Week 6

This is my final blog entry, and the one that sums up the book and my opinion of it.



Reflection


Overall, I really enjoyed the book. It seems to be more like an extraordinarily long article about the Mormon history and what could have driven the Lafferty brothers to commit the murders. It was really interesting reading about the Mormon history. I'm not religious and I know absolutely nothing any religion; so it's cool to hear and learn about a religion and what it's all about. I also really thought it was appealing to hear about the trial of the Lafferty brothers, and what they had to pay for what they did.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the topic. I don't think it would appeal to a very wide group of people, but I do think everyone should give it a chance being that Krakauer is the "detail king", and he can make anything interesting. I think blogging was a really smart idea for a project too. It was enjoyable, not too much work, and really made me want to look up articles, and dig further into the topics at hand in my book. Speaking directly to you Ms. Harper, I think the blogging was great and I would say do it in next years classes too.


Five Facts


1. Joseph Smith created the Mormon religion in 1830 in New York.

2. Polygamy is less practiced then it used to be, but still a part of Mormonism.

3. It is said that if you read the Book of Mormon with an open heart, then God will appear and tell you
    how it is the truth.

4. The Mormon church teaches you that you can become a God or Goddess.

5. Mormons believe God has a physical body, whereas Christians believe he has no real body. He is  
    just a spirit.

Week 5

Summary                                                                                        Brigham Young who may 

                                                                                                                    have provoked MMM

As I come to a closing in my book "Under the Banner of Heaven", Krakauer does a nice job of starting to sum up and finish his history lessons on the Mormon religion. He also talks about the Mountain Meadows Massacre, which was a five day massacre, in southern Utah. It's kind of a confusing little battle, with about 130 dead. I'll include a link to the wikipedia about it right here --->MMMassacre. Krakauer finally finished the book by talking about the relationship between Dan and Ron Lafferty as of 2003 when the book was written. It's an insane and crazy relationship now. Basically, Dan is convinced that Ron is the devil's offspring. Also, Dan believes Ron is just trying to achieve and complete God's relation on Ron by killing him. There has been some past violence with the brothers too. Apparently, Ron has attacked Dan at least once before, breaking a few of his bones. They both now reside in prison.

Link to article about Ron Lafferty and appeal

Lafferty link

Review

In the next post, I'll review the book as a whole, but this is just this week. I think the reading this week was awesome. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was really interesting and I just thought the amount of detail at that part was nothing shy of phenomenal. In fact, the whole detail was really great. Krakauer definitely finished strong with these last few chapters of the book. I highly doubt there is a better reporter on the planet thats better than Krakauer. I really enjoyed the book, and I truly look forward to reading other books by him.

              Mountain Meadows Massacre

Focus

For this final week, I focused on whether the Mormon community seemed to be nice people. They were never really liked because of their beliefs. I don't think anyone should ever be criticized or judged for their beliefs. This makes me think that the Mormon community is harmless, and just want to be together and do what they wish without the harassment of others running them away from states. I have nothing against any Mormon's in real life. I am not religious, and I don't really care about what anybody believes in. Therefore, I have no bias. There is always gonna be good people in the world, and bad people. There is nothing anyone can do about it. I'm sure there are mormon's on both sides. For instance, Warren Jeffs is an example of a man that I think is a little wrong in the head, and should have thought before he committed his sick actions. He is, in my opinion, a bad person. But, there are also men like Joseph Smith, who have done nothing wrong. It is hard to say whether the community is mean, or they are nice. I just thought I would do a little observation on both sides.

Week 4

Summary

                                                                                              Where Mormons were told to live

I was pretty far behind on my reading so I had to read a ton this week to catch up on where I should be. So I read a lot of different things this week. First, there was a lot more on the history of the Mormon religion.  I learned a lot more about Joseph Smith and how he made the religion. Him and the Mormons were run out of state for their beliefs. They were told by God to go to Missouri. There was a little bit more about the Laffery brothers.  Apparently Dan Lafferty was not a complete Mormon. I didnt really understand this part of the book, but I guess Dan was just becoming a Mormon during this event. It was a pretty confusing part. Krakauer talked a little bit about how Joseph Smith died. I didnt get to read to much about it though before it was time to blog about what I read so far.

         Portrait of Joseph Smith

Review

Lately, the book has gotten sort of boring and I'm rather tired of hearing about the Mormon religion. It thought the boom was going to be a lot about the murders, which the book does really revolve around the Lafferty brothers, but I think it's a little bit too much about the history of the religion. It is an interesting religion though and I have enjoyed reading about it. However, I think krakauer could have summed it up and not spent so much time on it. I am not really disliking the book, but I just think its a bit much.

Focus

This week my focus was to pay attention to the detail and the descriptions of things. I find that this is one of Krakauer's strong points. He puts detail that makes the book really interesting even when the reader isn't at the most interesting part of the book. Sometimes, when I read this book, it feels like an episode of Dateline and I can sort of imagine Keith Morrison narrating what has happened in my head; especially at the parts talking about the murderers and what they did. If you are interested in reading a book by Jon Krakauer I would recommend you do so. He is just such a good writer, and I think the book I most prefer of his would have to be Into the Wild.

