Description
Book SynopsisKermode examines enigmatic passages and episodes in the gospels. From his reading come ideas about what makes interpretation possibleand often impossible. He considers ways in which narratives acquire opacity, and he asks whether there are methods of distinguishing all possible meaning from a central meaning which gives the story its structure.
Trade ReviewOf all his books, [this is] the one that sheds the fullest light on his critical ideals and philosophy, and was also the most ambitious and controversial… Kermode’s insight was that interpretation is always a way of telling a new story. The comparison of secular and sacred interpretation of narrative was shocking to many… The importance of
The Genesis of Secrecy is that it expresses Kermode’s profound distrust of any system of reading that is coercive. -- Charles Rosen * New York Review of Books *
The Genesis of Secrecy is important partly because of its method and partly because of its subject matter. The texts Kermode uses to illustrate ‘the interpretation of narrative’ are the most familiar and important in Western civilization: The Gospels, according to Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John. And the method is a disarming and delicate blend of the best work done recently in narrative theory by semiotic and post-structuralist critics, fortified by an impressive but unobtrusive acquaintance with biblical scholarship and hermeneutics. * Washington Post Book World *
The thesis is well wrought, the scholarship varied and well-distributed, and the examples clear and deft. * Kirkus Reviews *
Table of ContentsI. Carnal and Spiritual Senses II. Hoti's Business: Why Are Narratives Obscure? III. The Man in the Macintosh, The Boy in the Shirt IV. Necessities of Upspringing V. What Precisely Are the Facts? VI. The Unfollowable World Notes Index
