Comments on: Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Part 3)

By: Juvenile Instructor » From The Archives: Posts You Might Have Missed, March-April 2008

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:52:25 +0000

[...] Review: Millions Shall Know Brother Joseph Again (The Joseph Smith Photo Book) Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and [...]

By: Marden

Marden — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:44:21 +0000

In paragraph 3 of part 3 of this review, I think the word you want is “complementing,” not “complimenting” — although given what you say about the preceding chapters, the authors might not be above complimenting themselves.

By: Patrick

Patrick — Sun, 04 May 2008 14:16:44 +0000

Jared,
I appreciate your pointing out to me that I have four fingers pointing back at me. Please forgive my brash way of critiquing your review, especially the “emotionally unstable” part.
I should have looked at my own life and perhaps realized that there is a “beam in my own eye”.
I will not try and reword my thoughts of your review at this point, but will just offer my sincere apologies!!
Patrick

By: Juvenile Instructor » Book Review: Shall Millions Now Know Brother Joseph Again? (Post Script)

Sat, 03 May 2008 17:18:45 +0000

[...] been accused of becoming “emotionally instable” by Patrick Bishop over on Part 3 because my delusions about the daguerreotype were not realized, as if I’m to blame. Wow. [...]

By: Jared T

Jared T — Sat, 03 May 2008 17:02:32 +0000

Thanks Justin.

Smb, thank you.

Those are excellent ideas and all would be fascinating studies. If only a certain someone wasn’t going to be stuck in turn of the century northern Mexico for the next year or so. Not enough hours in the day…

By: Ardis Parshall

Ardis Parshall — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:24:08 +0000

To the friends with whom I attended the open house who I know lurk here on JI: Now do you understand why I declined being introduced to Patrick that afternoon, and why I told you I was afraid he might burst into tears?

By: smb

smb — Sat, 03 May 2008 16:02:06 +0000

It sounds like Jared gave the book more attention than it deserves from a historical perspective, even if it is in fairly raw form. Patrick’s entry here does little to endear him to the historical community. By way of reality check and expectation management, most people would not expect an academic book from a decidedly non-academic press.

Jared, I wouldn’t expend too much more energy on it (though you did make me nostalgic for when full-time meant 40-hours instead of 90), but a more formal review for JMH may be just the ticket for communicating your findings.

From what you’ve described, I’d be most interested in a reception history of Smithian visual iconography as a window into various aspects of Mormonism than in another attempt to prove a particular image correct. Or more broadly, a treatment of painting the prophetic body. Do we leave the chipped tooth, the limp, the excessive fleshiness? How do we interact with the moral physiognomy of contemporary observers (his beady eyes, his libidinous cranium)?

On a similar note, could someone write a history of Joseph Smith visitations? are there oral histories that could give us a sense for how recipients of visitations from Smith (who continue among us to the present day) see his face?

By: Justin

Justin — Sat, 03 May 2008 14:18:16 +0000

I appreciate Jared’s hard work to provide an informative, in-depth review. (Needle’s review, by comparison, is fairly cursory; he doesn’t seem aware of Hatch’s book, for example.) Comments about “emotional instability” are truly inappropriate.

By: Jared T

Jared T — Sat, 03 May 2008 02:18:18 +0000

Oh, and by the way, you’re welcome for taking you and the book seriously. I’ve done little else this week since I got the book on Monday but read it, every page, every footnote, spending many additional hours looking up footnotes, reading In Search of Joseph, reading Ephraim Hatch, as well as anything I could find about the Scannel dag whether it be in the Saints Herald or in random blog posts. I began writing yesterday at 11 am and I stopped this morning at 4 am when I went to bed, waking up this morning at 7 am to get to work where I was able to continue until this afternoon when I finished. Between a one week old newborn, a two year old fireball, a recovering wife and a 40 hour a week work schedule, not including two hours per day of commuting between Provo and Salt Lake, and my senior thesis that I need to finish this month, along with a half dozen other projects I’ve been working on, and you really think that all this was was just some emotional hit job?

Maybe you couldn’t understand what I said today that I just wanted to get on with my life. I’ve written what practically amounts to a 13 single-spaced page research paper in almost 24 hours. I wonder if no one else wouldn’t also want to get to something else too. Getting on with life doesn’t mean not revisiting this review, revising it, hopefully with constructive input from you and Shannon and others, and yes, possibly publishing it. Why? Because it’s important. I just don’t have the luxury of spending more time than I already have to get this out there. Fancy that, wanting to get some information “out there” to get dialogue going. Sounds familiar.

By: Jared T

Jared T — Sat, 03 May 2008 01:30:28 +0000

Patrick, thanks for stopping in. I hope you’ll stick around for further dialogue. I think you should go back and read through it all again. I think you’ll find that this review is remarkably free of emotionalism.

I’m puzzled at your statement that this hasn’t been as “objective” a review as it could have been. How so?

I think that for every finger pointed at me with regards to “emotionalism” there are at least four pointing back the other way. I hardly think that I could be more emotionally invested in this project than you, for example. Perhaps you should take your own advice and come back in a day or so when you’ve cooled off. Perhaps then you may resort to something more substantive than an ad hominem argument.

The email you refer to I sent to Bret asking him to forward it on to you and Shannon. You have misrepresented what I wrote to Bret in good faith. The text of that email is as follows, I sent it last night after I put up the first or second part of the review:

Bret,

I just wanted to let you know that the first parts of my review are up at juvenileinstructor.org. If you would forward this to Shannon and Patrick, and whoever else you think to, I would appreciate it as I do not seem to have their email addresses handy.

It is not turning out to be the review I set out to write. I was very sure that I would be writing a glowing review based on what I was hearing. As it turns out, I have felt quite disappointed with what is in there. As I mentioned at the store on Monday, I planned to look at it as an academic and just try to be as honest as I could and call things like I saw them.

I want to encourage Shannon and yourself and any other interested party to jump on the blog and challenge what I have written or try to continue dialogue. This would be good because I have received a number of private requests to submit this review, once finished and a bit more polished, to the Journal of Mormon History. I am seriously considering that, and this would be a good time to discuss and respond to what I consider are overwhelmingly constructive criticisms on my part.

Thank you,

Jared T.