3 posts tagged “books”
The book as noted on the bottom of the cover revolves around the 1984 murder of "a woman and her infant daughter...by two brothers who believed they were ordered to kill by God."
In order to tell the story though it embarks on an amazingly complex history of the Mormon faith and various Fundamentalist offshoot sects.
There is nothing like polygamy, inbreeding, and short time between generations to complicate the heck out of a cast of real life characters.
Anyhow... The history is masterfully researched, fascinating and shocking but my real reason for writing is because of Chapter 23 which details the trials and appeals process for Ron Lafferty, one of the convicted brothers.
The way in which the trial proceeded was governed by the fact that this ruling could set precedents on how crimes committed based in religious zeal are treated. Also the part I found very interesting was how a secular court system, and court appointed psychiatrists, in a predominantly "God-believing" nation would classify extreme religious beliefs/zeal in regards to sanity. It is not uncommon in this nation for people to make decisions based on what they think God wants them to do / tells them / speaks through leaders / puts a peace upon them about / or dreams. Just the act of prayer or believing that it is heard or sometimes answered is a product of faith not fact. Faith doesn't stand up in the court room and depending on where you draw the line of radical or not it becomes delusion which leads to insanity pleas and dragging capital murder cases out for decades. For the most part all of this boils sanity down to majority rules. It is a whole lot more complex a set of thoughts presented within the chapter and I cannot begin to rewrite / summarize them but I appreciate this kind of thinking.
I have probably completely confused everything that I am trying to explain, but in summary Jon Krakauer has written a mesmerizing, thought-provoking, true-crime story and I highly suggest checking it out if you can handle the dry nature of history (as I suppose some think it) and exceedingly complex one presented here at that. Well enough of my own writing! I need to finish the last couple chapters!
I think I am going to start using this heavily to post brief reviews of the books I read. Which could end up being ridiculous considering I read 5 in the 2.5 weeks I was in Europe. We will see...I just like books...BOOKS! Anyway i'll probably forget tomorrow. (To see my books scroll down and click the images of books at the bottom right of the page...this is where they hide them. You can click "view more of my books" to see older ones I have posted.)
On another note...I really love my job and am very happy to be back where I was. I feel like I work with just a big group of friends. Pretty awesome. There is a constant intra-cubical rubber band war over the entire office, so much so, people actually have post it notes with arrows on the inside of their cubical of where to aim exactly to hit someone in the head while they are at their computer 4 cubicals away.
Richmond has been fun as anything so far. Blinton lives about 14 minutes away which is fantastic. Friday we went to Keller Williams (for free), Saturday the Beer and Seafood festival, Sunday bluegrass at legends. Hopefully I can have another person sold on Richmond soon so that I am not the only one in the world who thinks it is a pretty cool place to live.
Speaking of being sold... I am SOLD on bluegrass at Legends on Sunday evenings. I will be a regular for as long as I live here. Amazing microbrewery beer and fantastic bluegrass with a great view of the city over the river and excellent burgers. So much for nutrition on those days its probably going to be 3 beers and a burger every Sunday for years to come.
I really like the way VOX does the books and cd review on the sides of the blog. Make sure to check out the reviews I made of my books/CDs. Or don't. If you want...
