The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

Books

Powell's Books: A Baker's Dozen Special Edition
Adam Lehrer , August 22nd, 2020 08:03

Electronic music producer Powell picks favourite books by Baudrillard, Derrida, Kafka, and Susan Sontag

Collapse_3___rosny_1597943127_resize_460x400

Rosny, JH the Elder, Another World
This essay by Rosny is about this child who grows up weird looking and people don’t realise that he’s different until he’s three or four. It’s like he’s half human and half some different other species that no one can see. I can’t remember the names of these life forms, but it’s this population of weird organisms that stretch and float. No one believes the boy because they can’t see it, until this scientist sees and believes. And then his discovery of what he can see opens up whole new paths to think about how humans see the world. That idea of things beyond our sight, and the assumptions we make about nature, science and beings, fascinates me. The way he described movement is very Deleuzian. And again it was musical, and opened up a different way of seeing and hearing music for me. You don't know these other spaces exist until you make space to see them.