He Did Not Speak To Them Without A Parable or What's up with the Jabberwocky or Why We Must Read Cheney's Dark Mind

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe."

Sweet Jesus! The New Testament in the belly of the whale? What does Mark have to say about parables--"Using many parables like these (parable of the sower, lamp, measure, mustard seed), he spoke the word ot them, so far as they were capable of understanding it. He would not speak to them except in parables, but he explained everything to his disciples when alone." [courtesy of The Jerusalem Bible]

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"

So the necessity of obscuring language out in view, yet when alone the meaning revealed. A rite is involved, a select community is called upon, narrative conceals and reveals. And as in Kafka's parable of the admittance to the Law, it appears each of us has a moment of interpretation: "No one but you could gain admittance through this door, since this door was intended only for you. I am now going to shut it." [courtesy Parables and Paradoxes, Kafka--Before the Law translated by Willa and Edwin Muir]

"He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought --So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought."

The inestimable Sir Frank Kermode in his parabolic / non-parabolic text "The Genesis of Secrecy" states an important defintion of parable: "Parable,it seems, may proclaim a truth as a herald does, and at the same time conceal truth like an oracle." "Proclamation and concealment" as Sir Frank goes on to define.

"And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came!"

The use of herald and oracle (think Oedipus) presents a message to be heard but not necessarily understood, though later on, if one is part of the club, that meaning may be revealed to you. O frabjous day, callooh callay!

"One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back."

Notwithstanding or standing Hobbes injunction against metaphors: " . . . when they use words metaphorically; that is, in other sense than they are ordained for; and thereby deceive others"(Leviathan Chap. 4). We are confronted with a deception of language that neccessitates our interaction, our interpretation.

"A Signe, is the Event Antecedent, of the Consequent; and contrarily, the Consequent of the Antecedent, when like Consequences have been observed, before: And the oftener they have been observed, the lesse uncertain is the Signe. And therefore he that has most experience in any kind of businesse, has most Signes, whereby to guesse at the Future time . . . ." (Leviathan, Chap. 3).

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy."

Which brings me to the New York Times and Dick Cheney. The NYT reported yesterday that the Vice-President was ignoring requests by the National Archives for information on the classification of documents, and going a step further, by seeking the eliminatino of that agency. Above the continuation of this article in the newspaper, the Times published an article on the imminent release of CIA documents concerning covert activities. An implicit quesiton arisies: what is the nature of secrecy in a society, what's supposed to be a secret in a whale, and without the ability to interpret the secrets how can we possibly gain admittance to the law or save ourselves?

"Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. "