Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief

Thanks to the Foxx for hosting BC. It was such a lovely evening that we will even forgive her for being an SP (see below). We started out with Salsa di Parmigiano, a ridiculously savory blend of chunks of parmesan and Asiago pureed in olive oil with scallions, garlic and red pepper flakes, to be slathered atop crostini (it was almost embarrassing how many of these El Jefe inhaled in the first two minutes upon arrival). Next, a hearty, healthy and delicious stew of kale, cannellini beans and turkey sausage with cornbread to dunk, and brownies with salted caramel sauce a la' mode.  Deee lish.

Michael Chiarellos' Salsa di Parmigiano

On to Lawrence Wright's Going Clear, which garnered a 7.4 rating. In the Scientology world, this is a truly impressive score. After all, OT VII is the second highest level on the Bridge to Total Freedom--well beyond Preclear, and rapidly progressing from Clear to Operating Thetan.  

Not that a suppressive person such as the Foxx would appreciate that.  She described this book as "creepy," "crazy" and "nutty"-- stark evidence of antisocial pathology. Logan's Run, also an SP, compared the devout souls depicted in this book to the real nut jobs in The 19th Wife and Under the Banner of Heaven. Red--another SP--simply put it:  "cray cray!" Finally, the Doctor, in a kind of paranoid twist on the SP, became afraid of getting snatched off her bed while reading the book. Ok, so there was an across the board consensus that Scientology is a cult:  the terminology, the way it sucked in the vulnerable and destroyed their lives, the all-absorbing focus on a single charismatic individual... the way people get snatched off their beds? But let's turn to the book itself. Clearly (ha ha) the author researched this book to the nitty gritty end, as attested to by the dozens of pages of footnotes. However, as is often the case with non-fiction, it's difficult to walk that line between thoroughness and, well, boring your reader to tears. Despite the wacky theology and the star-studded cast of characters, Going Clear could be painfully boring at times, with one person commenting that the subject matter could have been adequately covered in half the pages. After all, this book is being marketed to the public for their reading pleasure, not as a scholarly treatise. Even the Highlander thought there was too much detail on the celebrities. (Wait, surely that sequence of words has never before been typed together, nor will it ever be in the future.) Yet this book raised some interesting questions for discussion. Such as, how could LRH, who was a wife beater and overall horrible man, become the central figure of a worldwide movement whose followers adored and emulated him? How and why is Scientology different from established religions, particularly Catholicism, which is all about mysteries, hierarchy and awesome outfits? To this last question, our group gave a lot of weight to the fact that Catholicism (and Judaism and Islam, etc.) is old (not to mention the Pope-- he is always old, too). Those religions pre-date modern means of communication, or really, almost any means of communication other than oral storytelling and writing on scrolls, and thus it's understandable that the religions' adherents could have accepted the religions' "truths"--whereas today it seems preposterous for some guy to try and convince people that he can multiply loaves and fishes. In any event, the IRS does not agree with our book club, and El Jefe's not going to argue with that.

See you mañana at Ms. K's house to discuss Wool!  xoej

The 19th Wife

Thanks to Ms. K for hosting BC at her brand... new... house...!  It was so exciting to see your long project come to fruition, and everything looks incredible.  Congrats! 

It's been quite a while since El Jefe reported:  work, Barcelona, San Francisco, kids, life, the Fall Festival, New York--all of that waylaid El Jefe's best laid plans to write the recap.  But, as not one has been missed in 9 years, we're not starting now (in fact, El Jefe currently is writing this post from 15,000 feet above Albuquerque, New Mexico--now that's dedication!).  So, to the best of El Jefe's recollection, we started out with a cheese and charcuterie platter, garnished with some sort of figgy or pineappley jam that was decidedly delish with the goat cheese, followed by a hearty beef stew, perfect for fall, and a green salad, and... wait... why can't El Jefe remember what was for dessert?

We then moved on to a discussion of The 19th Wife.  It would be an utterly unrealistic strain on El Jefe's memory to try and recount this book's rating to the decimal point, but suffice it to say that it was fairly well received with no passionate votes for or against (after all, without La Mademoiselle, the chances for a 0 or 10 have gone way down).  So let's call it 6.5.  The 19th Wife was a fast and entertaining read, melding historic fiction and non-fiction about the life of Ann Eliza Young, the so-called 19th wife of Brigham Young (second prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) with a murder mystery set in current day fundamentalist LDS-land.  Probably the most interesting part of this book was the way that the author switched styles between the various chapters, convincingly imitating an early 19th century editorial from the San Francisco Chronicle or the text of a Wikipedia posting.  While some of our group wrote this book off as "Under the Banner of Heaven-lite," most found it to be sufficiently different and didn't mind a second opportunity to excoriate the LDS institution for first sanctioning, and later attempting to cover up, the deplorable treatment of women in the early days of the church.  Still difficult for El Jefe to understand how this new religion managed to get started within relatively recent history and people actually went for it.  It's one thing to pass down the stories of Moses parting the Red Sea from generation to generation as part of a tradition stretching back more than 2,000 years.  It's another for a regular guy from Vermont to come along in 1830 and claim that he had discovered golden tablets inscribed with the divine truth (but that no one else could see).  Int, very int.

Ann Eliza Young

 

Sacred Underwear

Our November meeting is this Sunday, November 13th at Red's house in the 'Dena.  Note the new Sunday start time:  5.30.  The Highlander is on dessert, and please volunteer if you're able to bring apps.  The book we will be discussing is A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer, Egan, which, ahem, hopefully everyone has already finished by now or is close to it.

We also have our December book!  We will be reading Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes, which is a holiday-friendly 176 pages, and accordingly finishable by even the most slacker husbands.  Sense of an Ending just won the 2011 Man Booker prize, so it should be a good one.  Date for holiday BC to follow.  xoej