Whenever I’m confronted with the task of explaining some fact or idea in a straightforward, clear manner, I get a little worried. I’m good at academic essays, but when I want to condense some important but slippery truth, I tend toward fiction.
I was reading Pensees by Pascal a few months ago, and I found it interesting how often he mentioned God’s obscurity. I’ve never thought of God as a “hidden God,” but Pascal makes a pretty good argument that God has revealed enough to cause us to seek him further but not enough that all men are convinced by simple reason.
His explanation reminds me of Jesus’ purpose in parables, that those who believe might understand more fully and that those who were spiritual blind would remain blind. Wrestling with a parable draws us deeper into its meaning.
Currently, I’m reading Shadow Show, a collection of short stories honoring Ray Bradbury. Each author has notes at the end explaining how Bradbury influenced them. Margaret Atwood’s notes includes a quote from Elias Carnetti in The Agony of Flies (I’ve never heard of the man or the book) that resonated with me: “To withhold meaning: nothing is quite so unnatural as the constant uncovering of meanings. The merit and the true power of myth: its meaning remains concealed.”
That myths and parables hide meaning, and yet attract the attention and scrutiny of so many, is a part of fiction I have come to appreciate. The art of fiction is to express meaning and truth in such a way that you swallow it almost without thinking. Unless you digest it properly, it just goes right through you. But fiction that is true–that is undergirded and fastened together with truth–can stick to your ribs far longer than some fact or statistic.
(Have I overused the eating metaphor yet? Let’s try a new one. Because nothing makes a good fact more edible than spicing it up with a freshly harvested metaphor.)
I think that’s why I tend toward fiction when I have some concept or epiphany lurking in my brain. To say it, directly, without ornamentation or clothing, just seems, well, naked, like a skeleton. The anatomists like it just fine. But truth is beautiful. It needs skin. And accessories. It needs to dance and fight and weep.
And, if you’re paying attention, it’s quite obvious what hold it all together and makes it move.
Because without a skeleton, it’s just a bag of flesh.