#235 Nachman From Los Angeles- Leonard Michaels
This is a clever piece about metaphysics. Nachman is tricked
by his friend to write a paper for Ali, who is willing to pay him a thousand
dollars. Ali is a Persian prince, handsome, rich and persuasive.
“A line had been crossed. Nachman hadn’t noticed when he
crossed it. Maybe Ali had crossed the line so that, to Nachman’s surprise, it
now lay behind rather than in front of him.”
While he learns about Metaphysics, his field normally being
mathematics, Ali takes him to an expensive dinner flaunting his riches and
power. The conversation they have is contentious: “The conversation was more
like a game of ping-pong than a fight with knives, and yet the hostility was
obvious.”
The story itself becomes an exercise in metaphysics. After
conversing with and experience life with someone like Ali, “Nachman felt that
he was on the verge of grasping the complexities at the highest levels of the
universe.” But then “he’d made Nachman feel meaningless. The idea of himself as
meaningless compared with Ali made Nachman chuckle.”
The paper doesn’t get written down, as if the act of
recording it will nullify its very existence, but if willed hard enough it
still may appear.
Word of the Day: Invidious – likely to arouse or incur resentment
or anger in others. (Google)
Notable Passage: “Love isn’t funny. Love is an example of
what’s real.”
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