The glass bead game (8th of October 2010)
I don't like thick books, unless they are dictionaries or historical overviews. In all other cases, including the scientific
literature, I prefer thin books. They have an end, one gets the impression that it all leads somewhere in a reasonable amount of
time. That is the reason for the thinness of the book that I wrote ( >> Problem of the observer).
Tell me clearly your idea, your feeling, do not bother me with digressions and use the style to hide the lack of inspiration.
I have very little interest in that. Besides, who has the time for that?
Still, I did read some thick books. For example "The Brothers Karamazov" or >> "The Master and Margarita". I intentionally mention these two books because they contain pieces that could had also been written as
thin and inspirational books. Here I have in mind the chapters on Yeshua Ha-Nozri (Jesus from Nazareth) and Pontius Pilate, that are
by far the best part of "The Master and Margarita" and "The Grand Inquisitor" from
"The Brothers Karamazov" that has actually been published separately. The thin books that are equally inspirational and that come
to my mind are "The Stranger" (of course) and "The Metamorphosis".
These days I rarely strugle with thick books. In fact, these days I rarely strugle with thin book also. So much is written, and most of it is no good. That is why I generally start reading first couple of pages, and if that's no good, I check several more pages from some place in the book that I open randomly, and if that is also no good, I leave the book immediately. I do not have time to continue with such matters. From more recent books that I rejected in such a way, I certainly remember two books by Michel Houllebecq which were no good at all ("The Elementary Particles", or "Atomized" as it was translated in English, and something else...). I am sure that my opinion on the quality of these books would be the same even if I read them properly, but according to my judgement they were not worthy of my time. In fact, that is not such a bad idea - to list all the books that I rejected upon "inspection". That would be a wholly different literary list.
My degenerate relation towards book was certainly influenced by >> "The Glass Bead Game" from Hermann Hesse. That is a thick book, but I read it in my younger years when I still had certain respect for the authorities (just remember who wins the Nobel prizes these days, and it was that way earlier also...). So I read the book all the way to the last twenty pages. That was a unique experience for me because after reading more than five hundred pages, I simply could not force myself into finishing the last twenty. That is why I do not know what happened in the end. After all the time that passed, I do not in fact remember what was in the beginning of that book, but I know that the book is no good. Today I would possibly read first twenty pages, although there is a small probability that I read the book when I was too young for it which I sincerely doubt because I do remember that the thing that bothered me then was over-intelectualization in places where there was no need for it whatsoever. That bothers me today also.
This story serves only to explain the title of this post. It would fit on a single page of a thick book so I consider it to be justified.
Glass beads. Marbles... The wealth of a boy. Colorful and beautiful little things that influence the light in such an unusual way.
Children see it better than adults, the adults accustom to the "deception". How much the glass of the marble contributes to the
overall visual information can be best seen from the image below where the "marbles" with and without a glass part are shown in
parallel. It is also interesting to note the importance of the dependence of the index of refraction on the wavelength of
light (color) - this is included in the calculation of the images shown. This contributes to smearing and rainbow-like coloring
of the edges in parts of the image. For visual information that we associate we glass this is an important effect.
I remember games with glass beads when I was a kid and favorite marbles that looked completely differently from the
"usual" ones that could be bought in kiosks. So, here you have them... They are not "real", but are certainly shiny and
colorful. The boy's dream.
P.S. Don't let the palm elude you. Do you see it?
| << Computer naive art | Membrane collapse >> |
Last updated on 8th of October 2010.