Boyd Petersen

It's hard for me to imagine that anyone interested in the Restored Church and the life of the mind (and the politics associated with the combination of the two) would not find this book fascinating.

The book is structured with chapters recounting Nibley's life in chronological order alternating with chapters that focus on specific themes (e.g., Nibley on the environment), with most of the latter having been presented by Petersen in draft form at various Sunstone Symposia. I found the unavoidable redundancy of such an approach a little distracting, but Petersen is a very talented writer, and does the best that can be done within the constraints of such an approach.

I disagree with some of Nibley's social criticism, and I was reminded of those disagreements as I read this book. I also had several misconceptions about Nibley corrected from reading it. Petersen confirms the story about Nibley responding to a challenge to get married that he received when he was hired by BYU at age 36 by marrying the first woman he met on campus. What I didn't know before is that Nibley had (a) been engaged to someone else several years previously, and (b) had a marriage proposal to another woman, whom he pursued with some perseverance, turned down. I also had no idea what an outdoorsman Nibley was, roaming not only through the Oregon wilderness and the Wasatch mountains near Provo, but also spending a considerable amount of time in the redrock country of Southern Utah. In general, while Nibley is undeniably an eccentric individual, my prior perception of him as a socially backward bookworm appears to have been badly mistaken.

Don't neglect to read Nibley's letter to Sterling McMurrin that is contained in one of the book's appendices. McMurrin had written Nibley asking for a statement of his religious philosophy, and Nibley replied by essentially bearing his testimony. I was very impressed.

Some excerpts and comments:

(1) At the age of 16, Nibley took off for 6 weeks of solo adventure in the wilderness of Oregon. He still has a scar he earned on that trip from where a timber wolf sunk her teeth into his thigh.

(2) Nibley served a mission in Germany. On the way home from his mission, Nibley was given permission to travel for 6 weeks in Greece. (Six weeks again?) In Greece, Hugh found a trinket-seller who had for sale the very watch that Hugh had lost in the Black Forest of Germany several months earlier.

(3) Hugh had a near-death experience at the age of 26 when he swallowed his tongue and stopped breathing during an appendectomy. Petersen writes: "This experience had a profound influence on Hugh."

(4) Just before Gulf War I, I attended a fireside in which Eugene England praised Neville Chamberlain. Eugene's friend Nibley apparently didn't feel the same way about Chamberlain, at least not at the time that Chamberlain was performing his acts of appeasement. When Chamberlain signed the pact allowing Germany to partition Czechoslovakia, Nibley wrote: "May God punish England". (The country, not Eugene!)

(5) The typesetting system (or, more likely, misuse of that system) leaves goofy looking gaps after middle initials (as if they were the ends of sentences). Thus, we have references to Mary L. Bradford, John A. Larson, etc.

(7) Nibley's daughter Martha Nibley Beck, who left the church in the early 90s, has accused Nibley of abuse, based on memories she "recovered" under the influence of hypnosis. In light of the fact that thousands of people have, under hypnosis, apparently recovered memories of being chickens, I think skepticism is warranted. Petersen provides reasons for rejecting Martha's allegations in a lengthy footnote that begins on page 400 and takes up about half of page 401.

(8) I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Nibley was not a fan of seminary. One of the vignettes recounted by his daughter Zina in the foreword is the following:

"Martha is in high school. I'm one grade away from it. . . . Daddy has answered the telephone . . . I overhear his side of the conversation. 'Yes, this is Mr. Nibley. Yes, Martha is at Provo High School. She what? She missed what? Seminary?' He holds the phone an inch farther away from his mouth and calls to my mother: 'Dear? Is Martha taking *seminary*? I told her *not* to take seminary. Great guns, why is she wasting her time in seminary?!'"… (more)