Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

This is the thread for The Aleph and Other Stories. Buddy read begins on March 1, 2023

My Penguin edition is scheduled to arrive today. Even short introduction and some basic glossary notes will be appreciated. 🌟Penguin please help🌟

I have found wikipedia to be useful. Many, but not all, of Borges' stories have their own entry. I read a story first, then read the entry. I almost always reread the story.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borg...

The subsections under the Borges entry has tons of information about his work:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_L...

This section:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borg...

inspired my choices for BINGO N2:

N2: Classic Western - The Gaucho Martín Fierro (which influenced Borges)
plus "Martín Fierro" from Part I of Dreamtigers and Borges' 2 short stories from
A Universal History of Iniquity:
     • The Disinterested Killer Bill Harrigan
     • The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell

Here's a short thread I started about translations of Borges. Can you view it even if you are not a member of the translation group?

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I might join you for this one. It is on my Classics Bingo Board, but it will depend on how things are going with Infinite Jest. My copy is not the Penguin Classics version, but The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969--the translation Borges made with di Giovann.

Even if I can't make it for March, I will be following the thread. It will be interesting to see how the two differ.

One of my personal challenges
is to eventually finish reading all of Borges short stories and non-fiction. So I will always be available to discuss Borges. :-)

A GR member named Cecily has wonderful reviews of Borges' work and she feels he had some better periods. Those are in sync with his popular collections, Ficciones, Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings, and the collection we are reading.

I don't plan on reading his poetry - except where it's included in other collections - because he didn't feel he was particularly good at poetry, but mostly because I don't understand poetry well.

It will be interesting to compare translations.

I'd also like to know how you like Infinite Jest. It's quite an undertaking from what I hear.

You know, DFW is quite the wordsmith. He has passages that take my breath away. Then DFW becomes...I think the REAL DFW and just wastes my time with interesting, but unnecessary digressions and Endnotes that kill whatever he's done before. Then your breath will be taken away by meandering block paragraphs of multiple pages; and if there's more than one sentence, you're lucky.

In the end, I think he is more about getting all of his thoughts on a subject out of his head than he is about the person reading his stuff. The reader is irrelevant to him, it's the fact that IJ exists that is important. So he is about literature for literature's sake. And the literati have surround his wagon and will defend him to the death (pun intended).

People will still read IJ, mostly for the challenge of completing it. It's not to be taken as exemplary literature. Though his sections on AA/NA and how it can change lives is quite insightful--if not very original. I've heard about what he has to say all my life (first from my father).

Anyway, I think a good place to start with Aleph is the TOC of each version. I'm at work and don't have the book with me, but I will post the TOC of the version I have when I get the chance. Unless someone beats me to it.

I also picked up a copy of the di Giovanni translations for this read. I would appreciate TOC listing of stories chose from the Penguin.

Here is the TOC for The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 that Borges made with translator di Giovanni:

The Aleph
Streetcorner Man
The Approach to Mu'tasim
The Circular Ruins
Death and the Compass
The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)
The Two Kings and Their Two Labyrinths
The Dead Man
The Other Death
Ibn Hakkan al Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth
The Man on the Threshold
The Challenge
The Capture
Borges and Myself
The Maker
The Intruder
The Immortals
The Meeting
Pedro Salvadores
Rosendo's Tale
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY
Commentaries
Biographical Note

All but the Biographical Note were part of the translation. It should be noted that some of the stories may have a differently translated title.

The different translations themselves have an interesting story as well. It appears that retranslating them was a decision made by Borges' wife and heir to avoid paying di Diovanni a 50% royalty fee in perpetuity. I'm sure there's more to it than that. but apparently neither is a warts-and-all-translation of Borges.

Wow, that's a very different TOC than the one mentioned in his :
bibliography in wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borg...
which is the same as the section in The Collected Ficciones of Jorges Luis Borges that Hurley translated (I have that in PDF).

I am happy to read all stories from both TOCs.

