The fall is a displacement of the ordinary, a moment of peril in which the body is given over to gravity. Both the imagined and enacted state of the fall affirm the physicality of existence, while invoking cultural realities and spiritual conditions. The fall speaks to these times and, as a now-prevalent motif, it invites examination.
Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses begins with an unforgettable description of the extended free-fall of two men following a jet explosion. ...