Ambiguity
Way back when I went to school we read novels. Big lumps of processed tree sandwiched around black dye and filled with moral goodness. We opened them and we read them and we didn’t stop until they were all gone: chewed, digested and circulating through our veins. This was the wholesome diet that helped us face the world and our examiners. We trusted that the right ratios of Shakespeare and Dickens would give us the strength to face down the ambiguities of the world. It didn’t work, of course. Or it didn’t work for long. Maybe at school we were prepared to kid ourselves that Shakespeare and Dickens provided some kind of certainty that might shelter us from the rain. At University it quickly became evident that there are no certainties to be found in any writer who is worth reading. Ambiguity is the essence of great writing and the masters revel in it. Ambiguity isn’t easy to examine, however, and the mass education projects of the mid 20 th century struggled to know how to...