{"id":2785,"date":"2019-08-17T14:48:49","date_gmt":"2019-08-17T22:48:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2785"},"modified":"2019-08-17T14:48:49","modified_gmt":"2019-08-17T22:48:49","slug":"review-manuscript-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/?p=2785","title":{"rendered":"Review: Manuscript Found"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Literary sources abound in the modern world.  This book came to me as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\">Patreon<\/a> perk from Nathaniel Lloyd&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.historicalblindness.com\/\">Historical Blindness<\/a> podcast.  His podcast is worth its own review, but not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Manuscript Found<\/em> is a historical novel told with a metafictive bent.  Lloyd is writing a novel about Joseph Smith and the founding documents of Mormonism.  He&#8217;s also commenting on both the contents of the historical record and how an author &#8211; or historian &#8211; injects their views into their writings.  It&#8217;s a nice mix, though it can be a little dry and subtle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lloyd braids this with a thread about authors of documents exposing the workings of Masonry.  I find that choice to be illuminating.  Revealing the workings of a secret society and presenting the foundations of a religion that is particularly shrouded in silence raise questions about how each arise and address the release of them.  Alongside that he presents other protagonists&#8217; involvement with the Underground Railroad.  The Railroad is another secretive historical society whose motivations for secrecy are driven primarily by practicality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His use of a fictional historian relating the workings and motivations of those groups fleshes the ideas even a bit more.  He challenges many preconceptions about history and people through the historian&#8217;s voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I found it very intellectually challenging and thought provoking, though less emotionally engaging than some.  I&#8217;m reminded of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/BBC\/mouldering04.html#m04-r\">Jimmy Carter&#8217;s fiction<\/a>.  I admire the thinking and structure behind it, but wold love some more dynamism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Literary sources abound in the modern world. This book came to me as a Patreon perk from Nathaniel Lloyd&#8217;s Historical Blindness podcast. His podcast is worth its own review, but not here. Manuscript Found is a historical novel told with a metafictive bent. Lloyd is writing a novel about Joseph Smith and the founding documents [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2785"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2789,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2785\/revisions\/2789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lunabase.org\/~faber\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}