What I'm Reading...
A one sitting read about robots...on a plane...over Amsterdam
I once saw an interview with Kenny Smith, host of Inside of the NBA, where he talked about writing his memoir while traveling.
He was sitting next to a psychologist on a plane and they introduced themselves to each other. Smith was tired and set to take a snooze during the flight. She told him not to sleep and to do something creative because the brain thinks better while in the air. It’s the altitude or the cabin pressure or both. It’s basically science.
He didn’t go to sleep and started writing what would become his memoir.
Was this a real thing? Did your brain work better in the air?
This Spring, while flying from Casablanca to Amsterdam, I pulled out a short novella I had packed for the trip.
‘The Plotinus,’ by Rikki Ducornet.
Here was the experiment. Could I read an entire novella in 3 hours? Would I be able to focus long enough to read an entire piece (something I’ve only done with ‘No Crystal Stair’) in one sitting?
Would the story bore me and if it did, would the cabin pressure push me through?
With no tablet, and no movies, I cracked open the book and started reading.
While on a morning walk a young man is arrested by a robot called the Plotinus.
In this unnamed country, they arrest people who create magazines that tell the truth of the world.
The young man is thrown in a cell and given just enough to keep him alive.
Hallucinations come. He starts a friendship with a bee that enters his cell. He reminisces about his love and the days before the robots engulfed time.
As the days and weeks drag on, the young man’s optimism starts to wane along with his will to continue.
When I finished the 71 pages of ‘The Plotinus,’ I checked the time and realized I still had another hour on the flight.
Was the book that good or was it the cabin pressure?
Seventy one pages of prose with minimum breaks and it seemed like I had read 15 pages.
Maybe there was something to creativity and the brain while in the air.
Maybe this clairvoyant novella was just what I needed before returning to a country full of metaphoric Plotinus.
Maybe we are meant to live in the clouds, so our brains can think properly.
Maybe the next time I’m on a plane, I’ll read a longer book or start a new one of my own.