The issue of Catholic apologetics with respect to the Mormons came up in Communio last Thursday. The perennial chestnut of "are Mormons Christian?" came up, to which my response was yes, but Arian Christians. The subject raised for me the question of the Book of Mormon. It's certainly a weighty tome and I am awed at the idea of one person in the 1820s churning that dude out. How did could Smith have kept the plot lines straight? How could he have had enough imagination to turn out so many pages without descending to utter giberish. It's a serious problem for serious writers. I understand that Melville lost track of why he had included one character in Moby Dick, so in one chapter he unceremoniously had the chap washed overboard.

The answer, it appears, is that Smith had similar problems according to this post on Making Light. By all means go to the comments comments for snarky observations and some fairly intersting and, to me, at least, educational insights into Smith's writing process.