This is topic Why hasn't the LDS played a more prominent part of OSC's story lines? in forum Discussions About Orson Scott Card at Hatrack River Forum.
It sems the only time I have ever read about Mormons in fiction it was in one of Harry Turtledove's novels of alternate history.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
He has answered that before. Although he has found himself writing fiction about Mormons a few times(Saints, Folk of the Fringe, and Lost Boys), he mostly stays away. The reason he has given was that he wanted to be known as a writer, and not as a Mormon that writes (or something like that).
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
Besides, he has also said that his Mormonism is a natural part of what and how he writes. Adding in specifically Mormon characters would be too much of a conscious choice, and get in the way of pure story telling.
Posted by johnsonweed (Member # 8114) on :
Thanks, Occasional.
Posted by Occasional (Member # 5860) on :
quote:What were the major themes of your early plays, and stories? OSC Answers I don't have "themes." I don't think fiction is the proper place for themes, anyway -- if a writer has a "theme" in mind, chances are he should write an essay. But if by "theme" you mean the general "matter" of the stories, my early plays were all aimed at the Mormon audience, particularly in Utah (where Mormons are thick enough on the ground to have a hope of developing a large enough audience to support Mormon theatre). Thus they tended to be dramatized stories from the Book of Mormon, the Bible, LDS Church history, or (in rare cases) contemporary Mormon life. Thus "The Apostate" and "Of Gideon" were from the Book of Mormon (as were some unproduced plays as well), "Stone Tables" was from the Bible, "Liberty Jail," "Fresh Courage Take," and "Father, Mother, Mother and Mom" were from Mormon history, and "Across Five Summers" and the unproduced "The Ph.D." were more contemporary, the former from the memories of my mother and father growing up in Salt Lake City, and the latter set at BYU and based on my own experiences there. (Unproduced because it was pretty savage and also rather inept, having been written without the perspective of intervening time <grin>.)
In contrast, my early science fiction stories were definitely not Mormon, since I was explicitly trying to write to "the world" and not to "the Church." Mormon beliefs and concerns crept into my work anyway, because I'm a believing Mormon and what seems true to me is always going to be more or less consonant with Mormon theology as I understand it and Mormon culture as I have experienced it. But the language and the "matter" are not LDS in those early works. Since then I've done some explicitly Mormon-related things -- Homecoming being a retelling in sci-fi terms of the first part of the Book of Mormon, Folk of the Fringe being an extrapolation of Mormon pioneer culture into the future, and the Alvin Maker books drawing their basic structure from an allegorical version of the life of Joseph Smith. And of course there's my novel Saints. Right now I'm writing an explicitly Biblical novel, Sarah, about the wife of Abraham, as a followup to my novel adaptation of my play from 1973, Stone Tables. But ... in no case does the reader have to decide whether or not to believe in Mormonism in order to appreciate the story. Whereas with my college-era plays, I can't think that a non-Mormon would be remotely interested in them ...
Question Is your religion Mormonism a major influence in your works. Because from what I read it seems that it is?
OSC Answers Oops. I accidentally answered that question with my previous answer <grin>.
quote:In my fiction I explore all the issues I care about, and some of those are particularly important to Mormons. I also use various sources and cultural references, some of them for fun (making Ben Franklin a wizard, for instance, or using Joseph Smith's leg operation for my own purposes in Seventh Son), and some of them quite seriously (my use of a real slave rebellion in Charleston in Heartfire, for instance). But I make no effort to expose readers to "Mormon" values. Instead, I do what all fiction writers do whether they mean to or not: I expose my readers to MY values; even though all of my characters have value-sets different from mine to at least some degree, the overall story will always reflect my view of how the universe works and what matters and does not matter within it. Since I am a believing Mormon, there will be considerable overlap between my values and the values of that culture. I couldn't keep that from happening if I tried, and I don't try (though I used to; it simply didn't work, so why bother?). However, as many Mormons can tell you, my values also sometimes differ from views widely held within the Mormon community, and some Mormons are outraged by what I write. Again, I have no program to irritate them, but it's bound to happen, since no two Mormons believe in exactly the same set of doctrines, however much some of them might try to believe that they do, and assume that where there are differences, the other guy is the heretic.
There is also a huge overlap between Mormon values and the values of most human beings, since a religion cannot last as long as ours has, and cannot grow as much, if it does not answer fundamental needs and longings, and correspond in significant ways with reality. This is true of all successful religions, regardless of what an outsider might believe about specific doctrines and practices. But if I expunged ALL Mormon values from my work, I doubt that non-Mormons would find much to value in my work, either.
