Saints

I have found myself between books. That hasn't happened for a while, and I just don't quite know what to do with myself. I plodded through Wuthering Heights so I could reward myself with Eclipse, but I had already started Saints, so when I had finished the other two, I moved straight to it. I blame my lack of reading material on the priesthood; more accurately, I blame it on the priesthood meeting none of us knew about when we scheduled book club for last week, then had to change to this week to allow our men the opportunity to go. Since I finished Saints, I have been eagerly awaiting our meeting (which is tomorrow) when we will decide what to read next. Until then, I have been looking for other things to fill my time.

I don't know how many of you have heard about Saints. I'm not exactly sure how I came across it, but it was reviewed in BYU magazine this month, so I'm sure it's going to get a lot more popular in the months to come. I love Orson Scott Card and I couldn't resist finding out what his take on life in Nauvoo was like. He wrote the book in the early 1980's, but it was only published in paperback, titled "Woman of Destiny," and made out to look like a cheap romance novel (none of which were OSC's ideas). Recently, it came out in hardback, with the title OSC had meant for it to have all along, and I found it in the public library here in Jax, so I'm sure it's not that difficult to find.

The book begins in England, where the (fictional) Kirkham family comes into contact with a missionary named Heber Kimball. The mother, one son and daughter join the church and eventually make their way to Nauvoo to join the Saints there. The cover of the book shows Dinah, the daughter, standing on the ship that will take her to America. In the small rowboat in the water, you can see her husband and her two children, who are staying behind (don't mind the "Search Inside" pic from Amazon). This was probably the most heart-wrenching part of the book, and I could barely stand to look at the cover while I was reading, wondering if I would be able to say leave my children behind for the church.

In America, Dinah learns the doctrine of plural marriage and becomes one of the Prophet Joseph Smith's plural wives. Even though some of the characters are fictional, you get a good sense for what life was like for those who were close to the prophet. I never claimed to be a church historian (besides what I learned from The Work and the Glory), but there was a lot I didn't know about the church in Nauvoo. The book was extremely thought provoking, and I wonder how it will be accepted in the Mormon community. It doesn't have the same "feel good" quality that The Work and the Glory has, but I loved it for that very reason. I feel like I got to know Joseph Smith a lot better than I had before, and it was very clear that God had chosen a man to do His work, and a far from perfect man at that.

There were many things that made me a tad uncomfortable (when you're dealing with plural marriage, how could it be otherwise?), but I really enjoyed reading it. It made me really think about why God asked the early Saints to do the things they did, and why He would ask certain things of us today. I would love to read it with a book club, but it's almost 700 pages and I don't know how realistic that is. I would certainly love to discuss it with someone else who has read it (I told my dad to pick it up and let me know what he thinks), but mostly I am just so glad we aren't required to live plural marriage today. I don't know how I would do it. If you're interested at all, I would recommend it. If nothing else, you will appreciate the fact that you don't have to share your husband with another woman. If any of you decide to read it, let me know what you think!