HjemGrupperSnakMereZeitgeist
Søg På Websted
På dette site bruger vi cookies til at levere vores ydelser, forbedre performance, til analyseformål, og (hvis brugeren ikke er logget ind) til reklamer. Ved at bruge LibraryThing anerkender du at have læst og forstået vores vilkår og betingelser inklusive vores politik for håndtering af brugeroplysninger. Din brug af dette site og dets ydelser er underlagt disse vilkår og betingelser.

Resultater fra Google Bøger

Klik på en miniature for at gå til Google Books

Indlæser...

Godforsaken Idaho: stories

af Shawn Vestal

MedlemmerAnmeldelserPopularitetGennemsnitlig vurderingOmtaler
775344,866 (3.9)4
Nine stories illuminate what it means to be Mormon and how faith serves to humanize, in a work that includes a seriocomic portrait of a young Joseph Smith.
Ingen
Indlæser...

Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog.

Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog.

» Se også 4 omtaler

Viser 5 af 5
Having lived in Idaho for 3 and a half years, I can honestly say that this book captures all to well the bleakness that can frequently characterize life there. It also demystifies some of the more obscure tenets of Mormonism that are indecipherable to an outsider. I was frequently exposed to the pleasant, rule-following politeness of devout Mormons when I lived in Pocatello, and rarely came across ex-LDS members that were willing to talk about their experiences. This is not the case with Shawn Vestal's book. This is an author that grew up LDS and has apparently left the church. The disillusionment that imbues the work is at times nearly suffocating, making some stories very difficult to read. "Winter Elders" in particular is a devastating story that communicates in an all-too-visceral way the anger that accompanies the main character who is still struggling with his departure from the LDS community. This is not a book of loosely collected short stories. It is not a novel either. While the stories do not have causal relations, it is not hard to see that they are all connected, be it through character, setting, or attitude.

I give the book 5 stars, despite some hesitancy because of the seething anger that radiates through the book. If you are put off by strong emotion, then this is not the book to read. Nor is it the book to read if you are currently a practicing Mormon. This book will piss. you. off. The reasoning behind my 5-stars is based on the intense, engaging, sometimes-overwhelming stylistic integrity of the work. This is an author with a voice, strong and consistent, and often challenging for the reader. This is a book that will make you uncomfortable. It is also a book that will fascinate you, keep you reading, voraciously, until the book's uneasy resolution in the final story "Diviner".

If you've ever lived in Idaho... this is a must-read. ( )
  voncookie | Jun 30, 2016 |
Having lived in Idaho for 3 and a half years, I can honestly say that this book captures all to well the bleakness that can frequently characterize life there. It also demystifies some of the more obscure tenets of Mormonism that are indecipherable to an outsider. I was frequently exposed to the pleasant, rule-following politeness of devout Mormons when I lived in Pocatello, and rarely came across ex-LDS members that were willing to talk about their experiences. This is not the case with Shawn Vestal's book. This is an author that grew up LDS and has apparently left the church. The disillusionment that imbues the work is at times nearly suffocating, making some stories very difficult to read. "Winter Elders" in particular is a devastating story that communicates in an all-too-visceral way the anger that accompanies the main character who is still struggling with his departure from the LDS community. This is not a book of loosely collected short stories. It is not a novel either. While the stories do not have causal relations, it is not hard to see that they are all connected, be it through character, setting, or attitude.

I give the book 5 stars, despite some hesitancy because of the seething anger that radiates through the book. If you are put off by strong emotion, then this is not the book to read. Nor is it the book to read if you are currently a practicing Mormon. This book will piss. you. off. The reasoning behind my 5-stars is based on the intense, engaging, sometimes-overwhelming stylistic integrity of the work. This is an author with a voice, strong and consistent, and often challenging for the reader. This is a book that will make you uncomfortable. It is also a book that will fascinate you, keep you reading, voraciously, until the book's uneasy resolution in the final story "Diviner".

If you've ever lived in Idaho... this is a must-read. ( )
  anna_hiller | Jun 22, 2016 |
From a man who has been dead for hundreds of years, trying to capture whole days or moments that made him feel vibrantly alive, to the man who loses his only daughter to fast-talking, looking-in-his-hat Joseph Smith, the men in Shawn Vestal's Godforsaken Idaho both embody and rail against the two things that one of them says turn the world -- greed and vanity.

The stories in Godforsaken Idaho, which this fall won the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for debut fiction, display an array of characters in settings that range from an eternal cafeteria, which is the bleakest version of heaven around, to the living room of an angry landlord whose heart gave up on him out on the street.

That cafeteria is in the opening story, "The First Several Hundred Years Following My Death", a story that brings to mind the fantastical stories in George Saunders's brilliant Tenth of December. The narrator talks in a matter-of-fact way about how whatever you can imagine is what you experience again in this version of an afterlife. But the only things you can experience now are things that you have already experienced. Food, for example, is only food that you remember eating. You can spend as long or as little as you like reliving certain times, certain moments.

Seeking out the memories worth going over again wears thin soon. When his ex-wife arrives, he talks to her. He talks to his son, who died at a much older age and who doesn't want much to do with a dad who left when he was young. Trying to gather a nuclear family for a meal in that cafeteria leads to complications that he didn't envision. What the narrator realizes is that:

If you want peace, you have to find it in the life you left behind.