Sam wrote: "I also picked up a copy of the di Giovanni translations for this read. I would appreciate TOC listing of stories chose from the Penguin."

I have it here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

Table of Contents
The Immortal
The Dead Man
The Theologians
Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden
A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz
Emma Zunz
The House of Asterion
The Other Death
Deutsches Requiem
Averroes' Search
The Zahir
The Writing of the God (aka The God's Script)
Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in his Labyrinth
The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths
The Wait
The Man on the Threshold
The Aleph
Afterword

Squire wrote: "You know, DFW is quite the wordsmith. He has passages that take my breath away. Then DFW becomes...I think the REAL DFW and just wastes my time with interesting, but unnecessary digressions and End..."

What a fabulous review. Thank you.
Are you going to write this up for your book reviews?

When I finish, sure. But I'm not even halfway through. And I'm going to finish. The book might take a left turn into reader-friendly land. Who knows. The end is probably the end of March.

Klowey wrote: "Wow, that's a very different TOC than the one mentioned in his :
bibliography in wikipedia:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borg...
which is the same as the section in The Collected Fi..."

The translation I have is from 1972 so there are a lot of items in it that just weren't written in1949. I don't know how that is going to play out.

Thanks for the TOC's. I adjusted my plan so that I will read the Hurley translations for this read with some di Giovanni for comparison. I had heard, like Squire said, that di Giovanni was Borges' favorite translator, but in the spirit of things, i feel each translation here would just be another story, rather than better or worse than another, fitting more with Borges' perspective on things. Klowey, do you have a schedule for discussion? I find Borges works best for me in small dosages with time for reflection so I will probably read one story every couple of days.

Well Cynda and I decided to do the buddy read, so I am willing to go along with what others want.

I do agree with you that the stories are so rich (at least to me) that I like to take them one at a time and ponder. In contrast to reading stories quickly from say Chekhov, Poe, Agatha Christie, etc.

However, that said, I think that I've really appreciated Borges more, the more stories or essays I read. I start to see the similar themes come up repeatedly and how each story is a slightly new way of looking at it. Especially themes of identity, infinity, and authorship - but there are so many more.

I do think the sections of the wikipedia article on Borges that talk about his work are very enlightening.

So I guess for me I'd suggest reading a few, and then rereading whichever one we decide to have a current discussion on. So some posts may talk about themes across stories, others may focus on a particular story.

Also, are we all going to read all the stories in both TOCs, whether or not we read the same translator? I have access to all of Borges' fiction. Deciding that will tell us which stories we're going to discuss.

It seems we have 3 different versions of The Aleph and Other Stories.

1. "The Aleph" (a collection set in the Collected Works of Jorges Luis Borges, also translated by Hurley, which is the single collection under "The Aleph."
The TOC is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

2. The Penguin edition translated by Hurley. The Aleph and Other Stories, which says it contains the collection "The Maker" which is the Part 1 of "Dreamtigers.
TOC is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

3. The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni.
The TOC is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

I will print the TOC to the Penguin version in a new comment.

I just found a copy of the di Giovanni translation here, free for download:
https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-aleph-an...

However, it's also available to borrow from the Internet Archive library:
https://archive.org/details/alephothe...

I'm going to start reading the stories. I am happy to read and discuss them in any order you like.

Table of Contents to the Penguin edition:
The Aleph and Other Stories
Introduction by Andrew Hurley

The Aleph (1940)

The Immortal
The Dead Man
The Theologians
Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden
A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)
Emma Zunz
The House of Asterion
The Other Death
Deutsches Requiem
Averroës' Search
The Zahir
The Writing of the God
Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth
The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths
The Wait
The Man on the Threshold
The Aleph
Afterword

The Maker (1960)

Foreword: For Leopold Lugones
The Maker
Dreamtigers
A Dialog About a Dialog
Toenails
Covered Mirrors
Argumentum Ornithologicum
The Captive
The Mountebank
Delia Elena San Marco
A Dialog Between Dead Men
The Plot
A Problem
The Yellow Rose
The Witness
Martin Fierro
Mutations
Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote
Paradiso, XXXI, 108
Parable of the Palace
Everything and Nothing
Ragnarök
Inferno, I, 32
Borges and I

Museum
On Exactitude and Science
In Memoriam, J.F.K.
Afterword

A Note on the Translation
Acknowledgments
Notes to the Fictions

I will start with the Hurley Penguin stories from the beginning today.

