Fawn Brodie delved into anti-Mormon literature...

[MikeWaters]

while she was employed at the University of Utah library fixing book bindings. She was horrified by the accusations in the "scurrilous" (Bringhurst's word) books. I take it to mean that these books are not currently considered to be of any sound historical content.

After finishing at U. of Utah, she went back to Weber to teach. She decided to go to graduate school. Instead of going with boyfriend Jensen to Cal-Berkeley, she went to the Univ. of Chicago, where her parents hoped she would be ensconced among the many Mormons there and NOT marry this Jensen guy who was considered to be too low of station.

Very shortly after arriving at the Univ. of Chicago she met Mr. Brodie. Six weeks later they were married. What is interesting is that Mr. Brodie was deeply ashamed of his Jewish heritage. To the point that he changed the spelling of his name from Brody to Brodie. And refused, for the most part, to have any contact with his family. Also an interesting aside, is that Brodie spoke with a marked lisp. Fawn's relatives desperately wanted to prevent the marriage, but were unsuccessful.

Brodie reported as two seminal moments in her apostasy--one when she was speaking with a roommate at U. of Chicago. The roommate asked questions about the Book of Mormon. Brodie explained the Golden Plates. What happened to them? An angel took them back. The roommate rolled her eyes. And suddenly Brodie realizes how "ridiculous" the story is.

Also, Brodie sees Native Americans and notes "oriental" features. This further confirms that the Book of Mormon is false.

I think all in all, we have the picture of a very bright, sheltered young woman from a very parochial place, with a mother and other relatives (the Brimhalls) that do not fit what many would consider "true believers", who wanted a different life for herself (far from Huntsville), who is shattered and enthralled by the outside world (i.e. non-Mormon), and somewhere in the process of reading anti-Mormon literature and people challenging her beliefs, leaves the faith.

This is not a new story. It is an old story.

What is missing, from the believers perspective, is faith. She either never had a charismatically-induced faith, or lost it. As far as I can tell, from the Bringhurst account.

She actually took her new husband to church once. But the talk was on using sales-like techniques to share the gospel. Apparently she was so embarrassed by the talk, that she never attended church again. A very clear break.

[hyrum]

You don't have to believe a word of her interpretation. Her book is highly annotated and the facts that are reported are pretty clear and thoroughly documented, if you ask me. They have also stood the test of time. You could say the facts are selective, but if you want the other side, the church is happy to feed anyone all the whitewashed versions.

[MikeWaters]

what is it then that makes her work controversial?

easy answer. One, selective reporting. Two, coming up with a theory first, and looking for facts second. Three, speculative Freudian spin.

Brodie is a mildly interesting figure in that she came out of the Mormon heartland, shed Mormonism at a young age, and wrote the first non-hagiographic biography of JS.

Of course we will be interested in the psychodynamics behind this process. After all, that is what Brodie was interested in.

[hyrum]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

what is it then that makes her work controversial?

easy answer. One, selective reporting. Two, coming up with a theory first, and looking for facts second. Three, speculative Freudian spin.

Brodie is a mildly interesting figure in that she came out of the Mormon heartland, shed Mormonism at a young age, and wrote the first non-hagiographic biography of JS.

Of course we will be interested in the psychodynamics behind this process. After all, that is what Brodie was interested in.

Its controversial because there are people who don't want you to believe the facts that she presents so are more than willing to have you question her motives. You could say there is a parallel there with the subject of her biography, but, for the most part Joseph Smith didn't present facts, just visions, interpretations, "translations", and prophesies which time has proven the interpretations to be largely contrary to scientific evidence and some key prophesies reversed (Native American DNA, accepted scholars' translations of the papyri, timing of the second coming, location of "Zion", polygamy dogma, etc.) so, yes, its quite appropriate to question more fully the source of those.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

while she was employed at the University of Utah library fixing book bindings. She was horrified by the accusations in the "scurrilous" (Bringhurst's word) books. I take it to mean that these books are not currently considered to be of any sound historical content.

After finishing at U. of Utah, she went back to Weber to teach. She decided to go to graduate school. Instead of going with boyfriend Jensen to Cal-Berkeley, she went to the Univ. of Chicago, where her parents hoped she would be ensconced among the many Mormons there and NOT marry this Jensen guy who was considered to be too low of station.

Very shortly after arriving at the Univ. of Chicago she met Mr. Brodie. Six weeks later they were married. What is interesting is that Mr. Brodie was deeply ashamed of his Jewish heritage. To the point that he changed the spelling of his name from Brody to Brodie. And refused, for the most part, to have any contact with his family. Also an interesting aside, is that Brodie spoke with a marked lisp. Fawn's relatives desperately wanted to prevent the marriage, but were unsuccessful.

Brodie reported as two seminal moments in her apostasy--one when she was speaking with a roommate at U. of Chicago. The roommate asked questions about the Book of Mormon. Brodie explained the Golden Plates. What happened to them? An angel took them back. The roommate rolled her eyes. And suddenly Brodie realizes how "ridiculous" the story is.

Also, Brodie sees Native Americans and notes "oriental" features. This further confirms that the Book of Mormon is false.

I think all in all, we have the picture of a very bright, sheltered young woman from a very parochial place, with a mother and other relatives (the Brimhalls) that do not fit what many would consider "true believers", who wanted a different life for herself (far from Huntsville), who is shattered and enthralled by the outside world (i.e. non-Mormon), and somewhere in the process of reading anti-Mormon literature and people challenging her beliefs, leaves the faith.

This is not a new story. It is an old story.

What is missing, from the believers perspective, is faith. She either never had a charismatically-induced faith, or lost it. As far as I can tell, from the Bringhurst account.