I don't believe Mormons are overrepresented among science fiction writers, compared to our proportion of the general American public. It's just that the image of Mormons in most people's minds is one that makes it surprising, and therefore memorable, that a science fiction writer could be a believing member of such a religion. Since there are Mormon science fiction writers, the only plausible conclusion is that the general public image of Mormons must be false. And, of course, it is.
Science fiction and fantasy are the only genres where important religious, theological, and cosmological ideas are dealt with seriously and open-mindedly on a regular basis by most of the writers in the field. It's not just Mormons who find that the genre allows them to discuss core metaphysical concerns. This does not indicate they are proselytizing, of course, only that they are writing fiction that deals with issues they care deeply about. Most do what I do - they create characters with every point of view that they think matters, including the views that the author hates most. And most of us manage to disguise this discussion within the story, not because we're doing something "secret," but because we have learned that the entertainment cannot stop just because the ideas are serious, or we'll have no readers <grin>.
quote:QUESTION: How has religion influenced your writing?
-- Submitted Anonymously
OSC REPLIES: - March 12, 2001
All my real beliefs (not what I believe that I believe, but what I really believe at the deepest, most unconscious level) show up in my work without my having to make any conscious effort to include them. Because I am a believing Latter-day Saint, some of those beliefs are bound to show up. But I have no program for trying to put those beliefs into my writing. On a superficial level, I have used some Mormon history and scripture or Mormon cultural motifs in my fiction, but these are not of any particular significance in terms of "influencing" my fiction. I also use other histories and cultures in my fiction, as they serve my storytelling purposes. I have no "Mormon" agenda with my fiction -- I simply tell stories I care about and believe in, and hope I can write them well enough to reach the audience that will care and believe also.
Posted by Clumpy (Member # 8122) on :
It's quite simple - writing "Mormon" novels for the sake of writing Mormon novels, just like writing science fiction novels for the sake of writing science fiction novels, is not his style.
Besides, he's already written Lost Boys - perhaps my pick for my favorite OSC book ever. It's basically an LDS family drama.
But the LDS stuff is incidental rather than integral to the story. It's better that way.
Posted by Sartorius (Member # 7696) on :
As a Mormon, I find all of Card's work infused with a certain Mormon-ness. I think it's a testament to his ability as a writer that the Mormon elements in "Lost Boys", which to me are completely bound up in my faith, can appear incidental to others. "Fiddler on the Roof" acheived the same universality while still being grounded in Judaism.
"Ender's Game" ranks second only to the works of CS Lewis on my list of non-scriptural books that have shaped my personal practice of Mormonism.
I hope that doesn't sound creepy.
Posted by Ckaosblue (Member # 7966) on :
quote:Originally posted by Sartorius: "Ender's Game" ranks second only to the works of CS Lewis on my list of non-scriptural books that have shaped my personal practice of Mormonism.
I hope that doesn't sound creepy.
Um...perhaps just a little, but only because your context is unclear. I'm mormon as well, and I'm not sure how Ender's Game fits in to that. It sounds very interesting though, could you please explain??
Anyhow, while Enders Game hasn't influenced my religious practices, it DID help me to overcome Social Anxiety Disorder. I thought that was interesting.
- Ckaos
Posted by mothertree (Member # 4999) on :
I also find that interesting. How so?
Posted by Sartorius (Member # 7696) on :
I wish I had the time to write a decently structured post about this. Oh well...
A few years ago I started noticing a lot of Messianic figures in the SF I was reading. Ender's Game was already my favorite book, so it didn't take much to look at Ender in those terms. I don't think intention has much to do with whether a fictional protagonist turns out looking a lot like Christ. If Christ is the embodiment of all good, then a character as inately good as Ender would be Christlike, taking nothing else into consideration. But other elements in the story lead to an even deeper comparison: Ender is the child who would save the world, the savior who was reviled, and the innocent shattered by the short-comings of the human race.
His relationship with Peter is especially revealing. Even though Peter is dangerous and hatefull, Ender loves him. The thought of destroying Peter, as he knows he will have to do if he returns to Earth and Peter is unchanged, haunts him so greatly that the fear turns up in the mind game. In subsequent books Peter turns out to be a decent human being, but from Ender's perspective in EG he is so vile that it's amazing when Ender tells Valentine that all he ever wanted was for Peter to love him. I hated him at first. Maybe because I saw too much of myself in him and not enough in Ender. Definitely because I loved Ender and to not love Ender was to not love good. But Ender's love seemed so real that by the end of the book I loved Peter, too. Ender's love for Peter--and Bonzo and Stilson as well--changed the way I thought of God's love for us.
So Ender showed me what a Christlike person might look like, Bonzo and Stilson showed me how self-destructive evil is, and Peter, now my favorite character in the Enderverse, taught me a lot about redemption.