Customer Reviews

Angel of the Danube

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A unusual, often startling but wonderfully refreshing Mormon missionary novel. Angel, which promises to be to Mormon missionary fiction what God's Army is to the Mormon missionary film, is a moving and comical account of a young man's successful search for spiritual wholeness amidst an (Austrian) world of rejection. Tracking Elder Barry Monroe's spiritual odyssey through the Austria Vienna Mission is something like tracking Huckleberry Finn's discovery of his and Jim's humanhood, and even more like following Henderson on his comic journey into the heart of Africa in Saul Bellow's Henderson the Rain King. In fact, in Alan Mitchell we may have discovered our Mormon Saul Bellow. Writing his missionary journal in California-hip dialect (Mark Twain did it almost as well in Huck Finn), Elder Monroe, who calls everyone "Dude," is wacky and comical and essentially serious as he stands atop his bedrock Mormonness and calls the nonplused Austrians to repentance. Writing from what is obviously his own sound faith in the power of the gospel to change and improve lives, Mitchell has hung a rich and literarily satisfying coming-of-age novel upon an infrastructure of Austrian folklore and the ups-and-downs of Mormon missionary life. The result is a landmark novel unique in Mormon fiction that will delight everyone-except, perhaps, the Church Missionary Committee (Angel of the Danube will not become a supplement to the white Missionary Handbook). The rest of us will enjoy this fresh, original, thoroughgoingly Mormon, albeit wonderfully unorthodox treatment of the First Principles' pattern of the journey to belief. Hurrah for Alan Mitchell's rich contribution to Mormon letters and positive and affirming answer to the question: "what is left to be said, in fiction, about the life of a Mormon missionary!"

Richard H. Cracroft Nan Osmond Grass Professor in English Brigham Young University

There were sections when the unabashed humor had me tittering like a schoolgirl. And there were sections that had me squirming, recalling what it was like to think and speak and act like a teenager. Mitchell has done a superb job conjuring the mood and scenery of Austria, along with the language and the people. He's also done a masterful job depicting the moral clashes that come from young men, unwilling to surrender their youthful playfullness, struggling to remain true to the rigid set of rules they have sworn to live by.

Mitchell does seem to capture the essence of a Mormon mission--the conflicts, the irritations, and the deep feelings. I was convulsing with some of the humor and moved by the deeper parts. It was a good read and might help someone understand a little about what a Mormon missionary experiences.

This book may not be award-winning literature (it could have done with another copy edit as well), but I read it for a university class and fell behind on my other schoolwork because I couldn't put it down. The book is undeniably hilarious, but has a deeply reflective side. It's a Mormon missionary tale, but Barry (the narrator-character) writes all aspects of the mission, including the difficult side that missionaries don't necessarily tell when they come home. The stories and struggles are reminders that LDS missionaries are still only 19 year old boys; at the same time, their triumphs and their lessons show their incredible growth and the process of learning we all go through. The constant use of the word "Dude" to refer to everyone, and Barry's well characterized voice, are so personable. While the quality of literature isn't outstanding, it's more than believable as the journal writing of a 21 year old. The book may be best appreciated by a Mormon-cultured audience, but could also be a very relatable to anyone who's met an LDS missionary, anyone who's served a proselyting or humanitarian mission for their own church, or for anyone who struggles with finding and keeping direction in life. Would recommend this book to anyone.

I reread this book recently and was as impressed as when I read it 9 years ago. The Barry Monroe character is full and complex, in spite of his attempts at self-denigration. It explains, perhaps more than any other book, the pressures of a religious minister who is still very much a product of his non-religious culture, and the exasperation of having the message rejected. Is Monroe a deeply spiritual person or a college frat boy? The answer is both.

The folklore is the heart of the book that give a deeply mythical undercurrent to the follies and foibles of Monroe and his band of brothers. Not only that, but we get a love story and the sexual angst of a 22 year old virgin, coupled with an atmosphere of that is both mantic and manic and you get a serious, yet hilarious, view of the human condition search for the infinite. And the book tells a story without preaching or making excuses.

My daughters have read this book and wondered. My sons have read this book and laughed. Former mission companions have read this book and told me they cried. I think it is because it tells of the human (and LDS) condition in a world that is losing love, morality, and faith.

I served in the same mission as the author and couldn't put this book down. The arc of the story and the artful portrayal of missionary life in this fascinating place are nothing short of masterful and possess universal appeal. That is, until the last chapter, when the story descends into banality. Here the tale twists itself into fake spirituality that is engineered to appeal to brainwashed mormons. As the great nazi filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl showed us, there is a fine line between true art and propaganda.