thesis thoughts (i)

AT PRESENT: still as-yet unable to articulate what exactly (as opposed to exactly what) it is that I'm writing about, despite having read (everything) I can find on the subject. the mysterious subject. the subject about which I can say nothing definite besides that it is The Subject. but I can give you a general idea?

• there is A Reason out there -- perhaps not my raison d'être, but it's close. it's the reason I so love BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: humanity, yes (and how -- my brother often walks in while I'm watching it & complains that it's not as "futuristically focused" as its name would have it. "DIRTY HANDS" did this more than most; give me another show that has an entire subplot devoted to collective bargaining rights. in space. mais I digress.) humanity, but also good science + scientists, engineers, doctors. plus a healthy dose of UNKNOWN in the form of the cylon god. it's this UNKNOWN in which I'm interested, but only in its sci-fi setting.
• which brings me to INTERSTELLAR -- I'm interested in that particular thing in that particular setting because sci-fi ought to be able to explain everything. it tends to overexplain, in the case of William Gibson. but when confronted with this UNKNOWN, it can't. the characters -- civilizations, whatever -- are at a loss. the book/film/show ends with this unknown still unknown. this is where INTERSTELLAR & 2001 diverge. (this is also where I ought to stop using italics to make my point.) the former loves explanation too much! the latter leaves all things up in the air. there are those -- physics majors usually -- who appreciated INTERSTELLAR's explanation of its own climax. I thought I would; I didn't. I am not religious, but I'd have preferred the fifth-dimensional humans to be gods; they are, I suppose (in their incredible difference from us), god-level, but they are never explicitly referred to as gods. perhaps that's the point. perhaps I'm missing it completely. anyway, an excess of quantum physics does not always a compelling story make.
• that said, these are the books I've read: MISS SMILLA'S FEELING FOR SNOW (not at all science fiction, but mystery, which tends to have the same problem; also, chock-full, at least in the beginning, of lovely Euclidean metaphors) & EINSTEIN'S DREAMS (the whimsical end of speculative fiction, ridiculous notions of time interspersed with the publication of the theory of relativity itself) & SOLARIS (the most fitting: direct mention of the UNKNOWN being a godlike figure, but a fallible god, a childlike god -- read it!)
• so: mankind! womankind! humankind! versus the unknown. books that refuse to explain themselves. this is getting more concrete by the...week.

lastly: fully aware that this is a thesis of little consequence, as theses go -- but damn it if I haven't been asking everyone what they plan to write about, even if I don't know myself what I plan to write about, beyond ~vagueness~.

the choice says a lot about a person, I think, as do most choices involving books. currently reading: Mann's BUDDENBROOKS, introduced to me by my interviewer for [redacted; nobody needs to know where I'm applying! because nobody else tells me the truth about where they're applying! & I'm not high-minded enough to rise above the struggle, it seems.] it's her favorite novel. an inversion of P&P, so far, and German to boot.