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Obras completas #6
Otras inquisiciones
Los textos reunidos en Otras inquisiciones tocan temas muy queridos de Jorge Luis Borges: las relaciones entre espacio у tiempo, la previsión del futuro, la eternidad, el suicidio у la redención, el infinito, la lectura cabalista de la Escritura, los nombres de Dios, el infierno, el panteismo, la leyenda de Buda, el sabor de lo heroico, la refutación del tiempo, etc.
Completan el volumen ensayos sobre Quevedo, Coleridge, Cervantes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paul Valery, Oscar Wilde, Chesterton, H.G.Wells, Franz Kafka, John Keats, Bernard Shaw у William Beckford.
Completan el volumen ensayos sobre Quevedo, Coleridge, Cervantes, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Paul Valery, Oscar Wilde, Chesterton, H.G.Wells, Franz Kafka, John Keats, Bernard Shaw у William Beckford.
296 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
82 people are currently reading
2215 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,589 books14.3k followersJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 104 reviews
December 25, 2025
The first investigation in the collection is The Wall and the Books… Creation and destruction…
Unlike the emperor, Jorge Luis Borges destroys nothing… He only creates… In his investigations he creates the wall of the books… He is a sage guiding us through the worlds created by other sages… Time and space… Infinity and eternity… Reality and fiction…
The world and reflections of the world… The mind and reflections of the mind… Books are reflections…
Books are destroyable but no one can destroy wisdom.
I read, some days past, that the man who ordered the erection of the almost infinite wall of China was that first Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who also decreed that all books prior to him be burned.
Unlike the emperor, Jorge Luis Borges destroys nothing… He only creates… In his investigations he creates the wall of the books… He is a sage guiding us through the worlds created by other sages… Time and space… Infinity and eternity… Reality and fiction…
Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote be a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious.
The world and reflections of the world… The mind and reflections of the mind… Books are reflections…
In Book VIII of the Odyssey, we read that the gods weave misfortunes so that future generations will have something to sing about; Mallarmé’s statement, “The world exists to end up in a book;’ seems to repeat, some thirty centuries later, the same concept of an aesthetic justification for evils.
Books are destroyable but no one can destroy wisdom.
September 22, 2020
The Zohar for Beginners
Jorge Luis Borges’s fascination with the Kabbalah is self-attested and well known. He wrote two substantial pieces on the work and made frequent allusion to it in his themes and stories. I decided to try my hand at some Kabbalah-uncovering by re-reading Other Inquisitions 1937-1952. And seeking of course does mean finding:
In ‘The Wall and the Books’ Borges’s perennial and explicitly dialectical theme of revelation and concealment is combined with the theme of eternity. This is summarised elegantly in his final phrase, “...that imminence of a revelation that is not yet produced is, perhaps, the aesthetic reality.”
The Rev Raiah Kook puts the same idea somewhat less laconically in the Root HaKodesh,
‘Pascal’s Sphere’ closes with a similarly powerful sentence on two more themes of the Kabbalah, universal history and language, “Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.”
In the Kabbalah universal history refers to the metaphorical contraction, breakage and restoration that are held to be fully present in all things, events and experiences at all times. These metaphorical ‘moments’constitute the Absolute, the Ein-Sof of God, which is the contradiction of all Absolutes. Just as Borges says: the entire history of the cosmos in just a few metaphors.
Borges’s meditation on ‘The Flower of Coleridge’ returns to the aesthetic idea of the future as impending revelation, “More incredible than a celestial flower or the flower of a dream is the flower of the future, the unlikely flower whose atoms now occupy other spaces and have not yet been assembled.” He continues this theme of revelation breaking into the present in ‘The Dream of Coleridge’ in a somewhat Jungian tone, “Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to men, an eternal object (to use Whitehead’s term) is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second was the poem. Whoever compared them would have seen that they were essentially the same.”
The Zohar in the same spirit considers a dream un-interpreted as a letter unopened, already present but waiting to be revealed. Dreams demand attention because they show how forms can morph and yet remain constant in their denotation. As the Baal HaSulam explains in his study of ‘Inner Reflection’ in The Study of the Ten Sefirot,
Eternity is the explicit theme of ’Time and J. W. Dunne.’ Borges makes an apparently ’non-denominational’ reference when he says, “Theologians define eternity as the simultaneous and lucid possession of all instants of time and declare it to be one of the divine attributes.” His use of ‘attributes’ rather than ’names’, however, suggests he is not referring to Christian theologians but to Jewish mystics who view God in an almost pantheistic dispersion throughout creation.
The Sulam commentary, for example, says,
The universe itself is eternal, a thought shared interestingly with Thomas Aquinas as well as Borges.
‘The Creation and P. H. Gosse’ turns the idea of infinity inside out, as it were, by considering the very small rather than the very large. “God lies in wait”, Borges writes, “in the intervals [of time].” His anticipation of quantum time is stunning enough, but once again his condensation of Kabbalistic insight is even more remarkable.
Kabbalah defines time as the distance between cause and effect, the separation between action and reaction, the divide between the crime and its consequence. Within this temporal “gap” it is hoped that a person eventually becomes enlightened to the senselessness of his negative ways and to recognise the rewards associated with spiritual growth and positive, unselfish behaviour. Precisely the place where Borges's God ambushes the wary soul.
It occurs to me that to go on showing the extent to which every Borges story is not just affected by but steeped in Kabbalah is pointless. Once seen, it is impossible to un-see. Even his sarcastic critique of a pompous Spanish literary pundit, ‘Dr. Americo Castro Is Alarmed’, reflects fundamental beliefs about language as a divine gift rather than a human possession.
Says one scholar of The Zohar,
Much the same could be claimed for Borges’s writing. For me the comparison enhances an appreciation of both Borges and the Kabbalah.
For more on the Kabbalah, its symbolism, and its effect on literature see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Jorge Luis Borges’s fascination with the Kabbalah is self-attested and well known. He wrote two substantial pieces on the work and made frequent allusion to it in his themes and stories. I decided to try my hand at some Kabbalah-uncovering by re-reading Other Inquisitions 1937-1952. And seeking of course does mean finding:
In ‘The Wall and the Books’ Borges’s perennial and explicitly dialectical theme of revelation and concealment is combined with the theme of eternity. This is summarised elegantly in his final phrase, “...that imminence of a revelation that is not yet produced is, perhaps, the aesthetic reality.”
The Rev Raiah Kook puts the same idea somewhat less laconically in the Root HaKodesh,
“The present and the future are divided within the truth of being. That which has been is that which shall be, and that which has been done is that which shall be done. That which has already been done and that which shall be done in the future is gradually being done in the present, constantly and frequently.”
‘Pascal’s Sphere’ closes with a similarly powerful sentence on two more themes of the Kabbalah, universal history and language, “Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors.”
In the Kabbalah universal history refers to the metaphorical contraction, breakage and restoration that are held to be fully present in all things, events and experiences at all times. These metaphorical ‘moments’constitute the Absolute, the Ein-Sof of God, which is the contradiction of all Absolutes. Just as Borges says: the entire history of the cosmos in just a few metaphors.
Borges’s meditation on ‘The Flower of Coleridge’ returns to the aesthetic idea of the future as impending revelation, “More incredible than a celestial flower or the flower of a dream is the flower of the future, the unlikely flower whose atoms now occupy other spaces and have not yet been assembled.” He continues this theme of revelation breaking into the present in ‘The Dream of Coleridge’ in a somewhat Jungian tone, “Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to men, an eternal object (to use Whitehead’s term) is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second was the poem. Whoever compared them would have seen that they were essentially the same.”
The Zohar in the same spirit considers a dream un-interpreted as a letter unopened, already present but waiting to be revealed. Dreams demand attention because they show how forms can morph and yet remain constant in their denotation. As the Baal HaSulam explains in his study of ‘Inner Reflection’ in The Study of the Ten Sefirot,
“…you should know that spiritual movement is not like tangible movement from place to place. Rather, it refers to a renewal of form, for we denominate every renewal of form by the name ‘movement.’"The idea of morphing forms maintaining their significance is identical to Borges's.
Eternity is the explicit theme of ’Time and J. W. Dunne.’ Borges makes an apparently ’non-denominational’ reference when he says, “Theologians define eternity as the simultaneous and lucid possession of all instants of time and declare it to be one of the divine attributes.” His use of ‘attributes’ rather than ’names’, however, suggests he is not referring to Christian theologians but to Jewish mystics who view God in an almost pantheistic dispersion throughout creation.
The Sulam commentary, for example, says,
“The Zohar speaks nothing of corporeal incidents, but of the upper worlds, where there is no sequence of times as it is in corporeality. Spiritual time is elucidated by change of forms and degrees that are above time and place.”
The universe itself is eternal, a thought shared interestingly with Thomas Aquinas as well as Borges.
‘The Creation and P. H. Gosse’ turns the idea of infinity inside out, as it were, by considering the very small rather than the very large. “God lies in wait”, Borges writes, “in the intervals [of time].” His anticipation of quantum time is stunning enough, but once again his condensation of Kabbalistic insight is even more remarkable.
Kabbalah defines time as the distance between cause and effect, the separation between action and reaction, the divide between the crime and its consequence. Within this temporal “gap” it is hoped that a person eventually becomes enlightened to the senselessness of his negative ways and to recognise the rewards associated with spiritual growth and positive, unselfish behaviour. Precisely the place where Borges's God ambushes the wary soul.
It occurs to me that to go on showing the extent to which every Borges story is not just affected by but steeped in Kabbalah is pointless. Once seen, it is impossible to un-see. Even his sarcastic critique of a pompous Spanish literary pundit, ‘Dr. Americo Castro Is Alarmed’, reflects fundamental beliefs about language as a divine gift rather than a human possession.
