Andrew Unger at The Daily Bonnet gave me yet another nudge in this direction, when he posted The Mennonite Literature Quiz!
It all looks so ... good .... |
I mulled over the results, then shared it on FB, with the following comment:
- FOR THE MOST PART THE WRITERS IN MY TRIBE PRODUCE WORK I WOULD RATHER AVOID.
Then Christian Humanist Michial Farmer weighed in with an anecdote of having an appreciation for Julia Kasdorf rejected by an academic rag on grounds that he CLEARLY did not have a firm enough grasp of Mennonite literature “as a whole.”
To which I replied, “I can sum up Mennonite Literature in four words: ‘We’re Not That Good.’”
I posted, but meditated on it afterword. My response seemed a bit half-baked to me, so I created a new post and laid down the challenge for others:
SUMMARIZE MENNONITE LITERATURE IN FOUR (OR FEWER) WORDS:
I threw down four examples to prime the pump:
- We’re not that good.
- We’re actually really mean.
- There is no God.
- God’s actually really mean.
- Trauma, dysfunction, pain, buns (for memoirs)
- Trauma, persecution, pain, buns (for history)
- Life consists of suffering.
- Difference, shunning, leaving, life.
- Village, university, arrogance, publish. (It should be quietly noted the submitter of this one has a family member who features in Andrew’s parade of literatischje).
Seems about right.
So many different ways to shun, of course, and we all have to figure out who or what we’re about to build the wall against in order to retain those properties and qualities we deem essential.
I said goodbye to an academic career nearly three decades ago, and a literary “career” some two decades later. There are reasons for both, but the main one — for both — is: I don’t want to read shit I don’t want to read.
Next: Disney!
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