A Lecture on Johnson and Boswell by Jorge Luis Borges
nybooks.com
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The Lottery in Babylon and The Library of Babel, in particular, are combinatorial horror stories. They take simple concepts and slowly unfold them. The sense of escalating dread at the possibilities of infinity and the uncertainties of infinitude reminds me of HP Lovecraft, yet it's all matter of fact without the purple prose.
I also greatly enjoyed Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, where Borges similarly shows the power of mere ideas to reshape the entire world; even ideas which are later shown to be utterly false.
"It is a revelation to compare Menard’s Don Quixote with Cervantes’. The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine):
'...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor.'
Written in the seventeenth century, written by the 'lay genius' Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical praise of history. Menard, on the other hand, writes:
'...truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, depository of deeds, witness of the past, exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor.'
History, the mother of truth: the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporary of William James, does not define history as an inquiry into reality but as its origin. Historical truth, for him, is not what has happened; it is what we judge to have happened. The final phrases—exemplar and adviser to the present, and the future’s counselor —are brazenly pragmatic.
The contrast in style is also vivid. The archaic style of Menard—quite foreign, after all—suffers from a certain affectation. Not so that of his forerunner, who handles with ease the current Spanish of his time."
In fact, let's just give up and say that every one of his short stories is a delight.
While he is best known for his short stories, his non-fiction - essays, book and film reviews - are, if anything, even better.
There's a pervasive magic to his writing. The prose equals the subject. It reminds me of the best of Dostoevsky or Bulgakov's trial before Pilate.
Exactly. My feeling in the first pages of Fictions was : is it some kind of joke ?
For those who read the House of Leaves, it's good to know that Danielewski took a lot of inspiration from Borges (among other things). If I recall correctly The Garden of Forking Paths is very similar in its purpose and construction.
(Curiously, as far as I remember, Bloch doesn't ask whether there's a comprehensive meta-catalogue of those catalogues in the Library that do not mention themselves.)
I wonder if Borges knew about Russell's Paradox. It seems unlikely that he wouldn't.
... By the way, having now read the submitted article, let me point out a selection that exemplifies what I love about Borges's writing:
There is a Hindu school of philosophy that says that we are not the actors in our lives, but rather the spectators, and this is illustrated using the metaphor of a dancer. These days, maybe it would be better to say an actor. A spectator sees a dancer or an actor, or, if you prefer, reads a novel, and ends up identifying with one of the characters who is there in front of him. This is what those Hindu thinkers before the fifth century said. And the same thing happens with us. I, for example, was born the same day as Jorge Luis Borges, exactly the same day. I have seen him be ridiculous in some situations, pathetic in others. And, as I have always had him in front of me, I have ended up identifying with him.
In Borges's short stories there are very many selections like this, but it's mostly pseudo-realistic wisdom (or paradox) that's the product of Borges's own mind.
In Lisbon, there's a small, discrete monument to Borges - just a carved stone with a few lines of one of his poems. It is situated in a small garden diagonally opposite the crossroads from the Argentine embassy (GPS 38.736322, -9.142172 ).
I first came across Borges, many moons ago, in an SF collection, with the story of the man who was, recursively, another man's dream ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circular_Ruins ).
But I think he did catch us out with this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celestial_Emporium_of_Benevolen...):
The list divides all animals into one of 14 categories:
Those that belong to the emperor
Embalmed ones
Those that are trained
Suckling pigs
Mermaids (or Sirens)
Fabulous ones
Stray dogs
Those that are included in this classification
Those that tremble as if they were mad
Innumerable ones
Those drawn with a very fine camel hair brush
Et cetera
Those that have just broken the flower vase
Those that, at a distance, resemble fliesHe was a genius. His writing is wonderful. As others have said his ideas are well suited to the kinds of folks who frequent HN. The other interesting thing is that never before have I had people approach me about my reading. But sit in a cafe in San Francisco with Borges and suddenly the world and her friend wants to spark up a conversation about my choice of book.
Cannot recommend this highly enough. If you are looking for reading material that takes you away from technology and work and the usual stuff we fill our heads with, explore the universe through the words of Borges. You won't regret it.
Not only are they excellent pieces in their own right, you can catch occasional glimpses of the evolution of some of his best stories as well. The biography of Paul Valéry, for instance, foreshadows Pierre Menard.