Says one scholar of The Zohar,
“Letters, symbols, and speech serve for conveying spiritual knowledge, and attainment. Every letter of every alphabet contains its spiritual meaning because people convey their sensations through books. Any sensation, not only human but animal as well, represents an unconscious perception of the Creator. Nobody understands this, but in reality when a poet for example, composes a verse portraying his love for a woman, children, the sun, light, or even in describing his suffering, he is expressing his impressions of the light that acts upon him, whether he wants it or not.”
Much the same could be claimed for Borges’s writing. For me the comparison enhances an appreciation of both Borges and the Kabbalah.
For more on the Kabbalah, its symbolism, and its effect on literature see: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
And
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
July 1, 2022
I have had the dream several times now, I don’t remember exactly how many. However, after dreaming it a third time, two weeks ago on a moonless night, I began writing down notes about it, and adding details with each successive dreaming. It usually begins with Borges and I playing a video game—sometimes the Wii Chess and sometimes Guitar Hero (the Bob Marley version). After Borges rakes up an obscene number of wins, we sit next to a window, drinking a hot beverage and studying the colorful street scene outside. Then Borges takes out his laptop and tells me he has read my review of his book of essays, Other Inquisitions. I am interested to hear what he thinks of it, because of all of his books, it is my favorite. I am crestfallen, however, when he tells me that it is clear to him that I have reviewed his book without reading it. He turns the laptop so that its screen is facing me. I look, and see my review there, with its mentions of the subjects of the essays—books, dreams, allegory, literature, philosophy, time. I see the references to the writers and thinkers Borges discusses—Kafka, Hawthorne, Coleridge, Cervantes, John Wilkins. I look from the screen to Borges, whose expression is that of one who is waiting to hear the sound of a tree falling in the forest. I gather my wits about me, stammering, “But, but, this is a recommendation! I think this is a great book! What is wrong with my review?” Borges reaches into a black leather satchel at his feet and removes something from it. He hands it to me. It is a book. On the front cover, above a photograph of a shelf full of books, there are the words “Other Inquisitions by Jorge Luis Borges.” I begin to thumb through the book, noting the fine quality paper and the faintly Germanic font. Then, as I scan some of the pages, I begin to see that many of the passages seem unfamiliar. In fact, I am not sure I have ever read any of them before. I flip back to the table of contents, where I see a list of titles that do not reflect the contents of the book with which I had believed myself familiar. Titles like “Pierre Menard and his Precursors,” and “Avatars of Quixote” and “The Analytic Language of Bustos-Domecq.” I set the book down on the table between Borges and myself, taking care to find a spot that has not become damp from the condensation left by our warm drinking mugs. He, sensing my perplexity, begins to smile, and says, “You see, you have not reviewed my Other Inquisitions. This book contains them. Please read it before you review it.” Then, putting his hand inside his jacket, he removes a pen from an inner pocket. The pen is a dull gold color, and while I am admiring it, he opens the front cover of the book and begins to sign it. At this time, I look back toward the review, my review, on the screen of the laptop, resolving to delete it at the earliest opportunity. Then, turning back to Borges, I see that he is holding the book out, waiting for me to take it. It is at this point that I wake up.
Acquired 1993
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
Acquired 1993
The Word, Montreal, Quebec
July 5, 2021
Always a most comfortable place, the non-fictional Borges. Some people read him to get out of their comfort zone, when I read him it feels like slipping into warm, protective hands. He gives his readers stuff to think about; Big, Challenging stuff, if one truly wants something to think about, one only need pick up an essay, any essay and Borges will provide.
*This is not a review, this is a love note to a blind man who wanted to know everything.*
One of the foremost quests in Otras Inquisiciones is for symmetries; two that are rediscovered throughout the book under various guises appear in the first two essays. In “The Wall and the Books” Borges evokes the Chinese emperor who both created the Great Wall and wanted all books prior to him burned. This enormous mystification inexplicably “satisfies” and, at the same time, “disturbs” Borges. His purpose then is to seek the reasons for “that emotion.”.
At the end of “Avatars of the Tortoise” the paradoxes of Zeno and the antinomies of Kant indicate for Borges that the universe is ultimately a dream, a product of the mind, unreal because free of the apparent limits of time and space we call “real.” But the paradoxical confession with which “New Refutation of Time” ends—”it [time] is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire”—must conclude that “the world, alas, is real; I, alas, am Borges.”
But this reality may be too complex for oral transmission; legend recreates it in a manner which is only accidentally false and which allows it to go about the world, from mouth to mouth.
The overall tendency is to evaluate religious or philosophical ideas on the basis of their aesthetic worth and even for what is singular and marvellous about them. Perhaps this is an indication of a basic scepticism. The other tendency is to presuppose (and to verify) that the number of fables or metaphors of which people's imagination is capable is limited, but that these few inventions can be all things for everyone.
So what is a book?
A book, any book, is for us a sacred object: Cervantes, who famously did not listen to anything that anyone said, read even “the torn scraps of paper in the streets.”
St. Augustine, a disciple of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, around the year 384; wrote in his The Confessions of St. Augustine how he was troubled by an extraordinary sight: a man in a room, with a book, reading without saying the words.
The commentators have noted that it was customary at that time to read out loud in order to grasp the meaning better, for there were no punctuation marks, nor even a division of words, and to read in common because there was a scarcity of manuscripts. The dialogue of Lucian of Samosata, Against an Ignorant Buyer of Books, includes an account of that custom in the second century.
One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings. The mind has invented Hell, it has invented predestination to Hell, it has imagined the Platonic ideas, the chimera, the sphinx, abnormal transfinite numbers (whose parts are no smaller than the whole), masks, mirrors, operas, the teratological Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the unresolvable Ghost, articulated into a single organism: " I have tried to rescue from oblivion a subaltern horror: the vast, contradictory Library, whose vertical wildernesses of books run the incessant risk of changing into others that affirm, deny, and confuse everything like a delirious god. "
Fire, in one of Bernard Shaw’s comedies, Caesar and Cleopatra, threatens the library at Alexandria; someone exclaims that the memory of mankind will burn, and Caesar replies: ‘‘A shameful memory. Let it burn.” (possibly one of the best moments in literature, in one's modest opinion)
Moses, pastor of sheep, author and protagonist of some book, asks God what his name is, and God replies: “I Am That I Am.”
Moses asks God what his name is: this is not a curiosity of a philological nature, but rather an attempt to ascertain who God is, or more precisely, what he is. (In the ninth century, John Scotus Erigena would write that God does not know who or what He is, because He is not a who or a what.)
Multiplied into the human languages—Ich Bin Der Ich Bin, Ego Sum Qui Sum, Soy El Que Soy, Sono Chi Sono, —the sententious name of God, the name that, in spite of having many words, is more solid and impenetrable than if it were only one word, grew and reverberated through the centuries, to 1602, when Shakespeare wrote a comedy, All's Well That Ends Well.
Parolles speaks, and suddenly ceases to be a conventional character in a comic farce and becomes a man and all mankind:
"Captain I’ll be no more, But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft As captain shall. Simply the thing I am Shall make me live." (IV, 3)
Isolated in time and space, a god, a dream, and a man who is insane and aware of the fact repeat an obscure statement. - from History of the Echoes of a Name.
Johnathan Swift, like Flaubert, had always been fascinated by madness, perhaps because he knew that, at the end, insanity was waiting for him.
Deafness, dizziness, and the fear of madness leading to idiocy aggravated and deepened Swift’s melancholy. He began to lose his memory. He didn’t want to use glasses; he couldn’t read. And one evening, old and mad and wasted, he was heard repeating, we don’t know whether in resignation or desperation or as one affirms or anchors oneself in one’s own invulnerable personal essence: “I am that I am, I am that I am. . . .”
And Schopenhauer, precisely because he had written The World as Will and Representation, knew very well that to be a thinker is as illusory as being a sick man or a misfortunate man, and that he was profoundly something else.
Something else: the will, the dark root of Parolles...
... the thing that Swift was.
The same thing Plath knew:
"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am...."
*This is not a review, this is a love note to a blind man who wanted to know everything.*
One of the foremost quests in Otras Inquisiciones is for symmetries; two that are rediscovered throughout the book under various guises appear in the first two essays. In “The Wall and the Books” Borges evokes the Chinese emperor who both created the Great Wall and wanted all books prior to him burned. This enormous mystification inexplicably “satisfies” and, at the same time, “disturbs” Borges. His purpose then is to seek the reasons for “that emotion.”.
At the end of “Avatars of the Tortoise” the paradoxes of Zeno and the antinomies of Kant indicate for Borges that the universe is ultimately a dream, a product of the mind, unreal because free of the apparent limits of time and space we call “real.” But the paradoxical confession with which “New Refutation of Time” ends—”it [time] is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire”—must conclude that “the world, alas, is real; I, alas, am Borges.”
But this reality may be too complex for oral transmission; legend recreates it in a manner which is only accidentally false and which allows it to go about the world, from mouth to mouth.
The overall tendency is to evaluate religious or philosophical ideas on the basis of their aesthetic worth and even for what is singular and marvellous about them. Perhaps this is an indication of a basic scepticism. The other tendency is to presuppose (and to verify) that the number of fables or metaphors of which people's imagination is capable is limited, but that these few inventions can be all things for everyone.
So what is a book?
A book, any book, is for us a sacred object: Cervantes, who famously did not listen to anything that anyone said, read even “the torn scraps of paper in the streets.”
St. Augustine, a disciple of St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, around the year 384; wrote in his The Confessions of St. Augustine how he was troubled by an extraordinary sight: a man in a room, with a book, reading without saying the words.
