M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Those Pernicious Novels
By Davis Bitton

George Q. Cannon strongly discouraged the reading of novels. Here is an editorial the 31-year-old wrote in 1858: "Works of fiction have been sent forth like an overflowing flood, and the public taste has become so vitiated thereby that everything virtuous, truthful or heavenly is unpalatable, and is rejected with disgust."

Forty-one years later we hear him continuing the warning. "From the character of a man's reading," he wrote, "one may tell just what he is full of. Is he filled with sickly sentiment, heated imaginings, dreamy unrealities — this condition being brought about by his reading? If so, he is more than likely to be a devourer of novels — love stories, exciting adventures, tales of impossible "heroes" and all that goes to make up the fanciful and the exaggerated in literature.

“The actual business of life — its everyday trials and victories, its experiences framed in joy or sorrow, its rebuffs and its welcomes, its frost and its warmth — all this seems to him commonplace, if not even vulgar. He either becomes a prey to disappointment — one of the large class who believe the world has some grudge against them and will not give them a chance — or he plods along without ambition because things are not such as his imagination has pictured them."

Cannon warned Latter-day Saints against spending their time reading fiction and gave stern instructions to his children to stay away from such reading.

How to Deal with Ancient Counsel

What do we do with such counsel? One mind-set would take the counsel as a command and never again read a novel.

A second response would be to ridicule Cannon and other leaders who said the same thing. Did they not know how pleasant it is to read a good novel? How could they deprive people of such an innocent amusement? More severely, we might charge them with narrowness. Hadn't they taken literature courses? How many good novels had they read? There were already a good many that we now consider "classics."

A third strategy would be to place the attitude into a broader framework by citing other examples of opposition to novel-reading at the time. "Novels not regulated on the chaste principles of friendship, rational love, and connubial duty," said Sarah Wentworth Morton in 1789, "appear to me totally unfit to form the minds of women, of friends, of wives."

In 1823, Timothy Dwight wrote the following: "The consciousness of virtue, the dignified pleasure of having performed one's duty, the serene remembrance of a useful life, the hopes of an interest in the Redeemer, and the promise of a glorious inheritance in the favor of God are never found in novels."

When Latter-day Saint leaders warned of the dangers of novel reading, they were not alone. They had been anticipated not only by many clergymen but also, for different reasons, by educational reformers who disparaged the value of literary studies. Too often we consider our history in isolation, as if it were sealed off from the larger currents.

But as a Latter-day Saint living in the early twenty-first century, I want something more. I want to respect my leaders, and I want to make sure I understand a principle before trying to apply it. This requires careful heed to explanations and the exercise of historical empathy.

A Salt Lake Daily Herald editorial of 9 May 1880 provides some helpful explanation.. The fiction of the recent past, we are told, was "neither very good nor very bad ... not particularly corrupting nor specially benefitting to the youthful mind." At least, says the editorialist, "a sense of right generally pervaded the novels and dramas ... Virtue was usually triumphant, and ordinarily villains got their deserts." But now, he continues, "there are few redeeming traits in most of the cheap stories circulated so generally among the youth of the country." Such literature was characterized by "course brutality" and vulgarity, its heroes were "vicious and revengeful," and it had a tendency to "elevate everything evil at the expense of all that is good."

The editorialist is aware of a spectrum. On one extreme "the absolutely obscene literature that finds its poisonous way into so large a portion of society" was so patently vile and harmful as to require no further proof. But there seemed to be a shifting line of acceptability. A large body of writing claimed to be respectable and moral — that is, it was not filled with appeals to prurient interest, did not openly advocate antisocial behavior, and could not be banned. Nevertheless, it exercised "a hurtful and immoral influence."

This "vile truck," this "pernicious literature" had a "poisonous effect." By encouraging disrespect for law and parents it fostered uncouth comments to respectable citizens, the destruction of property, and even theft and violence-the "hoodlumism" that plagued towns and cities in late nineteenth century.

Even with such explanation, we may find the moralistic critics unconvincing or at least too sweeping. Remembering the shocked reaction of some to Flaubert's Madame Bovary and the "realistic" fiction of the late nineteenth century, we may consider the sensitivity of the critics too fragile, their insistence on didacticism too stifling.

But is it not equally naive to assume that the stories that occupy our imagination for hours and hours have no influence on us? What we fill our mind with both reveals and forms our character. Those who have denied that glorification of crime and immorality in "fictional" settings-drama, movies, stories and novels-influences behavior are often the same people who peddle advertising on the assumption that readers and viewers will indeed be motivated to act by what they see.

To enlarge our awareness of the temptations besetting young people in the late nineteenth century it is useful to consider an 1880 mail campaign. Early in the year the Chicago police raided several establishments. Among those arrested were two young women, Sarah Fisher and Mary Lucas, who took each other's pictures in the nude and labeled them "Parisian Beauties." Circulars advertising this material along with such novels as Three Fast Widows were sent throughout the country to young people. Even in territorial Utah young men and women found such unsolicited advertising in their mail boxes. Our ancestors were not so protected and innocent as we sometimes suppose.

Modern Parallels

We will be helped in understanding the intent of President Cannon's warning, it seems to me, if we look for modern parallels. Are there currently any materials vying for the attention of young Latter-day Saints that might be considered destructive of gospel ideals?

The question readily prompts not one but several answers. We can start with sensational fiction, often written to formula, filled with explicit sex and violence. But Satan has upped the ante. What about movies and videos? What about the vile lyrics in some songs considered popular?

And what about the Internet and the vivid images it brings in front of vulnerable people in the privacy of their own homes?

For someone to say "I don't read novels" — therefore remaining scrupulously obedient to the counsel of those past leaders, in the technical sense — while filling the mind with images and ideas far more destructive — reminds me of the person, if such there be, who does not smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, or drink tea and coffee but feels free to use crack cocaine or ecstasy because they are not mentioned in Section 89. The Word of Wisdom, after all, is "a principle with a promise" — we don't observe it if we ignore the principle.

What He Said

What I hear George Q. Cannon saying is something like this. The amount of time available to us is finite. Choosing how to use it is crucial.

Doing good in the real world is more important than amusing ourselves, but a balanced life will find time for recreation and the stimulation of the imagination in reading and viewing. How many plays did Cannon enjoy at the Salt Lake Theater and in Chicago, New York, and London? We discover that some of his children read novels by Louisa Mae Alcott and Charles Dickens. He was not calling for a total prohibition of imaginative works.

But to ignore the basic values being purveyed is not being responsible. If it is wrong to contaminate our bodies with toxins, how can it be right willfully to pollute our minds with poisonous smut that wounds the Spirit? "If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." Ah, there is a principle with a promise.

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