Interstellar

I do not write movie reviews. And this is not a movie review either. I was thinking of the science behind 'Interstellar' after watching the movie yesterday. But what triggered me is the fact that this gave an opening to discuss physics with the kids.

'Interstellar' has some cool physics strewn all around it. Wormholes, black holes, tesseracts and the all consuming gravity everywhere. It is easy to fall prey to the fascinating concepts versus the reality of how it is depicted. There is enough of that nitpicking going all around the net (sample here).

When we came out of the theater, Vanathy trashed the movie and said it would be better if  we've watched 'Big Hero 6' another time.

But she was curious about what has happened in the movie and she started by telling us (me and Sibi) the story of Isaac Newton seeing the apple falling down and realizing gravity in the midst. It gave the opening to start the discussion on how gravity works and how it affects time relatively.

Sibi has read a few things on it himself and so was interjecting with questions of his own on relativity and Einstein.

I read the 'Theory of Relativity' in an erstwhile Soviet hand book on an 'Introduction to Physics'. I don't remember understanding anything. It was full of discussion on Frames of reference, thought experiments, the moving trains and of course, gravity. It took a while but the 'Eureka' moment did happen in the middle of a biology class (taken by my beloved Jemima miss who was particularly fond of me to an extent that she usually sends me out of class when she comes in!). I was able to connect gravity, time and mass.

George Gamow did the incredible with his easy books on physics explaining the basic concepts of big things. I was scouring the old book stalls around the Meenakshi Amman temple for more reading on relativity and usually found something.

So it was that we started discussing relativity. Vanathy fell asleep fast but Sibi had a load of questions. I was just glad that I was able to answer them to a large extent possible. The multidimensional world is not something that you understand immediately as it is almost impossible to  visualize. So it was. While we could discuss the one-dimensional or the two-dimensional worls easily and he was able to understand and visualize a bit easily, the fourth dimension was a bit difficult to introduce. But I am sure he will have his 'Eureka' moment sometime in the coming days. By the time we went to bed, we've been discussing time travel, worm holes and a lot more.

So it was that though I've a mixed liking to the movie itself, one thing it did inspire is to start a discussion around Physics which I think is more than what is expected out of a movie anyway. For that, a big thanks to Nolan.

Story of the Eye

It is not expected that a book which is deemed pornographic will leave anyone depressed. The book may have its faults in the way it progresses but the accomplished objective of such a book is to leave one on a high and not feel depressed.

'Story of Eye' by Georges Bataille is supposed to be a book what, in literary circles, is called a 'Transgressive fiction'. It runs through the sexual exploits of the narrator (who remains unnamed) and Simone, a girl with an insatiable(if it can be called that!) and perverse sexual desire. It can also be called a pornographic fiction (as it was called multiple times after its publication).

It took me about two and a half hours to finish reading it. More intrigued by the 'adventures' of the couple across varied locations it was simply a page-turner. And it is only about 100 pages long and starts off with Simone reaching her orgasm in the midst of a thunderstorm, in the middle of the road, beside the corpse of a cyclist they ran over. Simone just has a fetish for pain, humiliation, bodily fluids and what not. It is transgressive, of course.

Transgression, as a word, does not imply all that that can be made to be called such. Dostoevsky's 'Crime and punishment' is transgressive. It details the life of the people living on the edge in the metropolis and tells the tale without any word plays or gimmicks. It does not preach any morals but leaves that to the reader to deign the meaning of the tale.

'Story of Eye' does not pretend to be something it is not. It does not try. It is impossible to read it  purely because of the impossible situations in which Simone finds herself in and derives pleasure from, without putting oneself in that same place. The book immerses one in the situations, however improbable and impossible it may be. It is difficult to stand aside and watch the goings on .

What the Eye in the title refers to, is the obsession Simone has with all objects associated with Eye and the shape it represents. There are repeated references to the Eye, Sun, Moon, Testicles. What it represent is left to one's conjecture.They represent the almost mad-in-the-world eyes fetish Simone has with all things that relate to it. Or is it Simone?

Georges Bataille's epilogue explains a bit. He grew up with a blind father who urinates wherever he is and suspects his wife of adultery with his doctor. That may be the obsession with the eyes.

But the way Simone approaches it, it becomes a deeply personal experience. The eye (or the bull's testicle) as the case may be, becomes a ball/sphere once it detaches from the socket or the bull. Is it still an eye if it is not attached to the body? The de-humanization this brings into the novel is deeply disturbing and relieving at once. After all, Simone is not getting her orgasm with an eyeball stuck in her vagina, it is only a spherical fleshy-mush.

This was supposed to be a pornographic novel. An average Tamil movie will titillate you more than this book. For me, the intensity of the experience is not in the sex but the revolting nature of it all around. An egg becomes a potent symbol of all the transgressions in the book from absolute orgy to murder.

And the book is not for the prude and squeamish. The absolutely pervert nature of sex as in this book does not titillate but depresses mind. The focus is on the search for an explanation to the multiple violations of the sanctity of the life and death and the imagery of it all with eggs broken, testicles served in platter reaching the crescendo in the final act of Simone murdering the curate slowly while having sex. Nothing explains it more than human nature.

Or otherwise, you can just skip all the explanations and read it.