The commentators have noted that it was customary at that time to read out loud in order to grasp the meaning better, for there were no punctuation marks, nor even a division of words, and to read in common because there was a scarcity of manuscripts. The dialogue of Lucian of Samosata, Against an Ignorant Buyer of Books, includes an account of that custom in the second century.
One of the habits of the mind is the invention of horrible imaginings. The mind has invented Hell, it has invented predestination to Hell, it has imagined the Platonic ideas, the chimera, the sphinx, abnormal transfinite numbers (whose parts are no smaller than the whole), masks, mirrors, operas, the teratological Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the unresolvable Ghost, articulated into a single organism: " I have tried to rescue from oblivion a subaltern horror: the vast, contradictory Library, whose vertical wildernesses of books run the incessant risk of changing into others that affirm, deny, and confuse everything like a delirious god. "
Fire, in one of Bernard Shaw’s comedies, Caesar and Cleopatra, threatens the library at Alexandria; someone exclaims that the memory of mankind will burn, and Caesar replies: ‘‘A shameful memory. Let it burn.” (possibly one of the best moments in literature, in one's modest opinion)
Moses, pastor of sheep, author and protagonist of some book, asks God what his name is, and God replies: “I Am That I Am.”
Moses asks God what his name is: this is not a curiosity of a philological nature, but rather an attempt to ascertain who God is, or more precisely, what he is. (In the ninth century, John Scotus Erigena would write that God does not know who or what He is, because He is not a who or a what.)
Multiplied into the human languages—Ich Bin Der Ich Bin, Ego Sum Qui Sum, Soy El Que Soy, Sono Chi Sono, —the sententious name of God, the name that, in spite of having many words, is more solid and impenetrable than if it were only one word, grew and reverberated through the centuries, to 1602, when Shakespeare wrote a comedy, All's Well That Ends Well.
Parolles speaks, and suddenly ceases to be a conventional character in a comic farce and becomes a man and all mankind:
"Captain I’ll be no more, But I will eat and drink and sleep as soft As captain shall. Simply the thing I am Shall make me live." (IV, 3)
Isolated in time and space, a god, a dream, and a man who is insane and aware of the fact repeat an obscure statement. - from History of the Echoes of a Name.
Johnathan Swift, like Flaubert, had always been fascinated by madness, perhaps because he knew that, at the end, insanity was waiting for him.
Deafness, dizziness, and the fear of madness leading to idiocy aggravated and deepened Swift’s melancholy. He began to lose his memory. He didn’t want to use glasses; he couldn’t read. And one evening, old and mad and wasted, he was heard repeating, we don’t know whether in resignation or desperation or as one affirms or anchors oneself in one’s own invulnerable personal essence: “I am that I am, I am that I am. . . .”
And Schopenhauer, precisely because he had written The World as Will and Representation, knew very well that to be a thinker is as illusory as being a sick man or a misfortunate man, and that he was profoundly something else.
Something else: the will, the dark root of Parolles...
... the thing that Swift was.
The same thing Plath knew:
"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am...."
June 7, 2023
¿Qué puedo decir? El descubrimiento de Borges me supuso la mayor sacudida intelectual de toda mi vida. Con Ficciones descubrí las posibilidades de la literatura y del pensamiento, fundidos en cuentos de unas pocas páginas; con Otras inquisiciones, he ahondado en esa felicidad, esta vez en forma de ensayo.
August 2, 2019
De una literatura provincial a una literatura mundial que tuvo resonancias e influencias en escritores de todos los continentes (o de todos los continentes de los que leí escritores): nada más ni nada menos que eso representa Borges para este pobre, pretencioso, olvidado país. Estos ensayos hablan de cómo leía Borges. Chesterton, Wells, la filosofía occidental, Kafka, el Wakefield de Hawtorne, la prosa inglesa, la cosmogonía persa, Coleridge, las escrituras sagradas, la idea de que toda la literatura pudo haber sido obra de un solo hombre. Sus obsesiones, sus objetos de estudio y análisis revelan el escritor que él es.
Por ejemplo, en un ensayo sobre Quevedo, reproduce una idea que usó para escribir “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”: “Quevedo ha sido equiparado, más de una vez, a Luciano de Samosata. Hay una diferencia fundamental: Luciano al combatir en el siglo II a las divinidades olímpicas, hace obra de polémica religiosa; Quevedo, al repetir ese ataque en el siglo XVI de nuestra era, se limita a observar una tradición literaria”. Menard, el escritor olvidado que volvió a escribir el Quijote palabra por palabra tres siglos después, y al hacerlo creó un nuevo texto, también se limita a observar una tradición literaria. El narrador de ese cuento señala el uso de un determinado procedimiento literario por parte de un escritor ignoto.
El Borges ensayista y el Borges cuentista, en algún punto, se parecen y se confunden porque el Borges lector produce al mismo tiempo una escritura sobre aquello que lee, como si al leer estuviera siempre transformando un texto, dándole un nuevo sentido, utilizando técnicas lectoras novedosas, como el “anacronismo deliberado” de Menard con el Quijote.
Después tenés su toque personal, su rasgo distintivo. ¿Por qué nunca, nadie, jamás, va igualar a Maradona, ni siquiera Messi? Porque tiene eso que otros no tienen: un carácter explosivo, una enjundia sobrehumana, la capacidad de irradiar energía, de caerse y levantarse, de volver a ser; Maradona es una “fuerza de la naturaleza”, como alguna vez leí que hablaban de él en otra red social. La comparación me parece que vale desde el momento que vos podés ser un genio, un crack total de la literatura, un laborioso (me encanta este adjetivo borgeano) y dedicado ejecutor de argumentos, pero si no tenés el sello distintivo, si no tenés eso que te vuelva diferente, vas a ser solo bueno, o muy bueno, o excelente, o por qué no, uno de los mejores de la literatura mundial. Pero nunca el Número Uno, como Borges, como Maradona.
Ese plus en Borges es su prosa, su ingenio de repente irónico, de repente generoso, de repente sensible, como una gambeta que te deja de garpe. Borges dice en estos ensayos que la fe católica es un conjunto de imaginaciones hebreas supeditadas a Platón y a Aristóteles. Dice que un credo es el último término de una serie de procesos mentales y emocionales de un hombre. Dice que a Valéry y Whitman los une el hecho de haber construido una obra que es menos preciosa como poesía que como signo de un poeta ejemplar. Dice que Wakefield prefigura a Franz Kafka, pero que éste modifica y afina la lectura de Wakefield. Dice que si los caracteres de una ficción pueden ser lectores o espectadores, nosotros, sus lectores o espectadores, podemos ser ficticios. Dice que los españoles hablan en voz más alta que nosotros, con el aplomo de quienes ignoran la duda. Dice que para las mentes clásicas, la literatura es lo esencial, no los individuos. Dice que Oscar Wilde es un caballero dedicado al pobre propósito de asombrar con corbatas y metáforas. Dice que la música, los estados de felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; dice que esta inmanencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es quizá, el hecho estético.
Por ejemplo, en un ensayo sobre Quevedo, reproduce una idea que usó para escribir “Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote”: “Quevedo ha sido equiparado, más de una vez, a Luciano de Samosata. Hay una diferencia fundamental: Luciano al combatir en el siglo II a las divinidades olímpicas, hace obra de polémica religiosa; Quevedo, al repetir ese ataque en el siglo XVI de nuestra era, se limita a observar una tradición literaria”. Menard, el escritor olvidado que volvió a escribir el Quijote palabra por palabra tres siglos después, y al hacerlo creó un nuevo texto, también se limita a observar una tradición literaria. El narrador de ese cuento señala el uso de un determinado procedimiento literario por parte de un escritor ignoto.
El Borges ensayista y el Borges cuentista, en algún punto, se parecen y se confunden porque el Borges lector produce al mismo tiempo una escritura sobre aquello que lee, como si al leer estuviera siempre transformando un texto, dándole un nuevo sentido, utilizando técnicas lectoras novedosas, como el “anacronismo deliberado” de Menard con el Quijote.
Después tenés su toque personal, su rasgo distintivo. ¿Por qué nunca, nadie, jamás, va igualar a Maradona, ni siquiera Messi? Porque tiene eso que otros no tienen: un carácter explosivo, una enjundia sobrehumana, la capacidad de irradiar energía, de caerse y levantarse, de volver a ser; Maradona es una “fuerza de la naturaleza”, como alguna vez leí que hablaban de él en otra red social. La comparación me parece que vale desde el momento que vos podés ser un genio, un crack total de la literatura, un laborioso (me encanta este adjetivo borgeano) y dedicado ejecutor de argumentos, pero si no tenés el sello distintivo, si no tenés eso que te vuelva diferente, vas a ser solo bueno, o muy bueno, o excelente, o por qué no, uno de los mejores de la literatura mundial. Pero nunca el Número Uno, como Borges, como Maradona.
Ese plus en Borges es su prosa, su ingenio de repente irónico, de repente generoso, de repente sensible, como una gambeta que te deja de garpe. Borges dice en estos ensayos que la fe católica es un conjunto de imaginaciones hebreas supeditadas a Platón y a Aristóteles. Dice que un credo es el último término de una serie de procesos mentales y emocionales de un hombre. Dice que a Valéry y Whitman los une el hecho de haber construido una obra que es menos preciosa como poesía que como signo de un poeta ejemplar. Dice que Wakefield prefigura a Franz Kafka, pero que éste modifica y afina la lectura de Wakefield. Dice que si los caracteres de una ficción pueden ser lectores o espectadores, nosotros, sus lectores o espectadores, podemos ser ficticios. Dice que los españoles hablan en voz más alta que nosotros, con el aplomo de quienes ignoran la duda. Dice que para las mentes clásicas, la literatura es lo esencial, no los individuos. Dice que Oscar Wilde es un caballero dedicado al pobre propósito de asombrar con corbatas y metáforas. Dice que la música, los estados de felicidad, la mitología, las caras trabajadas por el tiempo, ciertos crepúsculos y ciertos lugares, quieren decirnos algo, o algo dijeron que no hubiéramos debido perder, o están por decir algo; dice que esta inmanencia de una revelación, que no se produce, es quizá, el hecho estético.