Note that similarity in titles between translations does not mean the two stories are the same Hurley's "The Immortal,"and Giovanni's "The Immortals," are two different stories.

Sam wrote: "I will start with the Hurley Penguin stories from the beginning today.

Note that similarity in titles between translations does not mean the two stories are the same Hurley's "The Immortal,"and G..."

Wow.
I never knew that. Thanks for catching it.

Then I'll continue reading in the Hurley Penguin stories.

I knew that Borges wrote and rewrote stories. But I thought the stories were the same--or pretty much so--in each edition. Makes me a bit nervous. Maybe Borges in Writerly Heaven is laughing at me--but I can't help it.

😳🤭

I am starting the stories tonight. Did anyone else notice the epigraph at the beginning of the story "The Immortal" where the narrator in part remembers:

Solomon saith: There is no new thing upon the earth.

So I will try to not read too much into the story, just come to an understanding in general.

*Spoiler Alert*
about "The Immortal"
The narrator merges many elements in a journey-- Classical mythology, pre-Modern descriptions of monster-humans, Spanish exploration experiences. I particularly like the seeming references to the Pueblo culture and the Shadows of Elysian Fields

For me the Question becomes: Why these images? What is the narrator journeying toward? The timelessness of the ancient cultures of The Americas and the timelessness of the Classical mythology.

This is a first read--just like Klowey has said--much here to be read, considered, reread, reconsidered.

Cynda wrote: "I am starting the stories tonight. Did anyone else notice the epigraph at the beginning of the story "The Immortal" where the narrator in part remembers:

Solomon saith: There is no new thing upon ..."

Oh yes. It's a very relevant quote. :-)

about " The Dead Man"
I have lived in the Wild Horse Desert of Deep South Texas. I know about frontier justice--also about karma.

about "The Theologians"

This article might help understand the gist of the story:
https://abovethelaw.com/2017/12/the-t...

The writer of the caliber of Borges leaves nothing to chance--as we see as he continued to refine his stories. The title "The Theologians" gives away much of the main thread of the story.
"Theo" refers to god.
"logos" refers to words.
So it seems to me that the title indicates that there are a bunch of words about what god might and might not be.
Since lawyers, even theologian-lawyers, practice rhetoric and use logos which appeals to logic--versus ethos which appeals to ethics or pathos which appeals to emotions--the logos/logic is good logic only if the audience--those listening or reading--understand the logos/logic. More up-to-date examples will appeal to a contemporary audience. The whole theologian-lawyer story is an object lesson in rhetoric. .,. . well one main thread.

Many will remember the communications triangle which is indicated here but not stated: "Sender--Message--Listener/Reader." In the middle of the triangle sometimes is included "Context."

about "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden"

We have stories about people going native or choosing to stay overseas after finishing a tour or a semester abroad.

There are a variety, maybe even many stories, in US about girls chosen by Amerindian clans, tribes, bands to be brought up by the various groups to either work as servants to breed new children. Sometimes years later those women are taken back by their families and sometimes those women returned to those who adopted them. Some like Cynthia Ann Parker returned but never really fit back into her original society. Her son Quanah Parker was the last great Commanche chief.
https://www.tsl.texas.gov/outofthesta...

about Emma Zunz
The speed and simplicity if the story was just right. Good match between subject and style. The last sentence was so right
. . . . .
Question. The narrator says that the letter writer could not have known that he was informing the dead man's daughter of Manuel Maier's death. So any ideas on who the writer of the letter intended to send the letter to?

about The House of Asterion

I have twice read Circe by Madeline Miller. Circe was the sister of the mother of the minotaur. Circe cared for the baby minotaur until he just got too out of control. So he really was an innocent, just living out his nature.

