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| Under the Banner of Heaven (Random House Large Print (Cloth/Paper))
Large Print
Author: Jon Krakauer
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Release Date: 2003-07-15
ISBN-10: 0375432213
ISBN-13: 9780375432217
List Price: $28.00
Average Customer Rating:
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Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Jon Krakauer’s literary reputation rests on insightful chronicles of lives conducted at the outer limits. In UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, he shifts his focus from extremes of physical adventure to extremes of religious belief within our own borders. At the core of his book is an appalling double murder committed by two Mormon Fundamentalist brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who insist they received a revelation from God commanding them to kill their blameless victims. Beginning with a meticulously researched account of this “divinely inspired” crime, Krakauer constructs a multilayered, bone-chilling narrative of messianic delusion, savage violence, polygamy, and unyielding faith. Along the way, he uncovers a shadowy offshoot of America’s fastest-growing religion, and raises provocative questions about the nature of religious belief.
Krakauer takes readers inside isolated communities in the American West, Canada, and Mexico, where some forty-thousand Mormon Fundamentalists believe the mainstream Mormon Church went unforgivably astray when it renounced polygamy. Defying both civil authorities and the Mormon establishment in Salt Lake City, the leaders of these outlaw sects are zealots who answer only to God. Marrying prodigiously and with virtual impunity (the leader of the largest fundamentalist church took seventy-five “plural wives,” several of whom were wed to him when they were fourteen or fifteen and he was in his eighties), fundamentalist prophets exercise absolute control over the lives of their followers, and preach that any day now the world will be swept clean in a hurricane of fire, sparing only their most obedient adherents.
Weaving the story of the Lafferty brothers and their fanatical brethren with a clear-eyed look at Mormonism’s violent past, Krakauer examines the underbelly of the most successful homegrown faith in the United States, and finds a distinctly American brand of religious extremism. The result is vintage Krakauer, an utterly compelling work of nonfiction that illuminates an otherwise confounding realm of human behavior.
Exeeded my expectations
| Customer Rating: |
Before I read this book I had a number of friends tell me about it. Some loved it, some hated it, but they all agreed that it was a very negative portrayal of Mormons as a people and a religion.
Even with that knowledge going in I was very disappointed in this book.
After reading it I did a little research and found that almost all of Krakauer's cited sources are either ex-Mormons or members of polygamist sects. In other words: Not Mormons. How do you tell a people's history using only ex-members and fanatical splinter groups?
Would I go to a Ford dealer to get an objective opinion on buying a Toyota truck?
Would I get a fair depiction of Catholic history from a Protestant minister?
Not likely.
If you removed all the inaccuracies from this book you might have an interesting pamphlet about two brothers who commit a horrible, tragic murder.
The more I read the more I was led to one of two conclusions...
Either Krakauer's research was incredibly shoddy and one sided, Or he has revised and twisted information to support his own thin thesis as stated in the preface: "Any attempt to answer such questions [here he refers to why these two brothers would commit such a crime without remorse] must plumb those murky sectors of the heart and head that prompt most of us to believe in God-and compel an impassioned few, predictably, to carry that irrational belief to it's logical end."
So according to John, any belief in God is irrational and the logical conclusion of such a belief will lead to murder... ? Really guy?
The most truly objective history of Joseph Smith and the Mormons that I have read is Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling. If you want a more accurate portrayal of that church's history or it's founder, read that book. This one is yellow journalism at best.
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Compelling
| Customer Rating: | | While not as enjoyable as Krakauer's other works, UTBOH is a compelling read. Insightful, giving the outsider a view of the FLDS church that is seldom seen and even less understood. Some of the passages are disturbing and violent. The book sometimes has a feel of anti-religious propaganda, but give credit to Krakauer for being someone who attempts to deliver the facts as best he can. I am sure this was a very difficult book to research due to the "closed" nature of the society he was investigating. Great read for those interested in the topic. The casual reader, however, will be lost in the confusing morass that is the FLDS church. |
Excellent book, difficult subject matter
| Customer Rating: | I'm not a fan of crime literature and I wasn't excited about reading this book. I'd devoured everything else of Krakauer's since "Into Thin Air" and his writing does not disappoint here, even when the going gets thick and rough and you almost need a program to figure out which Mormon is murdering whom on direct orders from God.
I'd never given Mormonism much thought, they seem like nice people, but I'd never heard of "fundamental" Mormonism, which was just about as creepy as anything I'd ever read about any other group or religion or cult. The idea of "celestial marriage" seems like a loony idea dreamt up by a horny old goat, it's laughable, yet it exists.
It's a fascinating history overall, and it is a Jon Krakauer book, so it's worth reading, but it is work to read about a couple of lunatics who conveniently receive instruction from God to murder an "uppity wife" of one of their own flesh-and-blood brothers. Certainly religious mania is stretched to transparency when a God-ordered killing plainly serves one's own interests.
Absent is the sense of a doomed but inspired hero as in "Into Thin Air" and "Into The Wild" -- the perpetrators deserve no sympathy and some sections of the book detail such heinous crimes that I wanted to put it down and go bathe in live steam to try and erase what I'd read. It's not an easy read and I'm glad I'm done with it.
Fascinating history, however. Worth reading. |
Scary and enlightening
| Customer Rating: | | this book is applicable to all religions. It asks the disturbing question -- why do people kill other people for the benefit of their religion? the book also contains interesting history about the american southwest --- learn about the other american tragedy that occured on sept 11, but about 150 years ago. |
morbid and fascinating
| Customer Rating: | | I love Jon Krakauer's mountaineering writing; this was different but no less fascinating. Highly recommended if you can stomach both the violence and the religious weirdness. |
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