Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats - Softcover

Peck, Steven L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1782798641 ISBN 13: 9781782798644

Verlag: John Hunt Publishing, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Steven L. Peck's intriguing, literary narrative follows Gilda Trillim's many adventures; from her origins on a potato farm in Idaho, to an Orthodox Convent in the Soviet Union, to her life as a badminton champion... When Gilda is taken prisoner during the Vietnam war, she finds comfort in the company of the rats who cohabit her cell. Follow Gilda as she struggles to comprehend the meaning of life in this uncanny, philosophical novel which explores Mormonism, spirituality and what it means to be human.

WINNER of Best Novel at the Association of Mormon Letters Awards 2017

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Steven L. Peck is professor of Biology at Brigham Young University. He has published widely in academic journals, and has previously published two novels, a short story collection and a collection of speculative poetry. Peck lives in Pleasant Grove, Utah, USA.

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Gilda Trillim: Shepherdess of Rats

By Steven L. Peck

John Hunt Publishing Ltd.

Copyright © 2016 Steven L. Peck
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-78279-864-4

Contents

Title Page of Katt's Thesis, 1, 
Thesis Preface, 2, 
Introduction, 6, 
Vignette 1: Gilda Trillim's Maternal Great-Grandfather Arnfinnur Skaldskapur, 11, 
Vignette 2: Letter to Babs Lake — On Winning the Uber Cup, May 1957, 15, 
Vignette 3: A Letter to Babs Lake on Relationships among Bottled Goods. Events Circa 1959, 24, 
Vignette 4: Some Documents Compiled from Writings about Her Stay in a Soviet Orthodox Convent. Events Circa 1961, 33, 
Vignette 5: Letter to Babs Lake about Her Studies in Junk Drawer Ecology. Events Circa 1964, 39, 
Vignette 6: Notes for Gilda's Novel Muskrat Trap. Letter Written September 1965 about Events Circa 1949 with a Note Added around 1986, 46, 
Vignette 7: Gilda's Reflections on Her Melancholy. Circa 1962, 59, 
Vignette 8: Letter from Babs Lake to Her Mother Mathilda Lake. June 1962, 62, 
Vignette 9: Trillim Cooks Emily Dickinson's Black Cake. Circa 1962, 70, 
Vignette 10: An Account of Gilda's Vision under the South American Hallucinatory Drug Ayahuasca. Circa 1966, 75, 
Vignette 11: Gilda's Poem My Turn on Earth. Written Circa 1951, 99, 
Vignette 12: Trillim's POW Experience in Vietnam. 1968-1970, 115, 
Vignette 13: Meditations at Apua Point, Big Island Hawaii. Circa 1972, 156, 
Vignette 14 Trillim in New York Notes. Circa Late 1972, 185, 
Vignette 15: Article from The Greenwich Peeper by Pseudonymous Author, 'Madam Alley Cat.' October 15, 1972, 187, 
Vignette 16: Interview with Reporter Dob Klingford, Published in The Paris Review. July 3, 1981, 194, 
Vignette 17: Gilda Writes an Event. Circa Summer 1983, 209, 
Vignette 18: Letter from Trillim to Babs Lake from Nairobi, Kenya where Gilda was Teaching a Short Course in Writing. August 12, 1988, 211, 
Vignette 19: Trillim's Reflections on Bodies. Journal Entry. La Sals, September 6, 1988, 222, 
Vignette 20: Fragment from Travel Magazine Article: "Dreams of an Ancient Kingdom: Remembering Old Siam" by Rose Butler. Published Jan 15, 1989, 227, 
Vignette 21: Gilda's Write-Up for Her Mother's Funeral. It Was Not Used there for Unknown Reasons. July 13, 1989, 229, 
Vignette 22. Babs Lake's November 3, 1996, Letter to Her Mother, 236, 
Vignette 23. A Small Fragment of a Text Supposedly from Gilda, Found in a Romance Novel, Discovered 2002, 252, 
Vignette 24: Gilda's Final Note Written Two Months after Her Mother's Death. Given to Me by Babs Lake, 2013, 254, 
My Thesis, 260, 

CHAPTER 1

Vignette 1: Gilda Trillim's Maternal Great-Grandfather Arnfinnur Skáldskapur.