Weekly Links:

Link to a Website about Joseph Smith

Jackson County and Mormons

Week 3

Before I start on my post, I found a really good article that was written by Jon Krakauer in response to the Critisizm that the Church of LDS gave his book. ----->     Response Article

Summary

Krakauer finishes off Part I of the book with a specific story of a man named Crossfield. Crossfield was in a hospital bed when he looks over to see some books the nurse or someone had brought in earlier. One of the books was The book of Mormon. He was moved by boredom to open up the book and read. When he finished the book, he was visited by God, who told Crossfield that the book was all true. Crossfield, who wasn't religious, switched to take part in the mormon religion. Meanwhile, he was visited again by God, and told to write a book which he called The Second Book of Commandments. When the Church of LDS got their hands on the book and read it for themselves, they had Crossfield excommunicated from the church. He was a true believer and continued to go to church even after his excommunication until they eventually told him he wasn't allowed to come back. Crossfield is still an honest follower of the religion though he is not accepted in the church.

Review

The whole book so far has been about stories of mormon people and and the history of the religion. I thought the book would be much more about the Lafferty brothers and the crime they had done. It is getting a little bit boring and it drags on a tad. However,  I am still very much enjoying the book.

                  Church of Latter Day Saints                                      Cover of The Book of Mormon

Focus 

The focus for this week was to try to pay attention and learn a lot about a certain character. The character I chose to try to really focus on was Robert Crossfield. I did some research on him to and I found a website that talks about his story (Link Below). While reading the book, he seemed like a nice, honest man. However, a lady interviewed says he was quite a "weird and creepy" man. He would have long suspicious talks with this woman's father. She says "My friends and I were terrified that we may have to marry him as soon as we turned fourteen." So now I can't really tell if this man is very good or not. He did get banned from the church from trying to speak his outspoken views. He is definitely a peculiar character and I'd like to hear more about him later in the book.

Link to Crossfield site ----> Crossfield

Week 2

Summary

So in this section of the book, Krakauer is still focusing on talking about the modern mormon culture and polygamy. He explains this Canadian Mormon organization called Bountiful. We talk to a woman named Debbie who was a part of the Bountiful group. In this group, women are sent from Colorado to Bountiful to become plural wives regularly. Debbie talks about how she was abused in her family specifically from one of her Father's wives. Krakauer makes us really feel against the Bountiful organization and polygamy in general throughout this section of the book. Debbie says that the men in the polygamist family are very controlling and women don't have much of a say in things. It kind of makes me think that these plural wives are a lot like concubines, just like in The Joy Luck Club. Krakauer, then goes back and talks a little about Joseph Smith, the creator of the Mormon religion in the beginning of Chapter 5. Thats all I got to reading this week.


Here's an article talking about Warren Jeffs,                     This is the wikipedia page to Bountiful,
who was the leader of the Bountiful                                      British Columbia, which is the colony
organization, now in jail.                                                        they talk about in the book.

Warren Jeffs Article                                                                Bountiful Wikipedia


                                                  Here's an article that talks about
                                                  an inhumane thing Jeffs did.
                                                        (warning graphic)

                                                      Warren Jeffs Threat


              Warren Jeffs                                                                     Here's a polygamist family

 

Review

This section I read this week of the book was good. I found that the story of the woman named Debbie was really compelling. I liked hearing a negative view on polygamy from someone who was a polygamist herself. Also hearing about Warren Jeffs and reading articles about this man was captivating. He is a terrible man, but its also really interesting to read about what he did and the affects it had on the Mormon church and Bountiful. I think this part of the book was even better than the first. I guess you could say I have faith in Krakauer to make the book really good the whole way through.

Focus

This week I focused on the point of view of Krakauer as he writes the story. I highly doubt that Krakauer is a mormon himself, and I feel like he is quite neutral about the whole topic at hand. He is sharing a lot of negative things about mormons, which makes me think a little bit that he may be a little bit against mormonism. He seems to be strongly against Polygamy, but you can never be sure. He may be just trying to show bad things about mormons to represent factors that may be the reason that the Lafferty brothers killed the woman and the daughter. Overall, its very hard to say, but I think Krakauer is slightly against the whole mormon thing in general.

Week 1

Summary

Under the Banner of Heaven, by Jon Krakauer, begins with a very lengthy prologue explaining the story of the Lafferty brothers and what they did. If you don't already know the story, I'll explain. Basically, Ron and Dan Lafferty killed their brother's wife and his baby daughter in July of 1984. However, they pleaded to have been ordered by God to kill them. The Lafferty brothers are true followers of mormonism, and say that it's not a crime when God told them to do it. The brothers are now in jail on death row. The book so far has been informing me about the murders and all the details of their case. It's also giving a big spiel about mormons and their culture. That's all the book has been about so far up through my first week of reading.

          

Above are a couple pictures of Ron (left) and Dan (right) Lafferty.


Review

From what I have read of the book, I think it's really interesting. The "subtitle" of the the book on the cover says "A Story of Violent Faith". That seems to really be what its is. The writing is well done, and I didn't get confused when the author was explaining all the facts and details of the case and what happened at the crime scene. Into the Wild, by the same author, is one of my favorite books and the author is just amazing and he keeps you wanting to read. Even just reading about this mormon culture is really interesting. I can't wait to pick the book up again.


I found a few links about the Lafferty brothers murders. Here they are.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/595079489/1984-Lafferty-case-still-haunts.html?pg=all
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2003/07/20/murder-in-the-name-of-god.html