September 29, 2022
"Her yazar öncülerini kendi yaratır. Yazdıkları, geleceği değiştireceği gibi geçmişi algılamamızı da etkiler, değiştirir. (...) Edebiyat tüketilir gibi değil, bunun basit ve yeterli kanıtı, tek bir kitabın bile tüketilemez olması. Kitap soyutlanmış, yalıtılmış bir nesne değildir; bir ilişkidir, sayısız ilişkiler eksenidir. Bir edebiyat ötekinden farklıdır, biri ötekinden önce gelir; bu farklılık metinden kaynaklanmıyor, okuma biçiminden kaynaklanıyor."
Borges okumaya nereden başlamalı sorusunun cevabını hala bilmiyorum ama nereden başlamamalı sorusunun cevabını buldum: Öteki Soruşturmalar'dan. Kötü bir kitap olduğundan mı, hiç değil, muazzam bir kitap - zaten sorun da bu, fazla muazzam. Şayet Borges'le bu kitap üzerinden tanışırsanız "bu adam bir dâhi (ya da Tanrı) ve ben de zavallı bir gerizekalı (ya da ölümlüyüm)" demeniz ve kendinizi berbat hissetmemek için koşarak uzaklaşmanız çok olası.
Öteki Soruşturmalar; Borges'in, kendi tabiriyle "edebiyat ve metafizik kargaşaya adanmış ömrü"ne dair en somut fikri edinebileceğiniz eseri. Aralarında yüzlerce yıl olan metinler ve sözlü anlatıları birbirleriyle çarpıştırıyor, fikirlerin nüvelerini kovalıyor, edebiyatın içine gömülmüş olan felsefi unsurları kazıyor, buluyor, çıkartıyor. Borges'in zihninin labirentlerinde (Ah Borges ve labirentler!) müthiş kafa açıcı ve beyin yorucu bir yolculuk bu. Öyle sonsuz bir kütüphane var ki beyninde, tam yolunuzu buluyor gibi hissederken tekrar kayboluyorsunuz.
Borges'in çok sevdiğim kurgusal metinlerinde yineleyen unsurlara neden takıntılı olduğunu, o hikâyelerin nasıl zihinsel süreçler neticesinde doğduğunu aydınlatan bir okuma oldu benim için. (Haritalar, dil, uzayda sonsuzluk ve metinde sonsuzluk, zamanın döngüselliği vd.)
Acayip zor bir kitap ama Borges'i gerçekten anlamak isteyenler için de başucu kitabı gibi bir şey olmalı bu. Talep ettiği beyinsel mesainin karşılığını kesinlikle veriyor.
Borges okumaya nereden başlamalı sorusunun cevabını hala bilmiyorum ama nereden başlamamalı sorusunun cevabını buldum: Öteki Soruşturmalar'dan. Kötü bir kitap olduğundan mı, hiç değil, muazzam bir kitap - zaten sorun da bu, fazla muazzam. Şayet Borges'le bu kitap üzerinden tanışırsanız "bu adam bir dâhi (ya da Tanrı) ve ben de zavallı bir gerizekalı (ya da ölümlüyüm)" demeniz ve kendinizi berbat hissetmemek için koşarak uzaklaşmanız çok olası.
Öteki Soruşturmalar; Borges'in, kendi tabiriyle "edebiyat ve metafizik kargaşaya adanmış ömrü"ne dair en somut fikri edinebileceğiniz eseri. Aralarında yüzlerce yıl olan metinler ve sözlü anlatıları birbirleriyle çarpıştırıyor, fikirlerin nüvelerini kovalıyor, edebiyatın içine gömülmüş olan felsefi unsurları kazıyor, buluyor, çıkartıyor. Borges'in zihninin labirentlerinde (Ah Borges ve labirentler!) müthiş kafa açıcı ve beyin yorucu bir yolculuk bu. Öyle sonsuz bir kütüphane var ki beyninde, tam yolunuzu buluyor gibi hissederken tekrar kayboluyorsunuz.
Borges'in çok sevdiğim kurgusal metinlerinde yineleyen unsurlara neden takıntılı olduğunu, o hikâyelerin nasıl zihinsel süreçler neticesinde doğduğunu aydınlatan bir okuma oldu benim için. (Haritalar, dil, uzayda sonsuzluk ve metinde sonsuzluk, zamanın döngüselliği vd.)
Acayip zor bir kitap ama Borges'i gerçekten anlamak isteyenler için de başucu kitabı gibi bir şey olmalı bu. Talep ettiği beyinsel mesainin karşılığını kesinlikle veriyor.
August 29, 2017
Il trionfo dell'intelligenza.
"Le filosofie di Heidegger e di Jaspers fanno di ciascuno di noi l'interessante interlocutore di un dialogo segreto e continuo col nulla o con la divinità; queste discipline, che formalmente possono essere ammirevoli, fomentano l'illusione dell'io che il Vedanta riprova come errore capitale. Sogliono giocare alla disperazione e all'angoscia, ma nel fondo lusingano la vanità; sono, in tale senso, immorali. "(...) il tempo, facilmente confutabile sul piano sensitivo, non lo è altrettanto sul piano intellettuale, dalla cui essenza pare inseparabile il concetto di successione."
"Le filosofie di Heidegger e di Jaspers fanno di ciascuno di noi l'interessante interlocutore di un dialogo segreto e continuo col nulla o con la divinità; queste discipline, che formalmente possono essere ammirevoli, fomentano l'illusione dell'io che il Vedanta riprova come errore capitale. Sogliono giocare alla disperazione e all'angoscia, ma nel fondo lusingano la vanità; sono, in tale senso, immorali. "(...) il tempo, facilmente confutabile sul piano sensitivo, non lo è altrettanto sul piano intellettuale, dalla cui essenza pare inseparabile il concetto di successione."
July 19, 2014
Borges is always great for providing an intellectual recharge, for getting you excited about reading and thinking about reading, especially in his essays. Reading these, it's hard to not be overwhelmed by how vast his erudition is. Classical literature, adventure novels, philosphy, obscure mystical tracts, half forgotten literary criticsm from the 19th century, absolutely everything is grist for his mill. You could probably spend a lifetime just reading everything in the book's index. And yet at no point does he feel like he's showing off. His tone in these pieces, while still formal, paradoxically has this really intimate, humorous quality to it as well. And hey, it made me think Nathaniel Hawthorne was actually funny instead of just a grimace-inducing moralizer.
February 13, 2023
“Otras Inquisiciones” es una colección de ensayos publicado inicialmente en 1952 y que recopila una selección bastante variada de textos escritos por Borges a finales de la década de los 30 y a lo largo de los años 40 mientras editaba a la par sus óperas magnas “Ficciones” (1944) y “El Aleph” (1949). “Otras Inquisiciones” recoge esa maravillosa forma en la que Borges estructuraba ficciones con apariencia de ensayos, moldeando las incógnitas primordiales que siempre lo atormentaron: el infinito, la eternidad, la refutación del tiempo, los sueños, los nombres de Dios, la cábala, las paradojas del tiempo, el espacio y el universo… junto a las reflexiones metafísicas también hay lugar para ensayos de interpretación y crítica literaria, los cuales son tal vez poco memorables y el punto menos destacable del libro. Aún así estamos hablando de una figura casi mítica como Jorge Luís Borges, así que encontraremos obras maestras de inefable valor como “La Muralla y los Libros” (tal vez uno de los mejores ensayos cortos que escribió Borges); “La Esfera de Pascal”; “El Sueño de Coleridge” y esa preciosa paradoja temporal que el autor propone con el Kubla Khan; “El Enigma de Edward Fitzgerald” y una tesis deliciosa sobre la reencarnación literaria que también se repite en “Kafka y su Precursores”; “Formas de una Leyenda” donde aborda sublimemente la historia de Siddhartha Gautama y el nacimiento del budismo; “Historia de los Ecos de un Nombre” y el poder derivado de los nombres propios a lo largo de la historia y el misterio del nombre de Dios; y un par de ensayos que nos dejan ver a un Borges más enfocado en los temas de “actualidad” para la época en los que escribía: Su repudio al nazismo y la liberación de Paris en 1944.
Tal vez el mayor problema de este libro fue la manera en la que Editorial Sur compiló los ensayos sin seguir una dinámica o un método de clasificación y selección comprensible, más allá de la simple metodología cronológica. Los ensayos de crítica literaria no son de los mejores que escribió Borges, e incluso otras ficciones literarias son bastante olvidables. Tal vez esa paradoja de estar precedido en el tiempo por dos ciclópeas maravillas como “Ficciones” o “El Aleph” le juegue en contra a “Otras Inquisiciones”; y aun así, la maravillosa pluma de Borges parece inagotable con ensayos de infinita calidad, pues tal como escribiera en el epílogo de este libro, “Las emociones que la literatura suscita son quizá eternas”
Tal vez el mayor problema de este libro fue la manera en la que Editorial Sur compiló los ensayos sin seguir una dinámica o un método de clasificación y selección comprensible, más allá de la simple metodología cronológica. Los ensayos de crítica literaria no son de los mejores que escribió Borges, e incluso otras ficciones literarias son bastante olvidables. Tal vez esa paradoja de estar precedido en el tiempo por dos ciclópeas maravillas como “Ficciones” o “El Aleph” le juegue en contra a “Otras Inquisiciones”; y aun así, la maravillosa pluma de Borges parece inagotable con ensayos de infinita calidad, pues tal como escribiera en el epílogo de este libro, “Las emociones que la literatura suscita son quizá eternas”
September 20, 2014
A momentos demasiado densa y a momentos extraordinaria, esta compilación de textos publicados por Borges en diversos medios impresos funciona como una especie de disección intelectual del autor. Editado cuando Borges había ya perdido por completo la vista, 'Otras inquisiciones' es un testamento de la etapa más creativa del célebre autor argentino, exponiendo en cada uno de los textos que componen al libro miríadas de temas y cuestionamientos, que buscan ahondar en las principales preocupaciones intelectuales de Borges.
