This reminds me of a discussion here about a week ago, as a result of an item you wrote on Dawkins. It was about biology vs. metaphysics or aesthetics (at least that is how I interpreted it).

I believe that biology is not concerned with whatever we mean when we start to use words like 'in the abstract'.

Philosophically, of course, it is an interesting question. There is nothing wrong with that. Philatelogically, some post stamps are very interesting too.

Of course, everyone, including the philosophers among us, know that the biologists are probably right. We are just not inclined to admit it. The answers they give are
too vulgar for us to appreciate.

I don't question why I prefer shapely legs.

Why I am sometimes satisfied with the opposite... now that is something I question.

I am sure the biologists have an explanation. But maybe their answer is too vulgar for me to appreciate.

Raising beauty

Ah, is it not our ability to love that brings the spectacle of beauty to life?

T.R.

I'm not sure if Paul Rayment, or Coetzee for that matter, is looking for a biological explanation.

Carlos

Paul Rayment has his doubts.

Maybe we confuse love with lust.

Autumn sale

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Arnon, T.R.

I'm sure you are right that Coetzee is not looking for a biological explanation. Quite the opposite, I think T.R. is pointing out that many of us are desperately trying to get away from biological explanations. Mystifications about beauty are a time-honored escape strategy, especially for writers. There is only so much literature in biological explanations. Most novels would shrink to a few paragraphs. Luckily, the protagonists themselves often provide the mystifications. They, like their creators, have a strong incentive to get away from biology.

prone to tired

u kno that's how i b.. or u cld ask mario certainly.. hed remember.. u cld shoot the emanuel and marcet haldeman julius story in marfa.. its dusty enough.. they got some history of making movies.. those silly coen bros shot that cormac thing there
i think whatever the dutch royal family got money in tv wise hit them first..
i knew some hohenzollerns out southampton.. they were sorta bookish.. i bet theyre related.. u tell em to run a check on me.. i gotta a pretty clean record when it come to fucking over rich folk
castelli kept coming didnt he?
n ms sonnabend too
but fuck it they can be wearisome

i dreamed a horror movie.. in this horror movie byron dont drown.. he lives n lives .. he swells byronically...
we get julian schnabel to play the monster
can u feel me?

neria, u wanna get ur money on o henry.. he werent playing.. he really was a fucking magus

see u round child
happy k day

Michel

Some novelists are deeply concerned with biology.

Legs, beauty & biology

And isn't quite a percentage of writers a physician, a biologist etc.?
I won't mention names this time, make your own list.
(It even goes for the Bible. )

Arnon

Like Houellebecq, you mean? Good point. Actually, come to think of it, some of the work of Coetzee that I read also addressed it. I'm thinking of this wonderful parallel he sets up in Disgrace between Lurie's biological drives and those of the dogs he ends up putting to death.

So my previous statement was overgeneralized. I still think T.R. made a good point, that in many cases, thinking about beauty is a form of escape. Not that there is anything wrong with escape, of course.

Hesper

I told you before that you are my favorite name-dropper. But I appreciate you as a copyeditor as well.

Michel

I don't see that TR made the point that beauty, or talking about beauy, is a sort of escape.

bossa screwanova

I appreciate your attempt at originality but is it possible that you make yourself more coherent in your posts as their meaning seems to get a bit lost?

Arnon

Well, maybe he did not mean to say that exactly, I was just trying to credit his comment for being interesting. Sometimes you seem to be remarklably preoccupied with who said what exactly. Maybe you have missed a career in law. I'm pretty sure you would be world class when specializing in slander and sexual harassment.

In "Crash" Ballard shows that injury and disfigurement can have their own strange beauty and erotic fascination.

arnon

do you think the beauty is accidental?

I believe the beauty is deserved, somehow, and that we can feel it. And we are not only attracted by the beauty itself, but even by the causes.

Nurses, for example, they tend to be beautifull. Well, at least in Czech Republic.

Love is pointing out the beauty in others to make us feel handicaped. Its like love is saying to us : 'without possessing the beauty of the other you are not fully human'.

Sander

By the way Sander, I don't know if its supposed to be that way, but when I type a comment I get this black square . Only when I put my cursor on the right spot of this square the place where you are supposed write lights up.( I have G4 apple powerbook)

Bram Eser

Have you told your lover this?

I love the old, the decaying,.the less beautiful.. . It provokes a great tenderness, love in me. Am I abnormal?

Mieke

Abnormal?
No, just female (one with weak arm muscles presumably...).

@Arnon I'm still hoping you tell us what your own answer would be to that question?

Aliefka

My answer to this question is that I kindly asked you to refrain from commenting on this site.

@Arnon Oops, okay yes, blush. I thought somehow I could bury the past. I thought wrong. Do know: my questions was born out of interest, nothing else.

Aliefka

You have not repented yet.

But I thought I had? I bought 100 of your novels and used them to build a shrine. I put your picture on top. Every evening I lit a vanilla scented candle and kneeled before you. 40 days, it was said. Was it the vanilla?