Angel of the Danube

By Alan Rex Mitchell

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 Angel of the Danube

I'll dare to tread not only where Scott Parkin has gone (a fearful prospect indeed), but even have the temerity to do so in a forum frequented by the author of the work in question. I just finished the book at 4:30 am this morning so my experience with the book is still pretty raw. That's probably a good thing.

As you can surmise from the above, I was captivated by the book. It managed to be engaging from the first person perspective and that's hard to do. I don't know if the book managed to be universal as Scott has pointed out, though I think that any time you do first person you are begging to be universal. Danube was too close to my own mission experience for me to gauge its universality. So as far as I can tell, it's descriptive of a single experience. I served my mission in Northern Germany and I can tell that the author knows the German people intimately from the perspective only available to a missionary -- as someone who spent a lot of time talking to Germans (okay, technically Austrians, but I didn't detect a lot of difference) about personal, spiritual matters. He nailed it dead on, though it was a little disconcerting to have no overt time references and yet include some clues that placed it about a decade before my time. Anyway, universal or not, it spoke to me. That's the culture I experienced.

The missionaries rang true, too. I liked the clowns, but I'll disagree with Scott that they are our only close depiction of missionaries. I think that the apes are well described, though they appear infrequently. Elder Brannan was particularly sympathetic as someone who knew the score but still let his spirituality show through. Also, Unts was a good description of a missionary who is willing to work hard and with the Spirit at the same time (a rare combination, in my experience). Unts messed around sometimes, but like (and possibly better than) Barry, he was also very spiritual and able to keep things in perspective. Frankly, the relationship with Unts was one of the things that made the book multi-faceted enough to be believable and not just some humorous riff on the life of a missionary. The integration of Unts is what allowed me to go with Monroe when things turned serious at the end. Without that seriousness throughout the book, the transition at the end would have been much tougher and would probably have lost me.

Before I get too gushy, I should probably point out that I didn't buy some of Elder Monroe's actions. I think that there is some wish fulfillment at the end when Monroe "goes prophet". What missionary didn't dream of doing those things? I certainly did. I think it was too convenient to get the Fashing invitation and that the Austrian judge was way more lenient than any Germanic authority figure I've ever known. I think Monroe was too facile, too glib, and that he got a response at all in situations where he would have been allowed none. The circumstances were too convenient and the responses too scripted. I won't go so far as to say that they are impossible, just that it was one point in the book where I couldn't follow with full suspension of disbelief. That said, I think those scenes were important to the book because they allowed Elder Monroe to go ballistic in a way that would highly contrast to his post-mission life. It adds to the stark contrast that I think was important as he tried to figure out what post-mission spirituality was supposed to be.

Anyway, I laughed. I cried. The book made me want to evaluate (possibly even write) my own experience, but that's too painful, so I probably won't. I'm going to make Melissa read it because I want to be able to point out the things that I experienced that are so well captured by Mitchell -- things that I have tried to explain, but with indifferent success. Then again, maybe you just had to be there.& .& .