Estudio profundo de los temas que se perciben con mayor síntesis y sutileza en la obra poética y los textos de ficción de Borges, 'Otras inquisiciones' no es tanto una batalla encarnizada para encontrar respuestas, sino un manual de la erudición de su autor; una hermosa autobiografía intelectual.
+++
Algunas notas carentes de interés y únicamente para uso personal sobre los textos más interesantes del libro.
1. La esfera de Pascal:
Quizá la historia universal es la historia de la diversa entonación de algunas metáforas.
"La naturaleza es una esfera infinita, cuyo centro está en todas partes y la circunferencia en ninguna". Al consultarse el manuscrito original con sus tachaduras, Pascal había escrito "La naturaleza es una esfera espantosa, cuyo centro..."
2. La flor de Coleridge:
Todos los escritores son el mismo, todos los poemas son un fragmento de un poema infinito. Relación entre Coleridge, que plantea el retorno de alguien de la muerte con una rosa, HG Wells, que plantea el retorno con la máquina del tiempo y Henry James, cuyo viaje en el tiempo se da por la compenetración con un retrato.
3. El sueño de Coleridge:
Kublai Khan, emperador mongol, erige en el siglo XIII un palacio conforme a los planos vistos en un sueño. En 1816 Coleridge publica un poema que soñó sobre el mismo palacio. El palacio, destruído, vive por siempre en el poema de Coleridge.
4. La creación y P. H. Gosse
Gosse crea un brillante sofisma basado en la teoría de John Stuart Mill, que indica que el estado del universo en cualquier instante es consecuencia de su instante previo, y por tanto, si conocemos un sólo instante podríamos inferir toda su historia pasada y futura. Para comprobar, en contra de los paleontólogos, que la creación divina existió, Gosse plantea la creación como el punto cero del tiempo, como una discontinuidad que sin embargo, al crear todo de la nada, contempla una historia futura infinita pero al mismo tiempo una historia pasada infinita, que no existió, pero que se puede inferir. De ahí los fósiles de dinosaurios y reptiles prehistóricos, que están ahí porque Dios genera un continuo perfecto que puede rastrearse a un pasado infinito aunque este no haya existido.
5. Las alarmas del Dr. Americo Castro
Divertidísimo texto para ver a Borges en posición de ataque, contra un Dr. que se jacta de que el español argentino cada vez es más aberrante.
6. Magias parciales del Quijote
Hermoso texto sobre el metarrelato y su función en diferentes obras literarias mayores.
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Transcripción de la conferencia que da Borges sobre el autor norteamericano oriundo de Salem, Hawthorne. Enfocada en la influencia de este en escritores como Kafka y Faulkner incluso, inaugurando la posibilidad onírica en la literatura norteamericana. Análisis del estupendo relato de Wakefield, un hombre que decide abandonar por mero divertimento a su mujer y durante 20 años la espía desde un edificio contiguo, para finalmente volver como si nada hubiera pasado.
8. Nota sobre Walt Whitman
Sentido análisis de la separación entre Whitman escritor y Whitman hombre. La admiración de Borges por el poeta resulta evidente y encantadora.
9. El enigma de Edward Fitzgerald
Texto con trasfondo similar al del sueño de Coleridge en el que Borges analiza la colaboración entre un poeta persa del siglo XI y Edward Fitzgerald que en el siglo XIX presenta una traducción de los escritos del antigüo poeta, vaciando mucho de él en ellos.
10. El Biathanatos
Tomando como punto de partida el Biathanatos de John Donne, libro en el que el célebre poeta cavila sobre el suicidio, Borges elucubra sobre la teoría de que la crucifixión de Jesucristo fue en realidad un suicidio y que todo el universo se creó con el fin de que ese acontecimiento ocurriera. "Quizá el hierro fue creado para los clavos, y las espinas para la corona de escarnio, y la sangre y el agua para la herida. Esa idea barroca se entrevé en el Biathanatos. La de un Dios que fabrica el universo para fabricar su patíbulo."
11. Avatares de la tortuga
Planeando una biografía del infinito, Borges elabora un primer acercamiento a los conceptos de la infinitud asociados a Zenón, Atistóteles, Platón, Lotze, etc. Ponderando la teoría del regressus.
12. Del Culto de los libros
Estupendo texto sobre la transición de la cultura oral (que desdeñaba a la palabra escrita por ser "dañina" y atrofiar la mente") al culto de la palabra escrita.
13. Dos libros / Anotación al 23 de Agosto de 1944: Dos textos brillantes que muestran la faceta más política de Borges, elaborando conjeturas sobre los orígenes del fascismo y sobre su opinión respecto a la toma y recuperación de París.
14. De alguien a nadie
Dios pasa de ser "los dioses" (Elohim) a ser la nada. "Ser una cosa es inexorablemente no ser todas las otras cosas" "Nada debe afirmarse de Dios, todo puede negarse" según Schopenhauer: "esa es la única teología verdadera, pero no tiene contenido"
15. Nota sobre (hacia) Bernard Shaw:
"Una literatura difiere de otra, ulterior o anterior, menos por el texto que por la menera de ser leída: si me fuera otorgado leer cualquier página actual -ésta, por ejemplo- como la leerán el año dos mil, yo sabría cómo será la literatura el año dos mil"
16. Sobre los clásicos.
"Clásico no es un libro (lo repito) que necesariamente posee tales o cuales méritos; es un libro que las generaciones de los hombres, urgidas por diversas razones; leen con previo fervor y con una misteriosa lealtad."
Estudio profundo de los temas que se perciben con mayor síntesis y sutileza en la obra poética y los textos de ficción de Borges, 'Otras inquisiciones' no es tanto una batalla encarnizada para encontrar respuestas, sino un manual de la erudición de su autor; una hermosa autobiografía intelectual.
+++
Algunas notas carentes de interés y únicamente para uso personal sobre los textos más interesantes del libro.
1. La esfera de Pascal:
Quizá la historia universal es la historia de la diversa entonación de algunas metáforas.
"La naturaleza es una esfera infinita, cuyo centro está en todas partes y la circunferencia en ninguna". Al consultarse el manuscrito original con sus tachaduras, Pascal había escrito "La naturaleza es una esfera espantosa, cuyo centro..."
2. La flor de Coleridge:
Todos los escritores son el mismo, todos los poemas son un fragmento de un poema infinito. Relación entre Coleridge, que plantea el retorno de alguien de la muerte con una rosa, HG Wells, que plantea el retorno con la máquina del tiempo y Henry James, cuyo viaje en el tiempo se da por la compenetración con un retrato.
3. El sueño de Coleridge:
Kublai Khan, emperador mongol, erige en el siglo XIII un palacio conforme a los planos vistos en un sueño. En 1816 Coleridge publica un poema que soñó sobre el mismo palacio. El palacio, destruído, vive por siempre en el poema de Coleridge.
4. La creación y P. H. Gosse
Gosse crea un brillante sofisma basado en la teoría de John Stuart Mill, que indica que el estado del universo en cualquier instante es consecuencia de su instante previo, y por tanto, si conocemos un sólo instante podríamos inferir toda su historia pasada y futura. Para comprobar, en contra de los paleontólogos, que la creación divina existió, Gosse plantea la creación como el punto cero del tiempo, como una discontinuidad que sin embargo, al crear todo de la nada, contempla una historia futura infinita pero al mismo tiempo una historia pasada infinita, que no existió, pero que se puede inferir. De ahí los fósiles de dinosaurios y reptiles prehistóricos, que están ahí porque Dios genera un continuo perfecto que puede rastrearse a un pasado infinito aunque este no haya existido.
5. Las alarmas del Dr. Americo Castro
Divertidísimo texto para ver a Borges en posición de ataque, contra un Dr. que se jacta de que el español argentino cada vez es más aberrante.
6. Magias parciales del Quijote
Hermoso texto sobre el metarrelato y su función en diferentes obras literarias mayores.
7. Nathaniel Hawthorne
Transcripción de la conferencia que da Borges sobre el autor norteamericano oriundo de Salem, Hawthorne. Enfocada en la influencia de este en escritores como Kafka y Faulkner incluso, inaugurando la posibilidad onírica en la literatura norteamericana. Análisis del estupendo relato de Wakefield, un hombre que decide abandonar por mero divertimento a su mujer y durante 20 años la espía desde un edificio contiguo, para finalmente volver como si nada hubiera pasado.
8. Nota sobre Walt Whitman
Sentido análisis de la separación entre Whitman escritor y Whitman hombre. La admiración de Borges por el poeta resulta evidente y encantadora.
9. El enigma de Edward Fitzgerald
Texto con trasfondo similar al del sueño de Coleridge en el que Borges analiza la colaboración entre un poeta persa del siglo XI y Edward Fitzgerald que en el siglo XIX presenta una traducción de los escritos del antigüo poeta, vaciando mucho de él en ellos.
