gutoferrer05121970

The book is really divided in two parts--Krakauer does a brilliant job retelling the story of the Lafferty's. I was in elementary school when all of that unfolded so my memories of that were fairly weak; and I didn't know all of the details. I just remember the murder of the baby and the wife. The story of the fundamentalists and the chapters on the polygamist sect are really well written. I know he didn't embellish that stuff. The fundamentalists are really a piece of work. However, the third part of the story is where he founders. Krakauer retells true life really well, but if you are going to be a historian he needed to have talked to active LDS members. He never once cited active members and he never met with the leadership--even though they indicated they would have sat down with him to talk about the book. What results is a one-sided, inaccurate account of Mormon history. He didn't get it right because he didn't talk to LDS members. They have nothing to hide--and yet they weren't sourced in the history. This is why there was outcry about the book by LDS members. Not because it was "anti-mormon" per se, but because this section was inaccurate--because he didn't talk to or use all of the sources available. Its okay as an investigative expose--but not when you are writing history. You don't treat history like an investigative expose. Especially when you ignore some of your sources. He didn't have to use everything that was told to him by the mainstream LDS. There's many instances where accounts that happened in the early history of the LDS church are conflicted. Including the Mountain Meadow Massacre. No one really knows what happened. There's a lot of accounts that disagree with what happened, but the story isn't one that LDS members are trying to hide. That being said, Krakauer is doing a lot of good work with nonprofits that are helping the boys from these fundamentalist communities get a headstart in life. That's really cool.

2023-01-06 11:02