Retelling the Story.
Or
Telling it like it is.
John Bayley, in his editor’s introduction to Pushkin’s verse novel ‘Eugene Onegin’, points out that all great stories tell not only the author’s intended narrative but also allow the reader to see present in that story their own concerns, ideas and history, even to the extent that in retelling the story the reader will make significant changes, sometimes just by choice of words and emphasis, but also sometimes by actually changing the plot.
This is perhaps most obvious in folk tales that get told and retold in different times and places as people recycle the meanings for their own situations. It can also be seen in the adaption of novels for film or television drama where not only attempts at historical costume mirror the age in which the adaptation was created but also the language and ideas that are given prominence from the original text reflect contemporary concerns and sensibilities.
John Bayley gives an example relevant to ‘Eugene Onegan’, he reports that Dostoyevsky gave a magnificent Eulogy at the memorial in Moscow for the fiftieth anniversary of Pushkin’s death at which he made reference to ‘Eugene Onegan’, but that he misrepresented the plot by making out the two main characters to be archetypes of the national Russian character and by actually increasing significantly the age of the character that one of them marries. “All of which goes to show,” the writer Nabokov drily remarked, “that Dostoyevsky had not really read Eugene Onegan.”
He had of course read it, and thought about it, and retold it in his own mind, but perhaps we never read exactly what the author writes, at least not in a tale sufficiently good to engage our imaginations and feelings. Is it true to say that nobody retells mediocre stories so they do not suffer from misrepresentation?
As it is my job to tell and retell the stories of the bible I was struck by the
implications of all this for biblical interpretation. The bible is a story book, a book of numerous stories told in varied ways - poetical, theological, historical and allegorical to name but a few. The stories, especially in the Old Testament, were probably told and retold through generations before they were written down in the form we know them today.
If they are any good a preacher retelling one of these ancient stories will draw out contemporary meanings and enable the listeners to find relevancies to their own lives. One would think from the way that it is written that the bible was designed for this purpose, reading bible stories gives rise to questions and conversations, to telling of our own stories, to wondering about meaning, or at least it does if such things are allowed and encouraged by the church context.
However it seems to me that so much Christian teaching seeks to impose one single understanding on any particular bible story, an understanding that usually articulates the particular set of doctrines that define the denomination from within which the preacher is speaking and express neither the concerns of the writer of the passage nor those of the congregation but rather those of some theologian from the history. The process of retelling which keeps the story relevant gets stuck at some past historical point and the bible seems irrelevant to contemporary ears.
In my experience one of the great glories of the bible is that it invites a holy conversation about meaning, a conversation that is not the business of the minister to determine but of the Holy Spirit to guide. The bible does not come with a definitive interpretive manual it comes with the Holy Spirit, who as Jesus said, “will guide you into all truth.” (John 16:13)
All great stories tell not only the author’s intended narrative but also allow the reader to see present in that story their own concerns, ideas and history, and the greatest book of such stories is the bible. At best historical understanding can be offered as examples of what other people have made of a bible story, but other people’s understandings are like other people’s shoes, they don’t quite fit your feet, you have to break in your own shoes.
Much of which John Bayley did not intend by writing his introduction on Pushkin’s ‘Eugene Onegan’, but I hope he takes it as a compliment that I think his writing sufficiently great to allow me to form my own narrative in response.
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