The contemporary reader would do well to read the King James side by side with the English Revised. Some lovely stereophonic truths come of the fact that a devotion to God did not preclude the use of narrative strategies.

If not in all stories, certainly in all mystery stories, the writer works backward. The ending is known and the story is designed to arrive at the ending. If you know the people of the world speak many languages, that is the ending: the story of the Tower of Babel gets you there. The known ending of life is death: the story of Adam and Eve, and the forbidden fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, arrives at that ending. Why do we suffer, why must we die? Well, you see, there was this garden ...

# posted by Gerry Canavan @ 7:11 PM  |