10. El Biathanatos
Tomando como punto de partida el Biathanatos de John Donne, libro en el que el célebre poeta cavila sobre el suicidio, Borges elucubra sobre la teoría de que la crucifixión de Jesucristo fue en realidad un suicidio y que todo el universo se creó con el fin de que ese acontecimiento ocurriera. "Quizá el hierro fue creado para los clavos, y las espinas para la corona de escarnio, y la sangre y el agua para la herida. Esa idea barroca se entrevé en el Biathanatos. La de un Dios que fabrica el universo para fabricar su patíbulo."
11. Avatares de la tortuga
Planeando una biografía del infinito, Borges elabora un primer acercamiento a los conceptos de la infinitud asociados a Zenón, Atistóteles, Platón, Lotze, etc. Ponderando la teoría del regressus.
12. Del Culto de los libros
Estupendo texto sobre la transición de la cultura oral (que desdeñaba a la palabra escrita por ser "dañina" y atrofiar la mente") al culto de la palabra escrita.
13. Dos libros / Anotación al 23 de Agosto de 1944: Dos textos brillantes que muestran la faceta más política de Borges, elaborando conjeturas sobre los orígenes del fascismo y sobre su opinión respecto a la toma y recuperación de París.
14. De alguien a nadie
Dios pasa de ser "los dioses" (Elohim) a ser la nada. "Ser una cosa es inexorablemente no ser todas las otras cosas" "Nada debe afirmarse de Dios, todo puede negarse" según Schopenhauer: "esa es la única teología verdadera, pero no tiene contenido"
15. Nota sobre (hacia) Bernard Shaw:
"Una literatura difiere de otra, ulterior o anterior, menos por el texto que por la menera de ser leída: si me fuera otorgado leer cualquier página actual -ésta, por ejemplo- como la leerán el año dos mil, yo sabría cómo será la literatura el año dos mil"
16. Sobre los clásicos.
"Clásico no es un libro (lo repito) que necesariamente posee tales o cuales méritos; es un libro que las generaciones de los hombres, urgidas por diversas razones; leen con previo fervor y con una misteriosa lealtad."
May 14, 2018
I love two kinds of authors: a) those that obviously love reading widely and deeply, they just eat books - and b), those that can look at an idea or a concept, doesn't matter how outlandish it is, and think it through to its logical conclusion (in our times, one of those authors is Ted Chiang, who can write stories about a geocentric universe and have it make sense). Borges could do both, while shaking great authors out of his pockets and creating links between disparate literatures and worlds.
The themes that Borges was writing about in his more famous stories and novellas appear here as well: the difference between maps and their territory (Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius), eternity in time, infinity in space, infinity in text (think The Library Of Babel). So if you're looking for more background to his stories you'll find it here, while he doesn't link directly to his fiction, he makes some essays about the same themes. For example, for the concept a a ouynhe cites and quotes the
What's even more fun here are all the thought experiments that haven't made it into his fiction (at least not as far as I know), some based on theology, some on physics. Borges somehow manages to - for the duration of the essay - truly believe in these concepts, and in turn, make you believe in them. That's the mark of a truly great author.
So many other fun thoughts - what if all poems are fragments or episodes of a single infinite poem? What if time were circular, would it matter if art gets lost or destroyed, since all thoughts will be thought again anyway? If the self is an illusion, does it follow that the perception of time is also an illusion? ('... the plan to abolish the past had already occurred to men and - paradoxically - is therefore one of the proofs that the past cannot be abolished. The past is indestructible; sooner or later all things will return, including the plan to abolish the past.' - joy!). Borges cites widely, from French books on Chinese philosophy, from Gaucho literature, to English medieval literature, it's a huge network (if you want to see more of that network, get Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature).
Do you learn anything? Does it matter? Just look at these beautiful thoughts:
Or this one:
It's a pleasure, turns my skin warm.
After some more 'general' essays like these he moves on to literature reviews and to movie reviews. The literature reviews - shorter than the preceding essays - are interesting because again they show how widely and without Borges would read. The Tale of Genji receives a glowing review, as does Mathematics and the Imagination. I finally understand what Borges saw in The Invention of Morel. Interestingly, even Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles gets a positive review, with the most wonderful sentence: "the new narrative genre which the Americans of the North call 'science-fiction' or 'scientifiction'" - Borges, unlike so many critics of my times, doesn't see SF as a strict genre, but as another form of symbolism.
The movie reviews are less fun to read, partially because I haven't seen any of those movies from the 20s and 30s, partially because the essays are short, but still interesting to read for a) a takedown of dubbed movies and b) this sentence on the director von Sternberg:
Get this book, read this book, cherish it, love it
The themes that Borges was writing about in his more famous stories and novellas appear here as well: the difference between maps and their territory (Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius), eternity in time, infinity in space, infinity in text (think The Library Of Babel). So if you're looking for more background to his stories you'll find it here, while he doesn't link directly to his fiction, he makes some essays about the same themes. For example, for the concept a a ouynhe cites and quotes the
What's even more fun here are all the thought experiments that haven't made it into his fiction (at least not as far as I know), some based on theology, some on physics. Borges somehow manages to - for the duration of the essay - truly believe in these concepts, and in turn, make you believe in them. That's the mark of a truly great author.
These inversions [Quixote being a reader of the book Quixote, Hamlet watching a play based on Hamlet] suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious.
So many other fun thoughts - what if all poems are fragments or episodes of a single infinite poem? What if time were circular, would it matter if art gets lost or destroyed, since all thoughts will be thought again anyway? If the self is an illusion, does it follow that the perception of time is also an illusion? ('... the plan to abolish the past had already occurred to men and - paradoxically - is therefore one of the proofs that the past cannot be abolished. The past is indestructible; sooner or later all things will return, including the plan to abolish the past.' - joy!). Borges cites widely, from French books on Chinese philosophy, from Gaucho literature, to English medieval literature, it's a huge network (if you want to see more of that network, get Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature).
Do you learn anything? Does it matter? Just look at these beautiful thoughts:
Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that a single book is not. A book is not an isolated entity: it is a narration, an axis of innumerable narrations. One literature differs from another, either before or after it, not so much because of the text as for the manner in which it is read. If I were able to read any contemporary page - this one, for example - as it would be read in the year 2000, I would know what literature would be like in the year 2000.
Or this one:
Dunne assures us that in death we shall finally learn how to handle eternity. We shall recover all the moments of our lives and combine them as we please. God and our friends and Shakespeare will collaborate with us.
So splendid a thesis, makes any fallacy committed by the author insignificant.
It's a pleasure, turns my skin warm.
After some more 'general' essays like these he moves on to literature reviews and to movie reviews. The literature reviews - shorter than the preceding essays - are interesting because again they show how widely and without Borges would read. The Tale of Genji receives a glowing review, as does Mathematics and the Imagination. I finally understand what Borges saw in The Invention of Morel. Interestingly, even Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles gets a positive review, with the most wonderful sentence: "the new narrative genre which the Americans of the North call 'science-fiction' or 'scientifiction'" - Borges, unlike so many critics of my times, doesn't see SF as a strict genre, but as another form of symbolism.
How can these fantasies move me, and in such an intimate manner? All literature (I would dare to answer) is symbolic; there are a few fundamental experiences, and it is unimportant whether a writer, in transmitting them, makes use of the "fantastic" or the "real", Macbeth or Raskolninov, the invasion of Belgium in August 1914 or an invasion of Mars. What does it matter if it is this novel, or novelty, of science fiction? In this outwardly fantastic book, Bradbury has set out the long empty Sundays, the American tedium, and his own solitude, as Sinclair Lewis did in Main Street.
The movie reviews are less fun to read, partially because I haven't seen any of those movies from the 20s and 30s, partially because the essays are short, but still interesting to read for a) a takedown of dubbed movies and b) this sentence on the director von Sternberg:
Formerly he seemed mad, which at least was something; now he seems merely simpleminded.
Get this book, read this book, cherish it, love it
October 13, 2021
Ensaios
May 20, 2023
L'Aleph del Borges saggista
Questo è il vertice indiscutibile dell'attività di Borges come saggista - non fatevi confondere dal fatto che il titolo sembra alludere ad un appendice al testo precedente Inquisizioni. In realtà è veramente di un livello più elevato (al punto che Borges stesso aveva una pessima opinione del libro precedente).
Anche quando tratta di letteratura o filosofia, lo stile del grandissimo portegno è inconfondibile: intuizioni geniali in forma rarefatta e asciutta, in cui ogni parola ha la forza di una pagina pur mantenendo la tipica atmosfera di understatement sospeso ed ironico, con certe pennellate di colto ed intelligente sberleffo.
I temi sono gli stessi della produzione di "finzione": l'identità, il tempo (con la magistrale negazione dello stesso negli ultimi capitoli), la letteratura come invenzione, gioco con la realtà, mistero dell'esistenza.
Notevole ed originalissima anche la modalità con cui Borges affronta i temi spiccatamente filosofici - egli sembra attirato in particolare dall'estetica delle idee filosofiche. Come se la ragione fosse impegnata non tanto nella costruzione di schematiche strutture funzionali ma piuttosto nella realizzazione creativa di sistemi affascinanti - anche quando dibatte di Schopenhauer e Platone, Borges non cessa di dipingere arabeschi ammalianti.
Valga come esempio l'intuizione che unisce geometria e teoretica, quando nota che solo la sfera, come un Aleph, è divina ed eterna; l'angolo e lo spigolo rappresentano l'espressione umana, artificiosa e soprattutto temporanea, - perfetta unione della sua più nota invenzione di finzione (l'Aleph) con le riflessioni filosofiche sulla realtà.
Tra i pezzi che ho preferito:
- "Magie parziali del Don Chisciotte": riflessione profondissima su letteratura e metaletteratura
Perché ci inquieta che don Chisciotte sia lettore del Don Chisciotte, e Amleto spettatore del l'Amleto? Credo di aver trovato la causa: tali inversioni suggeriscono che se i personaggi di una finzione possono essere lettori o spettatori, noi, loro lettori o spettatori, possiamo essere fittizi.