Here in "The House of Asterion," we see that innocence--dangerous innocence.

about "The Immortal"

Cynda wrote: "I am starting the stories tonight. Did anyone else notice the epigraph at the beginning of the story "The Immortal" where the narrator in part remembers:

Solomon saith: There is no new thing upon ..."

Possibly more than with the other stories, I will use a few comments to talk about "The Immortal."

The link I'm using for the full Francis Bacon quote is here:
http://www.literaturepage.com/read/fr...

Starting with the quote you mentioned:
"Salomon saith, There is no new thing upon the earth. So that as Plato had an imagination, that all knowledge was but remembrance; so Salomon giveth his sentence, that all novelty is but oblivion."

1. Borges is quoting Sir Francis Bacon. That said, I interpreted this to mean everything we believe (and that we consider knowledge) is based only on what we can remember.
Personal note: I've read about the fallibility of our memories. And now that I am 71, I can see that many of my memories have been modified by my life experiences. Now I wonder how much of the events in my childhood really happened (nothing horrible, just my thoughts on things, and little events) are as I remember them. I think not many.

2. "all novelty is but oblivion." And Bacon later says: "The great winding-sheets, that bury all things in oblivion, are two; deluges and earthquakes."
I think what Borges takes from this is that all of what we see as novelty is only because we have forgotten history or that it's bured and archaeology has not uncovered it yet. Your feedback welcome and I'm not sure I'm expressing this properly.

3. The actual words of Bacon go on. The next sentence is:
" Whereby you may see, that the river of Lethe runneth as well above ground as below."

So, here's one of the plot points of the story: a river and water

4. Bacon continues a few sentences later:
"If it were not for two things that are constant (the one is, that the fixed stars ever stand a like distance one from another, and never come nearer together, nor go further asunder; the other, that the diurnal motion perpetually keepeth time), no individual would last one moment. Certain it is, that the matter is in a perpetual flux, and never at a stay. "

So Borges story concerns (along with many things) a center plot where the identity of the individual is in question, and changing.

Will continue in a subsequent comment to this one . . .

about "The Immortal"

Cynda wrote: "*Spoiler Alert*"

"The narrator merges many elements in a journey-- Classical mythology, pre-Modern descriptions of monster-humans, "

Just my own thoughts:
Borges was a true scholar and lover of literary history, including mythologies, hermeticism, and cabalistic symbolism. The mythology in this story is probably just one of his lifelong interests showing up. Pre-modern descriptions of monster-humans - not as sure about this but, one of his books I've yet to read is "Imaginary Beings"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of...
"The book contains descriptions of 120 mythical beasts from folklore and literature."

I won't comment further since I haven't read it, but please glance at the wikipedia entry.

He probably has an interest in Spain, and his family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain.

"Spanish exploration experiences. I particularly like the seeming references to the Pueblo culture"

I think his earliest book (not his best) and which I am rereading this year, might shed some light on his interest in the Spanish element in North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Unive...

"I particularly like the seeming references to . . . the Shadows of Elysian Fields"

I think this is his passion for the idea of the hero in mythology, which is practically the foundation of western literature, and his near obsession with Homer (in which he was not alone).

"For me the Question becomes: Why these images? What is the narrator journeying toward? The timelessness of the ancient cultures of The Americas and the timelessness of the Classical mythology."

The references to historical fact mixed with fiction is one of the things I most like in Borges.

There is so much more to say in this story about time, identity, and the concept of immortality.
But for today, I have to take a break . . . . and do my taxes.

Just one little piece I found out on one of my previous readings. Borges mentions Giambattista in "The Immortal."

So I looked that up. An actual historical figure Giambattista Vico not only existed, but was a key influence on not only Borges but James Joyce for his Finnegans Wake.

