On the Road with Joseph Smith
 

I finally got my copy of On the Road with Joseph Smith: An Author's Diary by Richard Bushman this morning. I highly recommend it. It is a diary of his experiences around the publication of RSR. His reactions to reviews, the publicity tour, and his reflections on RSR in general. It is very interesting and quite moving at times.

Let me highlight a couple of quotes:

• Elder Holland wrote a generous note last week. I was pleased to have him say "You knew (and I and everybody else knew) that you had to deal with things as honestly and forthrightly as you could. Nevertheless, your faith and loyalty are apparent on ever page." pg. 104-105
  
  
• As I awoke in the morning, it struck me that I should bear testimony to thank God for help with the book. I sought a blessing from Elder Packer before getting started; and insofar as I was worthy, I think the blessing was fulfilled. pg 32
  
  
• The worst mistake was Sunday's Ensign Stake talk. At the end I did not bear my testimony. On other occasions, I have had audience members ask me about my testimony. LDS audiences always want to know. Someone came up to me afterword and asked if I ever bore my testimony to these groups. On another occasion a person asked me if I was a patriarch. He wanted to assure a reader of my book that I must have a testimony if I was. On Sunday a man hung around for a long time finally said, I bet your testimony is different from that of people in this room. I said it was, but I believed in the gold plates. He was astounded. I must find a way of conveying my basic belief in all these settings. I felt bad after the Ensign Stake talk and am still in mourning a little. Partly this is vanity; people we not as enthusiastic as in Cottonwood. But partly it is a realization that I have erred and must improve my ways. pg 108

I had read a review of this book some time ago, but it was not widely available then. Did you get it through Amazon?

I did, but I looked again today and it looks like it is only available via "used and new" non-amazon sellers.

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Joseph-Sm...6890525&sr=1-1

One thing I was struck by is that Bushman's says he would have written the book very differently if he had it to do over again.
I was surprised by this a little. Maybe because I like RSR quite a bit and to some degree I think it already does the preceding. The interesting thing is that Bushman wants to do this to make the book more useful to non-Mormon readers. I think the diary indicates that he views the books biggest failure as the lukewarm reception by the non-Mormon audience because it was too sympathetic and not objective enough. He wanted to walk a fine line and in the end he didn't or couldn't do it as well as he hoped so in retrospect he wouldn't even try to walk the line.

Am I am sympathetic to this line of thought but I think it would have failed. I think the reception by non-mormons would have been even worse. Joseph Smith is just too polarizing.

What was really new about RSR? What additional sources did he use that cast a new light?

Well, it is certainly true that RSR doesn't uncover any "new" factoids or sensational details. So from that perspective there isn't anything new. The book is not about exposing dirty laundry.

However, it strikes as entirely unfair to suggest that the book doesn't cast new light on Joseph Smith and so I am starting to think your statement is a bit of "trolling"* that I am too obtuse to really understand.

*I apologize if the trolling comment is unfair. One thing that I have difficultly with on cougarguard is the amount of trolling that goes on. But it is part of the "guard" culture so I am the one out of step with the mainstream on this one

1. I think it is the most comprehensive biography in terms of what it covers and in terms of the source materials used.

2. It doesn't have the baggage that other biographers (eg. Quinn, Brodie) have.

I am saying that perhaps the reason RSR is lukewarmly received is because it leaves JS as much an enigma as before the book was written.

It seems that this is not the definitive biography. Maybe one will never be written.

It is not a breakthrough, like apparently Brodie's biography was a breakthrough.

But without additional sources, perhaps no breakthrough is possible.

That's in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. The fact that such a thorough, honest, and balanced biography was written by the premiere LDS historian of our time is a breakthrough in many ways.