Brain Pain discussion

This discussion covers the story, The South


Juan Dahlmann has a life-changing encounter with Arabian Nights and an open casement window. Disrespected by a drunk, breadcrumb-hurling Indian, Juan steps out into eternity and the southern night.



REMINDER: We’ll be finishing off our reading of Borges short stories with a novella by his friend, Adolfo Bioy Casares called The Invention of Morel. Discussion will begin on December 2nd.

So I finally read The South and... it was excellent. It was excellent by the middle of the story, and many different endings could have arrived with roughly equal satisfaction. But the end was good too. Borges does not perpettually write the same story, his stories go here, there, everywhere; they surprise; but they relate to one another by various common themes and obsessions. This could probably be thematically connected to several of the other stories we've read. At the moment I'm a bit lazy, so I'll just say this story could be well appreciated on its own by someone who had never read Borges, but within the context of his other writings it becomes richer. It also demonstrates again hos abilitity to achieve a lot in three pages or so, creating a story which seems large in scope, as the mind perceives the sketch and imagines an elaboration of possible details.

Zadignose wrote: "So I finally read The South and... it was excellent. It was excellent by the middle of the story, and many different endings could have arrived with roughly equal satisfaction. But the end was good..."

It immediately made me think of "The End", another take on the Argentinian mythologizing of the gaucho. Sure, it may LOOK like an idiot tourist getting killed in a pointless brawl, but it's actually someone achieving the apotheosis of romantic idealism :-)

Good summary.

Zadignose wrote: "This could probably be thematically connected to several of the other stories we've read. At the moment I'm a bit lazy, so I'll just say this story could be well appreciated on its own by someone who had never read Borges, but within the context of his other writings it becomes richer. It also demonstrates again hos ability to achieve a lot in three pages or so, creating a story which seems large in scope, as the mind perceives the sketch and imagines an elaboration of possible details..."

Yes, very true. The economy of his writing is truly on display here. Similar to Philip Roth's information-packed paragraphs. I wonder what Borges might have done in a novel-length story - Maybe "War and Peace" in 300 pages...

What did you think of the deus ex machina of the casement window hitting him in the head?

Jim wrote: "What did you think of the deus ex machina of the casement window hitting him in the head?"

I liked it a lot, though I have to admit I had trouble visualizing just exactly how he struck his head on a window while walking down stairs... well, I'm probably stuck on vizualising the stairwells in a modern work office where there would be no such hazard! But I totally related to the idea of a random fluke, while he's distracted by his reading (I do the same damn thing while walking down steps into subway stations) could have big consequences.

No less radical in the role of Fate's arbitrary intervention is the fact that he developed sepsis from a cut that wasn't painful enough to even merit his immediate attention. It's something that could happen to any of us, but is likely to strike maybe one in ten-million.

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Oh yeah, also it's interestingly ignoble how his life was overturned by such a silly accident, and yet it led to his newly romanticized view of life... and possibly another ignoble conclusion which yet mirrors the death of his maternal ancestor who was stabbed by an Indian. For all we know, his ancestor's death by spear wound was itself far less romantic and noble than supposed.