The blind French author (1924–1971) of the memoir And There Was Light, whom Bob and Cameron recover from memory (after fumbling toward the name) as the source of one of McLuhan's recurring images. McLuhan kept "bringing up" the book because moving into something essentially new "cannot be seen through the rearview mirror" but requires "a groping like a blind person." Cameron seizes the grim aptness of Lusseyran's death — blind in a car accident in 1971 — as a passage "from a live blindness to a dead blindness." New to him — start with dialogue 46, the safe-cracker and the tumblers.
Across the dialogues
Enters as the blind author of And There Was Light — McLuhan's image for groping into a future the rearview mirror can't show — whose death blind in a 1971 car accident Cameron reads as passing from a live to a dead blindness
Bob fixes the dates off Wikipedia — the blind author of And There Was Light lived 1924 to 1971.
"he lived from 1924 to 1971"
The aptness Cameron seizes — Lusseyran, cited to figure moving blind into the unknown, died blind in a car crash, passing "from a live blindness to a dead blindness."
"he died in a car accident."
Why McLuhan cited him — the transformation into something essentially new can't be seen "through the rearview mirror" but requires a blind groping, McLuhan's recurrent image drawn from Lusseyran's memoir.
"It requires a groping like a blind person, which is one of the reasons that McLuhan was always bringing up the book, Let There Be Light or whatever it was called."
Connections
McLuhan's recurring image of groping blind into the unknown, drawn from Lusseyran's memoir And There Was Light.