She actually took her new husband to church once. But the talk was on using sales-like techniques to share the gospel. Apparently she was so embarrassed by the talk, that she never attended church again. A very clear break.

Interesting post. Once again you use an Enquirereresque headline that is only an anecdotal fact and potentially misleading, but that's alright. The content of the post was straightforward.

Of course, Brodie's critique of Mormonism would later grow a great deal more sophisticated and thorough. However, her initial gut reactions, as an extremely bright young woman first tasting the glamorous and sophisticated and super-stimulating world of elite higher education in America, ring true. By the way, those younger members today who hear nothing from the leadership about connection between Lamanites and native Americans, and on the Internet see mostly debate about limited geography theories and scenarios, can't appreciate what it was like not so long ago when the company line was much more ambitious, and patently ridiculous, and what it was like to first realize that. I even have at home an article written by Orson Scott Card in the 1980's in which he makes a case for all native Americans being descended from Lamanites. I give him a break because being a successful fantasy novelist doesn't qualify one for such an undertaking, and in the article he admitted he was speaking outside of his field.

Yes, her story is an old story; it's the classic one. When someone goes out and becomes educated at a great university, travels around the world, meets non-Mormon peers with secular interests, the odds of apostasy soar. Duh. The explanation for this should be obvious. Once upon a time before the printing press and the enlightenment everyone in the West believed we were all descended from Adam and Eve who lived six thousand years ago. Ever wondered why the LDS Church gets so many baptisms among poor in latin America and virtually none in places like France, Germany, Cambridge, Mass., and Manhattan?

I think it would be almost impossible to bring your super intelligent and intellectual Jewish spouse (I think Mr. Brodie was literally a rocket scientist) to your average Mormon sacrament meeting and not wind up embarrassed or at least sheepish.

Before you judge her husband too harshly for wanting to separate himself from his roots bear in mind the unjustified antipathy Jews bore worldwide in those days. It wasn't limited to Nazi Germany. Anti-Semitism was rife throughout Europe and the United States in those days. He may at least subconsciously have been acting in a self-preservationist way. He may also, as an intellectual, have been reacting negatively to Orthodox Judaism roots. Many children or grandchildren of Orthodox Jewish immigrants were dazzled by the wealth and opportunity they found in secular America, and ashamed of the contrast between what they perceived as their ancestors' backwardness and their dazzling homeland made primarily by gentiles. Thankfully today there is widespread realization that Jews have greatly enriched our wonderful republic, and they are disproportionately represented in upper corporate management, academia, investment banking, the professions, as artists, any elite field. (Much has been written about Christians' and other Western gentiles' persecution of Jews; maybe not enough about their symbiotic relationship.) Moreover, today America's multi-cultural nature is celebrated. But it was a different world then. Any discussion from Bringhurst about these factors affecting Mr. Brodie's attitudes toward Judaism?

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by hyrum

You don't have to believe a word of her interpretation. Her book is highly annotated and the facts that are reported are pretty clear and thoroughly documented, if you ask me. They have also stood the test of time. You could say the facts are selective, but if you want the other side, the church is happy to feed anyone all the whitewashed versions.

You're right, and we've discussed this ad nauseum (the thread is somewhere in this religion section). Not to discourage anything you might say on this subject, since I'm in agreement with your post. But the thrust of this thread is that to Mike's credit he's reading a biography of Brodie--the biography being widely admired and credited as fair and balanced--written by an apostate and I think ex-Mormon. Mike is rendering the service of giving those of us who have not read Bringhurst's book (I myself have only read a number of book reviews and other articles about it) a facinating synopsis to ponder and address. I give Mike credit for working to gain a more nuanced and balanced appreciation of a facinating and accomplished woman who wrote a highly literary, groundbreaking, and now classic biography of Joseph Smith, and later rose to the highest circles of American higher education, whom Mike has in the past demonized and characatured.

[MikeWaters]

Why do you find it so fascinating that some Mormons read anti- tripe and then fall away? Krakauer's books is absolute trash. No self-respecting apostate would touch that book with a ten foot pole. The book that Brodie read was "scurrilous."

I don't find lack of faith to be that fascinatingly interesting. But I don't blame you SU, because you don't know what you speak of. Why should you have any faith, when you have not partaken from the tree of life? And those that have, what are we to think of those that ridicule the taste of that which they know not?

Sort of like disputing a characterization of Brodie and her mother without a single source.

It's an old story. And it's also a somewhat pitiful story. Dazzled by the world, the barest wind blows and topples the wide-eyed youngster over. But again, lacking the tree of life, it was no more than casting away old fairy tales.

I know you don't believe for a second that believers may know something that is out of the realm of your experience. The fox may know many things, but the hedgehog knows one thing that the fox will never know. And it will make all the difference.

[MikeWaters]

also about Fawn and her husband. I don't think it is coincidence that two people, looking to shed their families' past, found each other. It will be interesting to see how their marriage plays out in the biography.

From reading the DOM biography, I know that Fawn attended family functions from time to time. It goes without saying that Fawn's book was a grave disappointment to DOM.

It's also interesting to see the contrast between DOM and FMB. Worlds apart.

[non sequitur]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

I know you don't believe for a second that believers may know something that is out of the realm of your experience. The fox may know many things, but the hedgehog knows one thing that the fox will never know. And it will make all the difference.

The problem with being a hedgehog is that you're betting that that one thing you know is correct. There is a tendency to discount anything that does not fit into your world view, closing your mind to alternative truths. I find it much more useful to look for truth wherever it might occur.

[MikeWaters]

not all truths are equal. My crap stinks, but where is that going to get you?