Marianne Jennings, one of my favorite columnists, skewers Martha Beck and her new book here.
My favorite line:
“Dr. Beck, Harvard PhD, life coach, bulimic, and incest recollector extraordinaire, bears a striking resemblance to Frau Farbissina, the Austin Powers sidekick, something that makes it all the more difficult to take her lion, camel, butterfly meditations, and evolutions seriously. Beck’s book has four themes: (1) she threw up a lot; (2) Mormons are loaded with problems because they cook, clean, raise decent children, head to church with regularity, and, worst of all, helped her through a pregnancy in which she was bedridden (one can understand why she hates them so); (3) she threw up a lot; and (4) her father, Mormon scholar, Hugh Nibley, molested her, something she recollected after she passed out whilst listening in on BYU students allegedly confessing to date rape, child sexual abuse, and pretty much anything Toni Morrison has loaded into her dime-store smut.”
She also has some choice things to say about Hanoi Jane.
I find it very surprising that in this entire blog, not one person noticed that Jennings frequently (and quite centrally) mislables anorexia as bulimia. At no time does Beck describe barfing, instead describing starving herself repeatedly to exhaustion. It almost made it appear as though Jennings hadn’t even bothered to read the book! Altogether much more embarrassing than either a vituperative tone or a compromised partiality.
Also, the Teancum analogy only really works if there are two armies and one general assassinates one on the other side. In this debate, there seems to be POMO (Pissed Off Mormons Online), vs . . . Beck. Alone, she’s not much of a camp to sneak into. And in a debate, even an assassinated opponent comes back. Kind of like sneaking into a lonely tent at night, but all you can do is throw a bucket of paint. Just wait for the next day and use a roller. That way you won’t get any on yourself. That’s what the above-mentioned Sunstone review did. I thought it fair, well researched, well thought out, and very honest (it mirrored almost exactly my own reading, and research, of the book, minus the interviews of course). The review was leagues more scholarly than its subject, which is ultimately such a better weapon to hit Beck with than mere vitriol, if you want her to stay down.