- "L'enigma di Edward Fitzgerald" - Pezzo evocativo immaginifico e di altissima letteratura in poche pagine
- "Su Chesterton" - una concisa e fulminante dissertazione su religione e filosofia:
la fede cattolica, ossia un insieme di immaginazioni ebraiche sottomesse a Platone e ad Aristotele
- la definizione dei "classici"
classico quel libro che una nazione o un gruppo di nazioni o un lungo periodo di tempo hanno deciso di leggere come se nelle sue pagine tutto fosse deliberato, fatale, profondo come il cosmo e passibile di interpretazioni illimitate
Non posso che sottoscrivere le parole in calce al testo di Fabio Rodriguez Amaya nella sua ottima postfazione, quando chiosa:
un'immaginazione ironica, cosmopolita e dissacrante, capace di varcare ogni frontiera e di tradurre sogni e simboli in un coerente e personale universo di miti.
Questo è il vertice indiscutibile dell'attività di Borges come saggista - non fatevi confondere dal fatto che il titolo sembra alludere ad un appendice al testo precedente Inquisizioni. In realtà è veramente di un livello più elevato (al punto che Borges stesso aveva una pessima opinione del libro precedente).
Anche quando tratta di letteratura o filosofia, lo stile del grandissimo portegno è inconfondibile: intuizioni geniali in forma rarefatta e asciutta, in cui ogni parola ha la forza di una pagina pur mantenendo la tipica atmosfera di understatement sospeso ed ironico, con certe pennellate di colto ed intelligente sberleffo.
I temi sono gli stessi della produzione di "finzione": l'identità, il tempo (con la magistrale negazione dello stesso negli ultimi capitoli), la letteratura come invenzione, gioco con la realtà, mistero dell'esistenza.
Notevole ed originalissima anche la modalità con cui Borges affronta i temi spiccatamente filosofici - egli sembra attirato in particolare dall'estetica delle idee filosofiche. Come se la ragione fosse impegnata non tanto nella costruzione di schematiche strutture funzionali ma piuttosto nella realizzazione creativa di sistemi affascinanti - anche quando dibatte di Schopenhauer e Platone, Borges non cessa di dipingere arabeschi ammalianti.
Valga come esempio l'intuizione che unisce geometria e teoretica, quando nota che solo la sfera, come un Aleph, è divina ed eterna; l'angolo e lo spigolo rappresentano l'espressione umana, artificiosa e soprattutto temporanea, - perfetta unione della sua più nota invenzione di finzione (l'Aleph) con le riflessioni filosofiche sulla realtà.
Tra i pezzi che ho preferito:
- "Magie parziali del Don Chisciotte": riflessione profondissima su letteratura e metaletteratura
Perché ci inquieta che don Chisciotte sia lettore del Don Chisciotte, e Amleto spettatore del l'Amleto? Credo di aver trovato la causa: tali inversioni suggeriscono che se i personaggi di una finzione possono essere lettori o spettatori, noi, loro lettori o spettatori, possiamo essere fittizi.
- "L'enigma di Edward Fitzgerald" - Pezzo evocativo immaginifico e di altissima letteratura in poche pagine
- "Su Chesterton" - una concisa e fulminante dissertazione su religione e filosofia:
la fede cattolica, ossia un insieme di immaginazioni ebraiche sottomesse a Platone e ad Aristotele
- la definizione dei "classici"
classico quel libro che una nazione o un gruppo di nazioni o un lungo periodo di tempo hanno deciso di leggere come se nelle sue pagine tutto fosse deliberato, fatale, profondo come il cosmo e passibile di interpretazioni illimitate
Non posso che sottoscrivere le parole in calce al testo di Fabio Rodriguez Amaya nella sua ottima postfazione, quando chiosa:
un'immaginazione ironica, cosmopolita e dissacrante, capace di varcare ogni frontiera e di tradurre sogni e simboli in un coerente e personale universo di miti.
November 24, 2020
A very precious collection of essays by Jorge Luis Borges on a variety of different topics (mostly literature and philosophy, though). Truly enlightening for a) reasearching a lot of rather unpopular topics, I mean it'd be cool if you had to write a paper on something and instead of those usual college teachers you had Borges as your source and b) showing what a thirst for knowledge Borges had: clearly one of those authors who don't just love to write but mostly to read as well. Obviously he's spent a lot of time studying all sorts of stuff and had a deep interest in understanding and researching various topics.
It's obviously very lovely to see how passionately he talks of examining all these subjects - he really sparks your interest.
However, since all of the topics he reflects on are obviously very, very, overly, awfully specific I wouldn't suggest just reading it all at once for pleasure (like my ignorant self did, hehe). It's obviously much more easy and interesting if you already know what the guy's talking about, so yeah, obviously my fault for reading this out of the blue, 'cause I had to do some research almost before starting each essay in order to understand it!
It's obviously very lovely to see how passionately he talks of examining all these subjects - he really sparks your interest.
However, since all of the topics he reflects on are obviously very, very, overly, awfully specific I wouldn't suggest just reading it all at once for pleasure (like my ignorant self did, hehe). It's obviously much more easy and interesting if you already know what the guy's talking about, so yeah, obviously my fault for reading this out of the blue, 'cause I had to do some research almost before starting each essay in order to understand it!
July 4, 2016
Ler Borges é reler Borges: os seus ensaios servem de justificativa para seus contos e seus poemas; estes, por sua vez, justificam aqueles. Menos erudito e acadêmico do que "História da Eternidade" - e, portanto, melhor, ou mais prazeroso -, esse "Outras Inquisições" contém alguns dos meus ensaios favoritos do autor argentino: "A muralha e os livros", "A esfera de Pascal", "A flor de Coleridge" e "O sonho de Coleridge", "O idioma analítico de John Wilkins" (que descreve a impossível enciclopédia chinesa que inspirou Foucault), "Kafka e seus precursores", "Sobre os clássicos", "Nathaniel Hawthorne", "Das alegorias aos romances" e tantos outros. Ligando os ensaios, algumas questões em comum: Borges admitiu em outro texto ter sido um homem monótono, que se preocupou com os mesmos três ou quatro problemas ao longo de sua vida. Considerando sua obra e a alegria que ela me proporciona, agradeço imensamente a sua monotonia.
January 27, 2014
Riacquistato per affetto dopo decenni (letto allora in prestito da un amico matto) grazie a chi me lo ha fatto ricordare. Devo ovviamente rileggerlo, ma ricordo certamente che l'Arte � vendere mobili di legno a chi non li vorrebbe nemmeno per bruciarli, dolci a chi preferisce il salato, carne ai vegetariani e libri simili a me. Un segreto: quando volete parlare di libri, fate come Borges, non posate. Passerete diaframmi altrimenti infrangibili.
August 18, 2012
Creative and insightful short essays on a variety of literary, historical and philosophical topics. Each essay is like opening the door to a new room in your house, with windows that overlook fantastic but somehow familiar landscapes, so you come away from each new view with a different way of seeing what was already there.
November 12, 2023
"El mundo, según Mallarmé, existe para un libro: según Bloy, somos versículos o palabras o letras de un libro mágico, y ese libro incesante es la única cosa que hay en el mundo: es, mejor dicho, el mundo".
Cada tanto es menester leer a Borges para recordar lo pequeña de nuestra así llamada "erudición" o lo mezquino de nuestros "intereses y exploraciones".
Cada tanto es menester leer a Borges para recordar lo pequeña de nuestra así llamada "erudición" o lo mezquino de nuestros "intereses y exploraciones".
July 26, 2019
Borges ile zihnimizi şenlendiriyoruz.
December 29, 2022
Това заглавие определено засили интереса ми към Борхес - един напълно непознат и нов писател за мен. Тук са побрани есета на най-различни теми, като по-голямата част от тях са кратки и позволяват да се четат всички заедно на един път или пък по едно-две през няколко дни/седмици, както предпочита човек. Борхес пише много увлекателно и на достъпен език. От всичко най-оцених, че по нито един въпрос не натрапва мнение. Винаги оставя накрая читателя да направи своите заключения. Ако се интересувате от теми като: сънища, време, Аз-ът, Вселената и още подобни, но не ви се четат дълги обяснения с голямо навлизане в подробности, мисля, че ще останете доволни от сборника. Допълнително между тях има и няколко есета, в които Борхес споделя мнението си относно велики писатели и световно известни класически заглавия, които ми бяха много интересни - едно-две обаче ги пропуснах, защото не съм чела произведенията. В бъдеще ще се върна към тях.
Оформлението на книгата е отлично! Есетата се четат бързо и удобно, защото изданието е пълно с пояснения, преводи и бележки под линия, така че няма нещо, което да ви обърка или да ви остане неизяснено.
Това е чудесен избор за хора като мен, които не четат често литература на такава тематика.
Оформлението на книгата е отлично! Есетата се четат бързо и удобно, защото изданието е пълно с пояснения, преводи и бележки под линия, така че няма нещо, което да ви обърка или да ви остане неизяснено.
Това е чудесен избор за хора като мен, които не четат често литература на такава тематика.
May 3, 2020
Нові Розслідування - чи не найкраща збірка ессеїв Борхеса.
Майстер ficciones розповість вам в чому перегукується творчість Кафки, По і Честертона. Відкриє маловідому історію про те, як через помилку ченця Сідхартху Бодхисатва чуть не канізували.
Розповість про те, як Есхіл перевернув уявлення сучасників про драму чи як Бертран Расел вів полеміку крізь завісу часу із Спінозою та Гераклітом.
