persons from the Koran and the life of the Prophet. He knew not everyone would understand his ironic
version of a holy text; what he could not imagine was that he could be so far misunderstood as to induce
a fatwa, a sentence of death, to be issued against him. In modern literature, many Christ figures (which I
will discuss in more detail inChapter 14 ) are somewhat less than Christlike, a disparity that does not
inevitably go down well with religious conservatives. Quite often, though, ironic parallels are lighter, more
comic in their outcome and not so likely to offend. In Eudora Welty’s masterful story “Why I Live at the
P.O.” (1941), the narrator is engaged in a sibling rivalry with her younger sister, who has come home
after leaving under suspicious if not actually disgraceful circumstances. The narrator, Sister, is outraged at
having to cook two chickens to feed five people and a small child just because her “spoiled” sister has
come home. What Sister can’t see, but we can, is that those two fowl are really a fatted calf. It may not
be a grand feast by traditional standards, but it is a feast, as called for upon the return of the Prodigal
Son, even if the son turns out to be a daughter. Like the brothers in the parable, Sister is irritated and
envious that the child who left, and ostensibly used up her “share” of familial goodwill, is instantly
welcomed, her sins so quickly forgiven.
Then there are all those names, those Jacobs and Jonahs and Rebeccas and Josephs and Marys and
Stephens and at least one Hagar. The naming of a character is a serious piece of business in a novel or
play. A name has to sound right for a character—Oil Can Harry, Jay Gatsby, Beetle Bailey—but it also
has to carry whatever message the writer wants[want] to convey about the character or the story. In
Song of Solomon (1977), Toni Morrison’s main family chooses names by allowing the family Bible to
fall open, then pointing without looking at the text; whatever proper noun the finger points to, there’s the
name. That’sp. 54how you get a girl child in one generation named Pilate and one in the next named First
Corinthians. Morrison uses this naming practice to identify features of the family and the community.
What else can you possibly use—the atlas? Is there any city or hamlet or river in the world that tells us
what we’re told by “Pilate”? In this case, the insight is not into the character so named, for no one could
be less like Pontius Pilate than the wise, generous, giving Pilate Dead. Rather, her manner of naming tells
us a great deal about the society that would lead a man, Pilate’s father, to have absolute faith in the
efficacy of a book he cannot read, so much so that he is guided by a principle of blind selection.
Okay, so there are a lot of ways the Bible shows up. But isn’t that a problem for anyone who isn’t
exactly...
A Bible scholar? Well, I’m not. But even I can sometimes recognize a biblical allusion. I use something I
think of as the “resonance test.” If I hear something going on in a text that seems to be beyond the scope
of the story’s or poem’s immediate dimensions, if it resonates outside itself, I start looking for allusions to
older and bigger texts. Here’s how it works.
At the end of James Baldwin’s story “Sonny’s Blues” (1957), the narrator sends a drink up to the
bandstand as a gesture of solidarity and acceptance to his brilliantly talented but wayward brother,
Sonny, who takes a sip and, as he launches into the next song, sets the drink on the piano, where it
shimmers “like the very cup of trembling.” I lived for a good while not knowing where that phrase came
from, although to the extent I thought about it, I was pretty sure. The story is so rich and full, the pain and
redemption so compelling, the language so wonderful throughout, I didn’t need to dwell on the last line
for several readings. Still, there was something happening there—a kind of resonance, a sense that
there’s something meaningful beyond the simple meaning of the words. Peter Frampton says that E major
is the great rock chord; all youp. 55have to do to set off pandemonium in a concert is to stand onstage
alone and strike a big, fat, full E major. Everybody in the arena knows what that chord promises. That
sensation happens in reading, too. When I feel that resonance, that “fat chord” that feels heavy yet
sparkles with promise or portent, it almost always means the phrase, or whatever, is borrowed from
somewhere else and promises special significance. More often than not, particularly if the borrowing feels
different in tone and weight from the rest of the prose, that somewhere is the Bible. Then it’s a matter of