Brain Pain discussion

This topic covers chapter 7, The Constellations, p. 175 - 184

This is another short, contained chapter, and this time Bachelard touches on the night sky and the constellations, primarily pointing out what seems obvious: that the traditional figures of the constellations are just archaic imaginings. Taking these figures at face value is only a bookish and pedantic way of missing the real poetry of the night sky as it is.

Incidentally, this chapter is also an apology of slowness, and specifically slowness in reading: "Le lecteur "saute les descriptions" parce qu'on ne lui a pas appris à goûter "l'imagination littéraire"." (The reader "skips the descriptions" because he has not been taught to appreciate "literary imagination", José Corti edition, p. 207). And a bit futher on, he adds: "Comme elle est fausse cette littérature qui presse tout, qui ne nous laisse pas le temps de lire ses images." (How wrong is this literature that rushes everything, that does not give us time to read its images).

How true is this!