Here is an abstract from a study on it:
"Jorge Luis Borges and James Joyce are authors of works that can be considered as literary commentaries on Giambattista Vico’s New Science; the whole of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is based on Vico’s mas-terpiece. Borges’ fiction “The Immortal” is connected to the third book of Vico’s work concerning the “discovery of the true Homer.” Borges’ “The Immortal” is connected to his essays on infinity and the circularity of time. These essays involve the principle of cycles found in Vico’s conception of history as well as in the works of other figures in the his-tory of philosophy. The metaphysical conceptions of finitude and infini-tude correspond to the existential structures of mortality and immortality that determine the human condition as we experience it."

Vico's writings are also on my to-read list. You can safely download an article from this site:

http://sphr-bg.org/16/86/313.html

The first paragraph says this:

Borges and Vico
Donald Phillip Verene (Emory University)

Jorge Luis Borges and James Joyce are authors of works that can be considered as literary commentaries on Giambattista Vico’s New Science; the whole of Joyce’s Finnegans Wake is based on Vico’s mas- terpiece. Borges’ fiction “The Immortal” is connected to the third book of Vico’s work concerning the “discovery of the true Homer.” Borges’ “The Immortal” is connected to his essays on infinity and the circularity of time. These essays involve the principle of cycles found in Vico’s conception of history as well as in the works of other figures in the his- tory of philosophy. The metaphysical conceptions of finitude and infini- tude correspond to the existential structures of mortality and immortality that determine the human condition as we experience it.

about "The Immortal"

Cynda wrote: ."

"What is the narrator journeying toward? The timelessness of the ancient cultures of The Americas and the timelessness of the Classical mythology."

My own interpretation is that the narrator is not so much journeying toward something as being a part of history, of literary, mythological, history. And that the point of his particular journey is to ponder immortality. The immortals have infinite time to contemplate the meaningless of existence and slowly retreat from the kind of life that culture has created.

Just my 2 cents.

Has anyone encountered the Chapter 10, "The Dream" of Julian Barnes novel "A History of the World in 10½ Chapters"?

This is a very short summary:
A hero dies and goes to heaven. His guide explains, here's how it works: It's heaven, you can have whatever you want.

So he got everything he wanted, and after hundreds (thousands) of years, he got bored. He told his guide, and the guide replied, "Well, everyone here has the option of dying, of truly ending their lives."

"How many people ask for that option?" he asked.
The guide answered, "Everyone does, eventually."

about "The Immortal"

Regarding the article on:
"Vico's "Discovery of the True Homer": A Case-Study in Historical Reconstruction"

Abstract
This chapter examines the section on the discovery of the true Homer in Book 3 of the New Science. In his introduction of this section, Giambattista Vico asserts that Homer as an individual author did not exist and that the Trojan War that he describes never occurred. Although the ancient Greeks considered the Homeric poems to be relations of historical events, modern critics agree with Vico. This chapter considers Vico’s argument that calling Homer a “heroic character” implies that Homer himself is a “poetic character” as are the heroic characters of his poems. It also discusses Vico’s claim that Homer composed the Iliad in his youth and the Odyssey in his old age, along with his interpretation of Homer’s epic poems and its implications for the origins of dramatic and lyric poetry.

from "The Immortal":

"On October 4,1921, the Patna, which was taking me to Bombay, ran aground in a harbor on the Eritrean coast." footnote 1

Circling back to Francis Bacon's comments on earthquakes, if you google search on 'October 4,1921 Eritrean coast' you find that there was a magnitude of 6.1 off the coast of Massawa, Eritrea. But it was on August 14, 1921. I would have to look into this more. Possibly Borges is playing with fact and fiction, the date being a mis-remembrance. I haven't figured out his footnote 1 yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1921_Ma...

about Mesagges 25 & 34.

I hear you, Klowey, as the ancient cultures of The Americas and later some of the hispanic inhabitants also assumed a sense of timelessness once they became isolated from Spain--particularly those outside la Ciudad de Mexico/Mexico City, more particularly those in what would become part of the US.

