3/07/QA/3

Q: Mousie asks, You wrote about the feminine aspects of God in Monstrous Regiment. Do you have any suggested reading about that idea?
Thank you!

A: If you go to the web site’s Scholars Corner page and scroll down to Recommended Reading, then click on to From the Books, you’ll find a list of titles I found useful. Most of them are old, since I did my Masters back in the Dark Ages, but a library ought to have some of them.

Q: And in a related question by my most regular blog contributor, Anon: I wonder if Mary Russell’s book on Wisdom will ever surface (hint, hint)?

A: She’ll probably need to write under a pseudonym, so her publisher doesn’t worry that readers of her memoirs will be confused….

Q: Emily asks, As a fan of both the original Holmes canon and the Russell books, and as a Mormon, I was wondering– in the course of Holmes and Russell’s trip across the US, do they happen to come to Salt Lake City? Any mention of the atrocious way the Mormons were vilified in A Study in Scarlet? Doyle sensationalizing again? Or was it poor Uncle John? I would find that highly amusing.

A: Interesting, isn’t it, how one era’s villains become the next era’s Ordinary Folk? In the late nineteenth century, the Mormons were this subversive and powerful cult that enslaved women and murdered nonbelievers, and now they’re our neighbors who have some slightly unusual habits but well-behaved kids.

Makes you wonder what today’s Evil Muslims will become a generation or two down the line…

The process by which a “cult”—outsiders, prone to wicked acts, ruled absolutely by a charismatic fanatic—becomes a mainstream religion is a fascinating one. And as with many things that fascinate me, I turned it into a book (A DARKER PLACE, or in the UK, THE BIRTH OF A NEW MOON).

I don’t know that I’ll introduce Russell to the Mormons on this particular cross-country trip, although it would as you say prove amusing to explore a more rational (ie, Russellian) take on the matter.