Procrast-Nation

In his essay The Genesis of Secrecy, Frank Kermode prepares a vocabulary he finds useful for discussing interpretations of narratives and then uses the vocabulary to examine and dissect parables, mostly those of biblical origin, and to argue that different types of readings of a text produce different effects. The vocabulary that Kermode prepares is well defined and is therefore explicit and easy to understand. Unfortunately, his use of these terms later in the essay create ambiguity. Despite this muddling of meaning, Kermode communicates his argument that narratives can be used to impart meaning, that “spiritual” reading even causes readers to invent completely new meaning, and that narratives can all be read an infinite number of ways because of their “inexhaustible hermeneutic potential.” Finally, Kermode discusses the everyday pragmatic importance of how we interpret narratives.

Kermode arrives at his most important vocabulary when he explains that “when Jesus was asked to explain the purpose of his parables, he described them as stories told to them without – to outsiders – with the express purpose of concealing a mystery that was to be understood only by insiders.” The definitions of “insider” and “outsider” implied by this sentence have an important meaning for the remainder of The Genesis of Secrecy. Kermode uses the definitions to discuss how exposure to “the mystery” affects what meanings can be had from narrative. First hinted at just one paragraph later, his sentence “only those who already know the mysteries – what the stories really mean – can discover what the stories really mean,” Kermode plays tacitly with the reader’s understanding of who, really, is on the inside and outside.

The author needs some terms by which to discuss different types of readings available to human interpreters. To do this, he briefly outlines Henry Green’s novel Party Going and suggests that his outline isn’t sufficient for really understanding the piece – that Green’s reputation as an author and Party Going’s syntactical separation from consumer expectations suggest that there is meaning that runs deeper than the plot itself. So Kermode describes a reading of the work which attributes some allegorical meaning to the novel’s actors and quickly discusses one interpretation of how a less accessible character might underscore important human social tendencies. He notes that all “carnal” (factual) readings are more or less the same for any narrative, and that a “spiritual” reading is more often unique and interesting.

Kermode notes one particularly revealing disparity among the biblical gospels, and uses the disparity to discuss the uses of narration. Mark uses the Greek hina to explain why Jesus uses parables, but to the effect that the most accurate and scholarly translations have him say that Jesus uses parables precisely in order to keep outsiders from understanding his mysteries. Matthew, on the other hand, uses hoti in place of hina so to say that Jesus uses parables because outsiders don’t understand his mysteries. Kermode uses the words hina and hoti to massage purpose from narration.

Later in his essay Kermode writes that, “it is the very fact that one is outside that makes possible the revelation of truth or meaning; being inside is like being in Plato’s cave.” This analogy is helped by Plato’s focus on detailing the wise nature of Socrates, on whose namesake we staple Socratic Wisdom – the wisdom of knowing little but being aware of the expansive ignorance. Socrates, too, had the possibility of the revelation of truth or meaning, because he was an outsider and he realized it. All of the learned men in Athens that Socrates questioned in his quest to know that he was not the wisest man of Athens, who were inside – who might have had the best knowledge in their craft or a mastery of mathematics – could not, or perhaps just would not, accept revelation of truth or meaning.

It is this sort of playfulness with the terms inside and outside that makes it hard for a reader to follow Kermode’s meaning. To be inside, or to have knowledge of true meaning, excludes that individual from experiencing any meaningfulness and therefore makes insiders “those without” - the terms he used to describe the outsiders. I think, however, that his point is clear if the text is read carefully. Being an outsider excludes an individual from carnal readings, forces them to do interpretations - and act of interpretation itself is an act of “divination” (to use his own terms). Therefore, Kermode concludes, having access to the true meaning of a narrative really destroys its meaning rather than exposes it – a large claim to be making when considering a biblical texts, since it implies that Jesus’s apostles were, as they were told secrets, robbed of any of the true value to be had. If this were true, the apostles would be martyrs in their own right.

Kermode’s essay was filled with the sensation of death linked to carnal readings. He uses the story of Oedipus and the Sphinx to donate an understanding of the gravity glued to riddle (“parable”) interpretation. The wayfarer had best not read the Sphinx’s riddle carnally or he will miss the greater understanding at stake – which here manifests itself in certain death. Like the great Sphinx riddle, there does seem to be a death associated with poor reading – not one of certain death but of a death likened easier to the apostles’ martyrdom; a philosophical death, where deep meaning is excluded from life. As Kermode discusses Party Going, he derives amusement from author Green’s misinterpretation of “subtle” for “suttee,” a suicidal ritual practiced in ancient India. Is it a coincidence that Kermode’s mind hovers in amusement on the idea that the misinterpretation of a narrative might lead to suicide rather than subtly? He says himself quite plainly that “literary interpretations may take a fictive form, and that fictions, wrongly or carnally read, may prey upon life.”

The Genesis of Secrecy, if read spiritually, lends us advice on how to avoid intellectual suttee – and therefore on how we ought to live life. No person must imagine that their own interpretation of a piece is right or immovable. Doing so implies assumed insider knowledge. The reader is fooling themselves into thinking that the idea taught by the lesson is more important than the process of the lesson itself. An insider reading can not find deep meaning. It can find plain factual datum, but no revelation or inspiring moment.