He wondered why the ship did not sink. He was so unaccustomed to thinking that he found the mental activity novel and entertaining. “I need to get out more,” he told himself. There must be, he supposed, clear and compelling physical reasons why a vessel, even though heavier than water, did not simply go under. But what those reasons were was another matter entirely.
We continue with the aftereffects of having read César Aira. Admittedly, I am forcing his appearance into these lines, just as he forces his plots and seems to challenge himself with the subjects he chooses for his novels. The reason ships do not sink is the Archimedes’ principle, a fairly well-known principle, buoyancy and all that. Anyone who has raised an eyebrow at the saintly protagonist’s ignorance should ask themselves why airplanes fly, and they will see that the answer, although it also involves lift, is not quite so simple.
Fortunately, this is one of the things that makes us more human and sets us apart from animals: we do not need to know, down to the very last detail, how every technological advance we use in our everyday lives actually wor
