The Mormon Shakespeare

A thousand miles is a long trip in the back of a car for a teenage boy — especially in the days before smartphones, portable movie players and the repeal of universal 55 MPH speed limits. So on this trip to grandma and grandpa’s house years ago, my step-dad Dean gave me a book by some guy named Orson Scott Card.

The book was Unaccompanied Sonata and Other Stories and it had a funky alien bubble floating on the cover. Kinda strange, but enough to tip someone off that this here was science fiction. The first story in the book was Ender’s Game, which grabbed me hard. Through the later stories, there were elements that made me stop and say, “Wait… is this writer a Mormon?” That was even cooler — like discovering that an interesting person you met grew up in your own home town.

A few years later, in 1986, as a freshman at BYU, my creative writing professor announced that we were going to have a real-live author come speak to our class: Orson Scott Card. I excitedly looked around at my fellow students, whose blank faces clearly indicated they had never heard of him, but I was pumped. I brought Unaccompanied Sonata to class the day he came, and also a copy of the new novel version of Ender’s Game that I didn’t know existed until then.

After class, Mr. Card stuck around to sign my books (though he kind of laughed that I even had a copy of Unaccompanied Sonata). We chatted for a while about writing… and Atari computers, though I don’t recall how that came up.

He was in town for BYU’s fantasy and science fiction symposium known as “Life, the Universe and Everything” at which I’d also met a couple of other authors I really liked: Elizabeth Boyer and Alan Dean Foster. Meeting Elizabeth Boyer was a lesson in how not to meet a celebrity. I was gushing so much about how much I loved her books and how awesome it was to meet her that she was a little embarrassed. I kind of felt like an idiot after that, but it grounded me for meeting Mr. Card later.

When I finished reading the Ender’s Game novel a few weeks later, I loved it even more than the short story. I wrote a letter to Mr. Card about how certain parts impacted me, and a few questions about getting published as an author. But he didn’t really need me to tell him how good the book was, since it won both the Hugo and Nebula award for best novel.

Still, I was surprised to get a very nice letter back from him a few months later in which he said he remembered our conversations, answered my questions, and encouraged me as a writer.

After a mission, a CS degree, and beginning work as a software engineer, I pretty much let go writing fiction, but I bought and read just about everything Mr. Card published — even if I didn’t necessarily love all of it. Whenever I had the chance, I’d go to hear him speak and get some more books signed. I resisted any silly temptations to say, “Hey, do you remember me? You wrote me a letter once.” But it was still fun…

A few weeks ago, I got a shot of nostalgia as a poster went up in the break room at work promoting the 32nd annual “Life, the Universe and Everything” symposium, scheduled for mid-February, with guest of honor Orson Scott Card. I asked my co-worker, Dave Doering, who had put the poster up, what connection he had with the symposium. He said that he had actually started the whole thing back when he was a student, so when I shared my experience of so many years ago, he encouraged me to come again.

So Shannon and I spent the whole day together yesterday at the Provo Marriott, attending presentations about books, movies and writing. Scott Card’s keynote included reflections on how some of his early life experiences had unconsciously made their way into Ender’s Game — things that he was only now realizing. It was funny to hear his account of being possibly the only Deacons Quorum Historian that actually did his calling, but sad when his church leaders mistook his diligence for ambition and told him they wouldn’t be making him the quorum president because the other boys wouldn’t follow him.

He talked about his experience as a student in the BYU Theater Department where he was determined to learn what he wanted to learn, with or without the faculty’s help. He made some interesting things happen, which drew people to him who wanted to be involved, but those people were never his friends. When rehearsals were over, the others went off to do things together while Scott sat alone waiting for his dad to pick him up because he didn’t learn to drive until after his mission. Isolation is a big part of Ender.

He also expressed embarrassment that the book had Ender’s military victory as kind of a Hail Mary because he, Scott Card, wasn’t smart enough to come up with the plan that would show Ender to be the genius he was supposed to be. His own script for the movie had finally solved that problem in a satisfying way… but they didn’t use his script for the movie.

At one point during the day, I mentioned to Shannon that we ought to go to the “Canyon” ballroom in which some of the sessions were taking place, seeing as how we’d had our wedding reception there nearly 20 years ago. She gave an embarrassed laugh because she had totally forgotten that.

It was also fun to meet Brandon Sanderson, another LDS author and BYU professor that I’ve been reading and enjoying lately. After waiting for more than an hour to get a book signed, he was happy to oblige us in some of our parental goals.

Shannon and I also attended the gala banquet last night, which, owing to a price tag outside most college students’ Top Ramen budget, was a more intimate affair than the symposium itself. Brandon Sanderson spoke at the banquet, and took the opportunity to address a New York Times article published last November. The writer quoted Orson F. Whitney’s statement in 1888 that Mormons would have their own Shakespeares and Miltons. The Times writer, however, said that Mormons haven’t lived up to that, and can only be found slumming (Sanderson’s word) in popular genre fiction instead of producing Literature.

Sanderson said that if you look at the high schools across America, you’ll of course find Shakespeare being taught forever and ever. But Shakespeare wrote, in his day, popular, genre fiction! Sanderson further asserted that you’d find more courses teaching Ender’s Game than Paradise Lost.

I don’t know that I’m ready to put Orson Scott Card on that pedestal — he’d probably have to be dead for a hundred years or something anyway — but his stories have been like friends to me since that first long trip from Oregon to California.