[100 Challenge] DanJi’s reading note_49

The Beauty of Dusk
Frank Bruni (31 OCT, 1964~ )
Publisher: Avid Reader Press/ Simon & Schuster
Published: 4 MAY, 2022

"Can't you see this?" we ask an ignorant person. "You finally opened your eyes." This is the saying to the person who has enlightened something new. When we direct something, we start with the word 'look,' and someone recognizes and understands our 'point of view.' Perspective is a flexible word that refers to both the spatial and the mental. And 'intelligence' is etymologically and linguistically close to 'foresight' and 'retro hindsight.' All three words use visual or eye-related vocabulary to indicate sharp and intellectual observation. Of course, 'I got it,' 'I sympathize,' or 'I sympathize with your pain' have similar double meanings but not as thoroughly double as the previous expressions. When someone does not understand the current situation, the expression 'blind' is called 'earful,' but 'blind' is used more often. There is a 'blind spot' but not a 'farm spot'. And to someone who deeply and especially understands the world, 'there is a 'vision,' and to someone whose grand plans have energized, the expression 'have a vision' is also used.
This aligns with the obsession with the eyes in literature and paintings. The eyes are the "mirrors of the soul." "Real names seem to be literary metaphors with irresistible appeal." Blind writer, performer, and educator M. Riona Goong wrote in 『Plant Eyes』. According to the book, which was published in 2021, various examples of the use of real names as convenient devices for creating fables, metaphors, and plots are found in the Bible, in Homer's epic poems, short stories, and even in George R. R. Martin's feature-length epic The Song of Ice and Fire. ``The blind observer, in particular, is now a cliché because he is such a fundamental element. It will not be easy to find a science fiction or fantasy novel that does not feature blind people,'' Go said.
While the eye is also a sign of strength, it is often more vulnerable. From Oedipus in Sophocles's immortal tragedy to the Count of Gloucester in Shakespeare's play King Lear to the countless victims of a novel or movie about a serial killer, losing one's eye is both the worst fall and the ultimate horror. Not being able to see is the ultimate danger in itself. Audrey Hepburn's 1967 thriller Until Dark and Uma Thurman's Blinding 25 Years Later in The Jennifer Serial Killing expressed something no clever description could explain. Their disabilities confirm that they are easy prey to ruthless predators or anxious audiences. They are easier to deceive or dominate than those who can see the killer's approach with their own eyes. Whether in science fiction, in a bonding group, or in a mutually agreed bed of two adults, it is usually not the ears people cover in a trust game—the eyes.
For those who have never experienced it or have not had to consider it seriously, blindness is the same as some cosmological hand that is unthinkable, unbearable, and unplugging the power of the universe. Knowing that my vision is dangerous would be quite different from receiving similar notifications about hearing, touch, taste, and smell, even though I was not mainly in that category. In our minds, in our bones, in our five intestines, vision is the unrivaled monarch of the senses.