year. I don’t think they enjoyed it as much as I did.

In writing news this month, my short story “Birthright” was published as part of an anthology called Tales of Mystery: Dead for a Spell. The collection features detective stories with a fantasy twist, while the companion volume, Tales of Mystery: The Gravity of Death, is science-fiction themed. My story features a reluctant detective forced to take a case from a dangerous magical family. If you pay attention to the biblical allusions in the story, you may get a hint as to whodunit. I feel honored to be included in the collection along with some other really wonderful writers (including one who wrote one of the books reviewed below).

I had hoped to do more creative writing during the summer, but looks like academia has other ideas. I’m currently working on a paper about memory in dystopian novels by LDS authors for the Association for Mormon Letters conference in July. And in April, my podcast co-host Carl Cranney and I received a conditional acceptance for a paper on The Mandalorian and religious clothing for a possible edited collection, so now I am being forced to rewatch the show for research purposes. Oh, the hard life of the speculative fiction literary critic. 🙂

Speaking of the podcast, this month’s release is a short conversation about The Most Reluctant Convert, a film about C.S. Lewis’s conversion based on his memoir Surprised by Joy. I can’t believe it took me 42 episodes to get a legitimate Lewis episode into the podcast. The film is very short and really faithful to the book. Highly recommend for Lewis fans.

And now onto book reviews, of which 4/5 are rereads. It’s interesting (to me, at least) to see how my perspective on a book has changed over time. I hope the reevaluations you see below are an indication that I’m growing over time.

Continue reading “What I Read: April 2024”