I’ve been doing some research on women who wrote Book of Mormon retellings in the early 20th century. I found two works by “Mormona,” who wrote two novels that were serialized in the Juvenile Instructor (an LDS church magazine which became kind of a general interest youth magazine): The Lure of the Homeland (1921) and Brother of Helam (1922). I wondered who it could be, but decided to focus on researching authors who I already knew. Luckily, this approach paid off! I doubt I’m the first person to discover her identity, but it was new to me! Her name was Ellen Heloise Day Merkley. On her FamilySearch page, there’s a memory called “Ellen Heloise Day Merkley History,” written by her daughter Elva Merkley Scott. She describes Ellen’s writing career in four brief sentences:

During her girlhood, she had discovered a talent for writing stories and poetry. She sold many thing to the Young Woman’s Journal, the Juvenile Instructor and the Relief Society Magazine. She also wrote several novels but I believe none of them sold. She wrote at first under the pseudonym “Mormona.”

A little more summary from Elva’s biography: Ellen was born in Sanpete, Utah on October 2, 1896 and went to B.Y. High School and B.Y. Academy, where she studied to become a teacher (she’s listed as a graduate in the 1915 Banyan; she was the “Class Humorist” in the B.Y. High School Commencement Exercises and a member of the “Maestro Club” for teachers). She married Cecil Allred Merkley in January 1923, had children in December 1923 and April 1926. Her family moved to Mesa, Arizona in 1928 and was active in the LDS Church there. Ellen divorced her husband after they had been married for ten years (unusual in the 1930s) and supported herself by working as a secretary and a school teacher. She loved theater and acted in the “Mesa Little Theater.” When her children left the house she joined the Women’s Army Corps in 1944 and went to drama school in Hollywood!

She also wrote under her “real” name. Here is a list of only some of her work! Some of this is from MLCAD, and some is from work done by Kent Larsen to compile fiction about the Book of Mormon. I started searching for “Mormona” in various periodicals and there’s so much more than I expected!

The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card is the first of a five-part epic fantasy series that follows the plot of the Book of Mormon. However, its underlying theology seems so different from the Book of Mormon’s that it’s less of an adaptation and more “inspired by” the Book of Mormon.1 The Memory of Earth doesn’t seem to be interpreting the Book of Mormon—but it is commenting on religious issues. Its simplifications in theology make it easier to pinpoint ethical issues within religious thought. This is one of the more interesting aspects of the novel to me.

One of the theological simplifications is that God in The Memory of Earth is a dying computer with many limitations. It’s called the Oversoul. It “wants” to protect humanity, but has lost power over time, so it needs to go back to Earth for repairs. In order to do so, it needs help from humans. It’s able to communicate with certain humans who have brains that were genetically modified eons ago to be susceptible to interference from the Oversoul via satellite communication. Basically, there’s nothing magical about the existence of God, except that it uses technology that the current living people don’t know how to use. This is a simplification because it resolves the question of whether or not God exists. Yes, a godlike figure exists in this world, and it’s trying to control humans for its own purposes. What are its motivations? And how much can it influence humans?

Nafai, the Nephi-equivalent, wonders about the extent that the Oversoul can influence the world. He and his brother discover that they feel a “stupor of thought” whenever they try to think about technology that the Oversoul has forbidden, like using wheels for transportation (which would surely lead to globalization, war, and the destruction of the human race). They are even able to occupy the Oversoul’s attention by trying to think about forbidden topics all day. Once they realize this, they make oaths not to try to build forbidden technology, thus leaving the Oversoul to focus on more pressing issues.

This instance in particular reminded me of Steve Peck’s novella The Gift of the King’s Jeweler, which imagines a radically literal reading of the Book of Mormon, where a highly skilled craftsman is inspired to create the wonder that is the Liahona. It ends with him leaving the Liahona in front of the tent of a poor nomad (Lehi). What seems like a feel-good story is actually an indictment of the absurdity of taking scripture to be a historically accurate account. The idea that God gives people a “stupor of thought” when the answer to their prayer is “no” has a similar treatment in this novel. It’s taken to an absurd extreme.

Let’s go back to Nafai’s exploration of what actual power the Oversoul has. He realizes that the Oversoul can’t move mountains.

In the real world, the Oversoul’s powers seemed to be entirely confined to communication—the sharing of works of art throughout the world, and mental influence over those who received visions or, more commonly, the stupor of thought that the Oversoul used to turn people away from forbidden ideas. (171)

This is an idea that I think other philosophers of religion have had, especially those who don’t like supernaturalism and who want an answer to the question of evil. I myself find it fairly attractive. It’s hard for me to believe that God gave me all the things that make me suffer in life (or even just some of them). It’s easier for me to believe that God isn’t powerful enough to eliminate suffering, but that God is powerful enough to influence people to do good. But then again, religion could influence people to do good without God.

The scene where Nafai slays the Laban-like character reinforces an idea that the Oversoul may have too much power over Nafai. The chapter is entitled “Murder,” even though usual LDS terminology states that Nephi “slays” Laban—thus signifying a departure from a Book of Mormon-y interpretation of this scene. The Oversoul uses the same manipulative tactics on Nafai that his brothers and others in the novel have been using the whole time (their banter is one of my favorite parts of this book). The Oversoul shames him, telling him he wants to spare the man “out of pure vanity. So that you can look at your hands and find them unstained with blood. I tell you that if you don’t kill this man, the blood of millions will be on your head” (272). The way people manipulate others is a huge theme in this book, and the Oversoul has to use the same methods that others do. In the end, killing the Laban-like character seems self-serving for the Oversoul, and not in Nafai’s best interest.

As far as trying to interpret Card’s personal beliefs from the worldbuilding in The Memory of Earth—I’m not sure if it’s possible to do so responsibly. Card is definitely interested in ethical issues surrounding religion and how godlike entities influence humans. An article entitled “Amblick and After” by Norman Beswick2 examines the interaction between the Book of Mormon and a number of Card’s works, including an earlier novel, Hot Sleep. In Hot Sleep, it turns out that a man who started a community is later regarded as God (I think… I’m summarizing a summary here). The revelation that God is a mere human is upsetting. Beswick lists the parallels between Hot Sleep and the Book of Mormon, asking

If (as seems clear) the patterns of The Book of Mormon helped establish the lines of thought that led to the Worthing trio, one wonders how conscious the influence would have been. Can Orson Scott Card really be hinting that the God of faith might “only” have been a Jason Worthing? The text itself suggests that he would give a Jason-like shrug and ask “Does it matter?” Card is not the only person to shift attention away from “Is this religion true?” to “What useful purpose does this religion serve?” It is one way of coping with the pressure to re-evaluate one’s past.

Beswick published Card’s commentary along with this article, and this section is footnoted with a comment from Card: “No. Don’t read my fiction literally. When I mean to be taken literally, I write essays.” But this isn’t a literal reading of the text. It’s a typological one. Either way, my question would be: why use the Book of Mormon as an inspiration or source text without commenting on the Book of Mormon’s message?