Lightman lectures

"Is it possible for a person to love without wanting love back? Is anything so pure? Or is love, by its nature, a reciprocity, like oceans and clouds, an evaporating of seawater and a replenishing by rain?" (Reunion)

Alan Lightman was on campus giving an Assembly Series lecture on Einstein. He's a novelist and physics professor at MIT. I went to all three of his events. The first was Tuesday night when he read from his novels Diagnosis and Ghost. I'm looking forward to reading Ghost when it comes out October 23, for Halloween I suppose, although it's not that kind of "ghost story." The main character David experiences something supernatural, but he struggles to rationalize the event. It's a book about the nature of both science and religion. Lightman described himself as an "idea" writer, like Kafka. It's a very apt comparison, especially when one considers the other book he read from, Diagnosis, is about a man who suddenly forgets who he is... sort of like suddenly waking up one morning and discovering you're a giant bug.

He didn't like to talk about his "intentions" in his work, or any real details, although he was very polite. He wants the reader to create his or her own meaning. So I didn't ask him about the apocalyptic episode of time we wondered about Catherine. (I'm sorry). When people tried to ask about specific parts of the text, he avoided giving any direct answers and quoted Rilke: 'learn to love the questions themselves.' The most he really said about Einstein's Dreams was that it is a "human behavior book." The depiction of time is "the behavior of time at the psychological level," and he relies on the notion that "all readers have experienced all levels of time" in their lives.

I did ask him about his choice to begin the visionary chapter in Ghost by referencing a "prism of light" on the casket (the scene takes place in a funeral parlor). All he acknowledged was that it was a very deliberate choice. And he told me "thank you." Light is the key to both religious and scientific exploration; the nature of light is one of the great unanswerable questions. Light is time. Einstein was studying light when he developed his theory of relativity. Light is the symbol of good and life. Light is the source. Light ~ particle or wave, or both? It is one of our sacred mysteries.