Instance
Log24, Feb. 25, 2004: From a review by Adam White Scoville of Iain Pears’s novel titled An Instance of the Fingerpost: “Perhaps we are meant to see the story as a cubist Another instance:
The film “Barabbas” (1962) shown on Turner Classic Movies at 8 PM Friday, Nov. 10.
Compare and contrast–
retelling of the crucifixion, as Pilate, Barabbas, Caiaphas, and Mary
Magdalene might have told it. If so, it is sublimely done so that the
realization gradually and unexpectedly dawns upon the reader. The
title, taken from Sir Francis Bacon, suggests that at certain times,
‘understanding stands suspended’ and in that moment of clarity
(somewhat like Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time,’ I think), the answer will become apparent as if a fingerpost were pointing at the way.”
- Barabbas emerging from prison as if from Plato’s cave, and Barabbas’s vision of Christ in blinding sunlight: “Flung into
the sunlight, he stands blinking at a young man in white robes; is it
merely the unaccustomed light that dazzles his eyes, or does he really
see a radiance streaming from the young man’s face?” –TIME Magazine, 1962 - 1 Peter 2 on Christ as the “living stone”
- The cover of the novel Stone 588 shown in Friday’s 11:20 PM entry
The film is based on the novel by Par Lagerkvist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Lagerkvist novel may be of more enduring interest than Stone 588, but, as Friday’s lottery numbers indicate, even lesser stories have their place.
