The way of Don Cupitt

Perhaps it is more prudent to aspire not to misinterpret Don Cupitt rather than to try to interpret him. By design, his is a distinctive literature. In the eighties, developments in his philosophical views about language alerted him to the superficially self-stultifying nature of the task of stating in language a conviction about language which, if true, should disable the statement in language of that conviction. So he turned to a stratagem of subversion, of so using the printed page that the communication is indirect, though he did so without recourse to a prosaic theory of indirect communication. This makes for a style that is mercurial; its bodily rhythms purr. And that is potentially daunting for those who become aware of their own comparatively humdrum literary shufflings. Certainly it makes one think twice about using the word ‘interpreting’ when applying oneself to remarking on the literature.