No Man's Sky (Blog Letter)

Over at the marvellously eclectic Zenpundit, Charles Cameron sends me a blog letter that mashes together my recent lightweight post on atheology with my recent featherweight post on No Man’s Sky. Written in what Charles terms a “poetico-philosophical” language, it combines Borges’ Library of Babel, the Zen koan about the moon, and apophatic theology. Here’s an extract:

The marks, the comma and period, I am habituated to. They are articulation points among the bare bones of the letters, bodying them out into words, langue, langue, language – again, fire and insight, but also scratches, pecked out with pen, keyboard or chisel – but space.

And I was reading about this game, No Man’s Sky, this game gaming space, deep space, as the books within Borges’ book, within Borges and now shared out among us, game all possible verbal coherences with all possible incoherences, all partials, wholes, and almost nothings, an “a” that may be word or mark, an ‘o” that may close the book, galaxy, universe, be zero, lack sound or howl fury.. and those illimitable periods, commas, spaces.

You can read the entirety of Charles’ No Man’s Sky over at Zenpundit. It feels difficult to adequately respond to something written in this style, but in the spirit of the Republic of Bloggers, I will give it a go…

Comments

[Charles Cameron]

Thanks, Chris:

I'd searched in vain for the phrasing you use to describe the idea of a correspondence, using the keyword "letters" which got me nowhere -- and here you give me the very phrase i was looking for, "Republic of Bloggers" -- together with a link to your page on that topic.

I've used both in a comment on my own post, and note that "Republic of Letters" is close cousin to my own long-time interest, the "Invisible College".

So thanks for the pointer, and it seems our interests overlap once more very nicely!

[Chris]

It is I who must thank you Charles, for remaining in contact! I've successfully drafted a blog letter in reply, which will run early next week. You have my gratitude for the exchange, and as always, the digital spectre of my friendship.