But most of Vestal's characters are not interested in peace. They are restless, they don't believe in anything much, they expect disappointment and are not surprised when any of them make sure that disappointment is what they get. And yet. And yet.

Even in the bleakest parts of the greyest stories in this collection, there are moments that are so clear-eyed "along the trail to Godforsaken Idaho", as it is put in one story, that ground the reader in the experiences of the characters. Such is the case of a new father, who realizes when his baby son runs a fever that "he had become something else entirely, a new being who would only exist as long as his son existed".

Some of the characters, or those who may be the same characters or not but who have the same name, appear in different stories. The father in the first story is a boy in the second, for example. Many of the stories are set in or around Gooding, Idaho, a town of less than 4,000 located between Boise and Twin Falls, Idaho, and Vestal's hometown.

When I lived in North Idaho, that other part of the state was considered north Utah, not southern Idaho. And that's reflected in Vestal's stories. He was raised Mormon, later leaving the faith, and the history and culture is reflected in many of his stories. But as he said in an Oregon Public Broadcasting interview, he did not set out to write stories about Mormonism. It's part of the prism through which he looks at the world because it's part of how he became who he is.

Bradshaw, that new father in "Winter Elders", left the church years ago but they won't leave him alone. Two elders appear at his door, continuing to show up as the snow piles higher. The reader doesn't need details about why or how Bradshaw left; it's in the way he views these men, especially the more dominant one:

Pope smiled patiently at Bradshaw, lips pressed hammily together. It was the smile of every man he had met in church, the bishops and first counselors and stake presidents, the benevolent mask, the put-on solemnity, the utter falseness. It was the smile of the men who brought boxes of food when Bradshaw was a teenager and his father wasn't working, the canned meat and bricks of cheese. The men who prayed for his family. Bradshaw's father would diappear, leaving him and his motehr to kneel with the men.

Those men are in leadership in any faith, and it's easy to see how they could steer a hurting boy away from their institution.

The inability to be able to rely on faith affects Rulon Warren, who has the same last name as the other wandering elder in "Winter Elders" and whose story is told by the spirit of another man who inhabits his body. "Opposition in All Things" describes how Warren wants to terrify his fellow church members after he returns from the Good War and the men who have not seen other men killed want to congratulate him. The other man inside Warren went off the deep end and was killed by his erstwhile brethern. This unsettling story is a strong example of how Vestal's men do not believe in more than a church. They struggle to believe in themselves.

It's the same for Hale, the father in "The Diviner" who loses his daughter to Smith:

We do not live in the same world, my neighbors and I. They live in a world of codes and secrets and the hope that all will be understood, and I live in the world where bafflement and mystery are but the foundation and the condition.

And later:

How shall I understand our world when it becomes absurd, O Lord?

When greed and vanity overcome, what Hale discovers is that belief is not what matters. What matters is being together. It's that, rather than a faith system, that gives any of Vestal's men the power to go on. It's what they believe in. ( )
1 stem Perednia | Jan 2, 2015 |
Hmmmm...definitely an interesting collection of stories.....definitely some dark tales.....definitely a theme about questioning faith and/or organized religion......definitely a sense that faith is individual and we also compromise to be part of the greater whole of our communities......definitley some godlessness......but no definitive decision on my part about the collection as a whole. I like Vestal's writing. It packs an emotional punch which is the reason it gets four stars. I suggest taking a chance and reading it. I am interested in future work by this author. ( )
  hemlokgang | Aug 7, 2014 |
Reminiscent of Flannery O'Conner, except O'Conner was trying to work out her Catholic theology, while Shawn Vestal is trying to work his way out of his Mormon theology.
The best stories in the collection "First Several Hundred Years following my Death" and "Winter Elders" are as good as any short fiction written in this century. ( )
1 stem wmnch2fam | Aug 3, 2013 |
Viser 5 af 5
ingen anmeldelser | tilføj en anmeldelse
Du bliver nødt til at logge ind for at redigere data i Almen Viden.
For mere hjælp se Almen Viden hjælpesiden.
Kanonisk titel
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Originaltitel
Alternative titler
Oprindelig udgivelsesdato
Personer/Figurer
Vigtige steder
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Vigtige begivenheder
Beslægtede film
Indskrift
Tilegnelse
Første ord
Citater
Sidste ord
Oplysning om flertydighed
Forlagets redaktører
Bagsidecitater
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Originalsprog
Oplysninger fra den engelske Almen Viden Redigér teksten, så den bliver dansk.
Canonical DDC/MDS
Canonical LCC

Henvisninger til dette værk andre steder.

Wikipedia på engelsk

Ingen

Nine stories illuminate what it means to be Mormon and how faith serves to humanize, in a work that includes a seriocomic portrait of a young Joseph Smith.

No library descriptions found.

Beskrivelse af bogen
Haiku-resume

Current Discussions

Ingen

Populære omslag

Quick Links

Vurdering

Gennemsnit: (3.9)
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3 5
3.5 1
4 5
4.5
5 4

Er det dig?

Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter.

 

Om | Kontakt | LibraryThing.com | Brugerbetingelser/Håndtering af brugeroplysninger | Hjælp/FAQs | Blog | Butik | APIs | TinyCat | Efterladte biblioteker | Tidlige Anmeldere | Almen Viden | 203,197,687 bøger! | Topbjælke: Altid synlig