Ryan's Book Review: The Book of Mammon

The Book of Mammon: A Book About A Book About the Corporation that Owns the Mormons by Daymon Smith

John Lennon, God

Plastic Ono Band (1970)

Synopsis: A Mormon anthropologist-to-be, in the midst of writing his doctoral dissertation (it's done now; you can read it here) on language and the ethnography of Mormons, gets a job at the Church Office Building and wacky hijinks ensue.

Review: Daymon Smith writes about his experiences and observations while working at the headquarters of the Mormon Church, the Church Office Building, or "COB", along with his fellow "Cobbers."  To the extent the book is a sort of expose, it talks about the current state of the church as various corporations, headed by a corporation with a membership of one that owns all the other corporations and their assets, and distinguishes that from the corporate charter originally obtained by church founder Joseph Smith and the charter ultimately dissolved by the United States.  The book discusses the evolution of the church from the speculative, charismatic theology of guys like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and Orson Pratt, and how that all gets changed and streamlined by guys like James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe, and then how it all gets watered down by the official "correlation" of church doctrine and history.  

I read a lot about this book before I actually read it, and and that stuff is all in there.  It's very, very interesting, as are the various amusing anecdotes involving Toyota Avalons, undergarment sweat shops, and Welfare Videos.  Basically, if you read this book, you will understand how on earth a multi-billion dollar corporation with well funded public relations departments could conceivably think that this type of thing would resonate with kids who happen not to be the Stepford children of general authorities.

But that's not really what the book is about.  It's about someone confronting the discordance between what he believes Mormonism to mean, and what he discovers it actually--in a literal, legal, and practical sense--means.  

Anyway, if you're interested, you should read some real reviews.  I would start with this one in which the reviewer not only gets it, he gets how to talk about it.  Then I would read this one, written by a fellow anthropologist who discusses some of the specific disciplinary strategies the author employs for the benefit of non-anthropologist readers.  The comments to this review bring up some of the stylistic impenetrability, which is definitely an issue (not a huge deal, but it's not exactly an easy read).  And finally, you should read this one, just to  kind of round things out.  If you're an insomniac like me, you'll want to spend those useful nocturnal hours reading the comments to each review...fascinating stuff, including occasional cameos by the author himself.

If you're thinking to yourself, "This all sounds rather interesting, but I just don't have the time to read and/or money to purchase the whole book," then you should read the nine part interview with Daymon Smith, available here.

But if instead, you're thinking, "Yeah, that's pretty interesting, but I don't know how to read," then I'd say, "How did you get this far?  Have whomever is reading this to you download the four part interview podcast available here on your behalf, and you can listen to it."

I should add, as a final note, that reading the book is a really unique experience.  As mentioned above, some of the conventions chosen by the author make reading the book a bit difficult.  It's not jargony by any stretch, but you'll probably need to have a pretty good dictionary handy.  Some of the narrative choices, while clever and playful, also make it a bit challenging.

Still, I think it's worth it for the unconventional effect the style has.  Calling the experience of reading it "transformative" may be overstating things a bit, and I don't think "interactive" is quite accurate.  It is certainly an experience, however, and if it weren't for some of the stylistic elements, including those that are arguably inaccessible, digressive or dense, the same probably couldn't be said.