I’ve heard it argued that long ago pain begat consciousness. To avoid serious damage a simple creature needs to evolve the whips and goads of a subjective loop, of a felt experience. Not just a red warning light in the head – who’s there to see it? – but a sting, an ache, a throb that hurts. Adversity forced awareness on us, and it Works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self. And if that Works, why not feeling disgust for shit, fearing the Cliff edge and strangers, remembering insults and favours, liking sex and food? God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually.
First time reading Ian McEwan. Man, what a prose. The writing so perfectly formed, beautiful and clever. Think I’m falling in love.
Letters from Indra 