Майстер ficciones розповість вам в чому перегукується творчість Кафки, По і Честертона. Відкриє маловідому історію про те, як через помилку ченця Сідхартху Бодхисатва чуть не канізували.
Розповість про те, як Есхіл перевернув уявлення сучасників про драму чи як Бертран Расел вів полеміку крізь завісу часу із Спінозою та Гераклітом.
August 24, 2014
Spectacular word-nerd reading. Some quotes:
p.5 - the "imminence of a revelation that is not yet produced is, perhaps, the aesthetic reality."
p.7 - (quoting Alain de Lille) "God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
p.9 - "Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors."
p.14 - "Swinburne felt like what he [Coleridge] had been able to salvage was the supreme example of music in the English language, and that to try and analyze it ["Kubla Khan"] would be like trying to unravel a rainbow (the metaphor belongs to Keats). Summaries or descriptions of poetry hose principal virtue is music are useless and would only defeat our purpose".
p.p.25 - Bertrand Russel (on creation/Genesis) "theorizes that the planet was created a few minutes ago, with a humanity that 'remembers' an illusory past."
p.33 - "The illusions of patriotism are limitless."
p.33 - (quoting Hegel) "The state is the reality of the moral idea."
p.43 - "Conrad and Henry James incorporated reality into their novels because they deemed it poetic".
p.50 - "the less an allegory can be reduced to a plan, to a cold set of abstractions, the better it is."
p.51 - "Better are those pure fantasies that do not look for a justification or moral and that seem to have no other substance than an obscure terror."
p.59 - "The past is indestructible; sooner or later all things will return, including the plan to abolish the past."
p.71. - "Whitman's plan was to display an ideal democrat, not to devise a theory."
p.79 - "Wilde's syntax is always very simple. Of the many British writers, none is so accessible to foreigners."
p.87 - "Work that endures is always capable of an infinite and plastic ambiguity; it is all things for all men, like the Apostle; it is a mirror that reflects the reader's own traits and it is also a map of the world."
p.5 - the "imminence of a revelation that is not yet produced is, perhaps, the aesthetic reality."
p.7 - (quoting Alain de Lille) "God is an intelligible sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere."
p.9 - "Perhaps universal history is the history of the diverse intonation of a few metaphors."
p.14 - "Swinburne felt like what he [Coleridge] had been able to salvage was the supreme example of music in the English language, and that to try and analyze it ["Kubla Khan"] would be like trying to unravel a rainbow (the metaphor belongs to Keats). Summaries or descriptions of poetry hose principal virtue is music are useless and would only defeat our purpose".
p.p.25 - Bertrand Russel (on creation/Genesis) "theorizes that the planet was created a few minutes ago, with a humanity that 'remembers' an illusory past."
p.33 - "The illusions of patriotism are limitless."
p.33 - (quoting Hegel) "The state is the reality of the moral idea."
p.43 - "Conrad and Henry James incorporated reality into their novels because they deemed it poetic".
p.50 - "the less an allegory can be reduced to a plan, to a cold set of abstractions, the better it is."
p.51 - "Better are those pure fantasies that do not look for a justification or moral and that seem to have no other substance than an obscure terror."
p.59 - "The past is indestructible; sooner or later all things will return, including the plan to abolish the past."
p.71. - "Whitman's plan was to display an ideal democrat, not to devise a theory."
p.79 - "Wilde's syntax is always very simple. Of the many British writers, none is so accessible to foreigners."
p.87 - "Work that endures is always capable of an infinite and plastic ambiguity; it is all things for all men, like the Apostle; it is a mirror that reflects the reader's own traits and it is also a map of the world."
October 6, 2009
There is a beautiful analysis of Nathaniel Hawthorne (one more precursor to Kafka, created by Kafka! - according to Borges) in this book. I was not aware that Hawthorne's ancestor stood in judgment over the accused at the Salem witch trials, or that Hawthorne spoke against nude sculptures, or that he filled volumes of diaries with details like the movement of a hen or the shadow of a branch (subsequently confounding Henry James!). I remember Hawthorne only through the many short stories I was assigned in grade school. One vivid detail of my Hawthorne reading is a quiet autumn evening sitting in a Sunday school room, sitting under a solemn portrait of Christ and reading 'The Minister's Black Veil'. I can still sense the terror of the story's severity, as well as the oppressive dullness. In his essay, Borges traces the impact of such stories from Hawthorne's initial sketches, often a moral he would build a story on. Borges finds many of Hawthorne's morals contradictory and fanatical, but explains why his fiction remains so moving. The essay somehow brought me back to grade school, under the looming statue of Hawthorne in his hometown, and to the quiet study "where thousands upon thousands of visions have appeared to me in it; and some have become visible to the world."
There is an entire universe in everything Borges writes, and a library of references in every paragraph. He's not simply showing off his erudition, he is shouting with glee as each connection becomes visible to him, and following along on his literary adventures is quite the thrill.
There is an entire universe in everything Borges writes, and a library of references in every paragraph. He's not simply showing off his erudition, he is shouting with glee as each connection becomes visible to him, and following along on his literary adventures is quite the thrill.
April 28, 2014
Cuando pensaba en Borges lo visualizaba como en las últimas entrevistas, ya viejo con baston y ciego, pero ahora después de este libro me lo imagino en cualquier biblioteca con varios libros enfrente y tomando apunte tras apunte.
Con un lenguaje común, sin la utilización de palabras solo vistas en el diccionario, Borges analiza desde la religión, el tiempo, la filosofía, obras de otros autores, etc. . El lenguaje es sencillo pero los artículo no siempre son fáciles de seguir (al menos en mi caso).
Estan buenísimos los articulo que nombra MycolorButtons y yo agregaría "La muralla y los libros" "Kafka y sus Precursores" y me quedo con una frase de "Dos libros" sobre semiología ¿o es análisis del discurso?:
"Russell propone que las escuelas primarias enseñen el arte de leer con incredulidad los periódicos" --"las personas se dejan embaucar... piensan que un hecho ha acontecido porque está escrito en grandes letras negras"
Con un lenguaje común, sin la utilización de palabras solo vistas en el diccionario, Borges analiza desde la religión, el tiempo, la filosofía, obras de otros autores, etc. . El lenguaje es sencillo pero los artículo no siempre son fáciles de seguir (al menos en mi caso).
Estan buenísimos los articulo que nombra MycolorButtons y yo agregaría "La muralla y los libros" "Kafka y sus Precursores" y me quedo con una frase de "Dos libros" sobre semiología ¿o es análisis del discurso?:
"Russell propone que las escuelas primarias enseñen el arte de leer con incredulidad los periódicos" --"las personas se dejan embaucar... piensan que un hecho ha acontecido porque está escrito en grandes letras negras"
September 30, 2012
Being impressed with Borges' erudition is easy (to get all of the literary and historical references here you'd have to have spent the last solid 20 years of your life reading, and widely), and one can't but love a man who quotes unapologetically in French, Latin, and German and to hell with providing a translation. Yet only a handful of the essays contained here truly grabbed me: "The Enigma of Edward Fitzgerald," "About Oscar Wilde," "On the Cult of Books." Most of the essays contained within this book strike me more as drabbles, or jumping-off points - just as things are about to get real, as they say, whoops! End of essay. A worthy read, but one best dipped into at your points of interest rather than waded straight through.
March 30, 2023
El mejor libro de ensayos que he leído. Soy a Borges como Pedro fue a Jesús. Al inició renegué de su talento como escritor, pero el tiempo -mismo concepto que refuta Borges en el que fue mi ensayo favorito de este libro- me enseñó el error en el que estaba. Por fin reconozco la maestría de su pluma y su infinita sabiduría. Otras Inquisiciones es una magna cátedra de literatura, letras, filosofía y humanidad. No había aprendido tanto en tan poco. Bastaron menos de doscientas páginas para aprender el doble que en toda mi carrera académica. Me arrodillo ante Borges y deseo algún día llegar a adquirir al menos la mínima parte de su basto conocimiento.
July 8, 2008
Aunque no encontré aquí la descripción en español de está obra, editada por EMECÉ Editores, 1960, Argentina
Serie de ensayos tremendamente borgianos, aunque parezca perogrullo, donde el amor y esa fijación sobre el papel impreso que está siempre en Borges nos regala un paseo cultísimo para conocer sus ideas sobre grandes escritores y sobre la palabra escrita que en él todo lo define.
Exquisito y deslumbrante.
Serie de ensayos tremendamente borgianos, aunque parezca perogrullo, donde el amor y esa fijación sobre el papel impreso que está siempre en Borges nos regala un paseo cultísimo para conocer sus ideas sobre grandes escritores y sobre la palabra escrita que en él todo lo define.
Exquisito y deslumbrante.
November 11, 2017
"Il tempo è la sostanza di cui sono fatto. Il tempo è un fiume che mi trascina, ma io sono il fiume; è una tigre che mi sbrana, ma io sono la tigre; è un fuoco che mi divora, ma io sono il fuoco. Il mondo, disgraziatamente, è reale; io, disgraziatamente, sono Borges." (Nuova confutazione del tempo, p. 198)
"Classico […] è un libro che generazioni di uomini, spinte da ragioni diverse, leggono con previo fervore e con una misteriosa lealtà. (Sui classici, p. 201)
"Classico […] è un libro che generazioni di uomini, spinte da ragioni diverse, leggono con previo fervore e con una misteriosa lealtà. (Sui classici, p. 201)
September 3, 2016
These essays beautifully show some of the roots of Borges' surreal stories. Borges was an avid reader and extremely well-read, so the connections and conclusions he draws between and from the philosophical edifices of, say, Berkeley and Schopenhauer, or the writings of Kafka etc. are quite illuminating and really open up the horizons of the reader.
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