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Today I went out and bought Coraline and read it, because that’s what I do. It was a very good book, except for the hour when it vanished on me, eventually turning up on my desk, where I’d left it. (I expect it was off conversing with my copy of Milton, and I hope they became quick enough friends that I can lure it back with threats of a hostage situation.)
There are times when you’re walking in the fog and you can’t see your destination, and you’re given to wonder if maybe the world has forgotten that it’s supposed to be there. I don’t know if that was the feeling Neil Gaiman was going for; in any case, it was excellent.
But this is not news, or even what I wanted to say.
While I was reading, I became very bemused by a thought: it’s like math. Which it was, of course, because I had hit the part where they walked off in a straight line and ended up where they started. It was like trying to walk in a line on a sphere – there were too many dimensions.
It’s like math, I said to myself. This was somewhat abstract, so I clarified. Math is *scary*.
Well, yes, replied my brain. I was there when you took it. I remember.
Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, I said. I mean, it makes you think.
…, said my brain, not amused (and, I fear, vaguely insulted).
What I mean is this: the best fantasy, the stuff that gives me goosebumps, is never just about people with wings or mindreading or spacecraft, but about the nature of reality. And what I mean, as I tried to explain to myself, is this: whatever little thrill we suffer by suspecting the universe isn’t quite what it should be, mathematics can match.
And I mean not only that staring into the abyss of infinity can drive a man mad.
( Terror by Numbers )
I suppose that any way of looking at reality can be unnerving, really. It’s just that literature and physics get most of the attention, and I think math deserves some too. There is a romance in math, wherein the numbers become more real than the world, that is akin to the romance in fine art or books, but less people tend to look for it.
There are times when you’re walking in the fog and you can’t see your destination, and you’re given to wonder if maybe the world has forgotten that it’s supposed to be there. I don’t know if that was the feeling Neil Gaiman was going for; in any case, it was excellent.
But this is not news, or even what I wanted to say.
While I was reading, I became very bemused by a thought: it’s like math. Which it was, of course, because I had hit the part where they walked off in a straight line and ended up where they started. It was like trying to walk in a line on a sphere – there were too many dimensions.
It’s like math, I said to myself. This was somewhat abstract, so I clarified. Math is *scary*.
Well, yes, replied my brain. I was there when you took it. I remember.
Oh, I didn’t mean it like that, I said. I mean, it makes you think.
…, said my brain, not amused (and, I fear, vaguely insulted).
What I mean is this: the best fantasy, the stuff that gives me goosebumps, is never just about people with wings or mindreading or spacecraft, but about the nature of reality. And what I mean, as I tried to explain to myself, is this: whatever little thrill we suffer by suspecting the universe isn’t quite what it should be, mathematics can match.
And I mean not only that staring into the abyss of infinity can drive a man mad.
( Terror by Numbers )
I suppose that any way of looking at reality can be unnerving, really. It’s just that literature and physics get most of the attention, and I think math deserves some too. There is a romance in math, wherein the numbers become more real than the world, that is akin to the romance in fine art or books, but less people tend to look for it.
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