As is traditional when one explores a life, it is not out of order to make a brief stop to examine Gilda's roots. I would like to look at one ancestor in particular to better situate and frame her unusual vivacity. Her maternal great-grandfather I believe captures Gilda's spirit more than any other of her progenitors. It is not that others are unimportant — certainly not — but rather this one stands out in a way that portends Trillim's adventures. The others are largely of that hardy pioneer stock that many of the Mormon faithful will recognize and appreciate: hard working; determined, undaunted by hardship and discouragement. Legends every one of them, but heroes and heroines of a recognizable type and manner and as such need little introduction or elaboration. Her maternal great-grandfather is different.

Interestingly, her great-grandfather's name was first introduced to me in a page from my grandmother's journal long before the name Gilda Trillim meant anything to me at all. On the page, she makes a passing comment, "Oh that I were as lucky as Skaldskapur."

Arnfinnur Skaldskapur was an Icelandic sea captain who joined the Mormon Church while his ship was being refitted in Liverpool, England. He had a reputation for being something of an explorer-philosopher, yet he tended toward the fantastic. For example, he kept a journal of encounters with what he believed were mermaids. They were always sighted at some distance, so it is easy to disregard the accounts from our modern perspective, which has no place for such creatures. However, Arn (as he was called) would not be dissuaded. One of his grandsons wrote in a letter to his sister from fin de siècle Paris, "Gramps Arny showed us his journal of sea people sightings when I was just a little tyke. I tried to tell him there weren't any such beasts as sea people but he would have non [sic.] of it. So I'm not surprised you cannot get him to take his medicine if he thinks it's been tampered with. Once something is in his head there is no talking him out of it."

After joining the Mormon Church in March 1866, he immediately resigned his captain's commission and left on the ship Arkwright with 450 other Saints under the direction of Justin Wixom. However, upon landing in the US in early July, he felt inspired to stay in New York and learn the art of daguerreotype photography and during the next five years became a well-known photographer of stage actors and actresses. In 1871, he took the Overland Route train to Salt Lake City, where he set up a photography business adjacent to a bank on the corner of Beech and Laurel streets. Soon after his arrival to Utah, he joined a gentlemen's club known as the Redbearded Horseshoers who met regularly to study the life and writings of Joseph Smith. He soon became the leader of the group. One of the few remaining pamphlets written by Arn contained the following paragraph:

"The Prophet Joseph Smith was a prophet and seer, but more than that he could wrestle the past into the future and vice-versa. I have it from John Taylor himself that when Brother Joseph found a treasure in the ground, the spirits that guarded it would try to pull it back deeper into the earth. But Joseph was more powerful than they all and he would lay hold upon it and with a yank heave it from the hands of those spirits. President Taylor said, "Now when he went to lay hold upon the gold plates those forces that make all things slippery tried to pull it down, but Joseph grabbed it by the rings and pulled, but he not only pulled up the plates he pulled the whole history of the Nephites into the world lock, stock and barrel. He made it real. Where once there was ordinary history he pulled into the universe sacred history.""

Arn began to teach that history was flexible and could be manipulated from the present moment just as much as it could influence the future. And through his photography Arn began to try to rewrite the past. He thought that through subtle manipulations he could do as he thought Joseph Smith had done to pull up new things into the past by a combination of faith and power.

He started his history manipulation experiments with small attempts at changing the past. He would photograph women in variously colored dresses. He would then hand-color the dress in the black and white photo a variant shade other than the one of which he had taken a picture. He would then save the hand-colored photo and approach the woman years later and show her the photo. When they disagreed on the original color, he would have her pull out the dress and examine it. His journal records years of failure, but as time passed, a series of successes began to appear. The blue dresses he was coloring red would be found in the possession of the woman, often after long storage in a cedar chest, actually turned to red. It seemed that the more...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: John Hunt Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1782798641
• ISBN 13: 9781782798644
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 296
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchbär; info@buchbaer.de; ; Weberstr. 67; Osnabrück; 49084; Deutschland