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Old 08-31-2011, 07:56 AM   #114
anamardoll
Chasing Butterflies
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The book itself is prejudicial -- it portrays a large part of the early Mormon community as gangs, rapists, murderers, and thugs. Teaching the book to children and then side-stepping the obvious questions with "well, we don't know yet one way or the other" will leave children with only one interpretation to fall back on, and they're less likely to remember Sherlock and more likely to remember the "fact" that the early Mormon community was built on rape and murder.

Look, I'm not about banning literature, but I do think that this particular book is probably not the best one to teach when teaching Sherlock Holmes in schools. Even if it *is* historically accurate, there's a very good chance that Doyle got 'lucky' in that regard -- there's no evidence that I know of that he didn't make up a sensational story about a religious group without a shred of evidence and that some of the questions we have now about unsolved murders in Utah might not fit a little better than we earlier thought.

There's nothing wrong with an author writing a good story, but that doesn't mean it's the best material to teach to kids in a literature class. Similarly, I would not teach "The Satanic Verses" (which is one of my favorite books of all time) without a careful historical and religious layer over the reading -- the book wasn't written in a vacuum and shouldn't be looked at as such.

(Also, Holmes is essentially perfect. Any character flaw is an informed one, since it never gets in his way of being 100% right by the end of the book. Since there is never an element of doubt that he could be wrong, the book's conclusion is even more prejudicial. Who are we to argue with Holmes that Mormons weren't all thugs and murderers? Etc.)

Last edited by anamardoll; 08-31-2011 at 07:58 AM.
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