. . . Yet. . . .

The narrator does physically journey, encountering what is timeless yet new to him: cultures, experiences, development of awareness/ideas.

Here is why I say "yet" rather than 'but"--because the timelessness and the journey could both be happening. It happens within thougthful, intelligent people all the time that parts of us remain stable, timeless while we also evolve, incorporate.

We remain the same to some degree, yet we also go on external and internal journeys.

about Message 35.

Klowey,
I don't know that there is a "right track". I doubt it. Literary greats have so many ideas dancing in their brains that the writing becomes indicative rather than descriptive. I am.okay with trying to ocassionally dance in step with those brains. How sweet when I can do so for a few fleeting moments.


Since you ask, I will read the Wikipedia pages you reference.

Cynda wrote: "about Mesagges 25 & 34.

I hear you, Klowey, as the ancient cultures of The Americas and later some of the hispanic inhabitants also assumed a sense of timelessness once they became isolated from S..."

I actually didn't think about that. Very interesting.

"We remain the same to some degree, yet we also go on internal and external journeys."

I like this view.

Cynda wrote: "about Message 35.

Klowey,
I don't know that there is a "right track". I doubt it. Literary greats have so many ideas dancing in their brains that the writing becomes indicative rather than descrip..."

For some reason, Borges has been at the top of my list wrt this idea. I feel he is so rich, and has interwoven so much fact with fiction, tossing out speculative ideas mixed his firm beliefs, and it could go on.

I like authors who do this. I know there are others.

about Message 36.

Poetic License. This is what you seem to be pondering on.

It happens all the time. I have just finished reading The Book of the City of Ladies where once again the old myths get retold. Remember that Shakespeare retold and developed the stories of Plutarch and he also seemed to borrow from folktales.

Shakespeare and the Folktale: An Anthology of Stories edited by Charlotte Artese

Reading "The Other Death"

I have long been glad I was born a woman so that I did not have to sign up for the the draft or to register for military service or--horrors beyond all horrors--to get sent to war.

My type of courage is not of the military sort. It is of the birthing of another human sort, of making difficult decisions no one likes sort, etc. All done stateside. No one ever has had firearms. I have always had a full moment to breathe and decide.

Poor Damián and many like him. He felt shame, that twisted up guilt, because he could not be the warrior he was not made to be.

Do others remember Grandpa Walton who felt shame because he was not part of the Charge up San Juan Hill? Plus who remembers Italian professor Bill Dunbar of the movie Mona Lisa's Smile. Dunbar served stateside, not in Italy, and felt shame for the service he was assigned.

So glad I am a woman.

Cynda wrote: "about Message 36.

Poetic License. This is what you seem to be pondering on.

It happens all the time. I have just finished reading The Book of the City of Ladies where once again the..."

Marvelous observation. Thank you for the book reference.
What a joy to buddy read with you.

Thank you, Klowey, for giving me a push to read Borges 🌻
We will help each other.

about Message 33
This will make sense--if I understood your comments correctly. It's not you or me that lacks understanding as much as it is the variety of questions and ideas that reading Borges brings to the forefront.

So here I go. Many young children have an understanding of eternity. That is why death has to be explained to them.

We adult humans often have difficulty understanding something lasting longer than 100 years. This is related to comment made in "The Immortal". Yet some adults do understand. Dante did. That is why he was able to write The Divine Comedy. I read this book with our group several years ago. As I continue to ponder on the text, I realize what a comedy Dante did indeed write--all things are temporary. We travel through spiritual realm, die from there, and return to physical realm. That is Dante's understanding. (I am in agreement although maybe not in the tortures.)

Reading "Deutsches Requiem"

Germany and Germans must have been hurting terribly after WWI. New ways of managing the political, economic, and social sotuations came into being. People need hope. Some hoped in the Nazi regime.

I once watched a video of a medical doctor of Nazi regime who had sent many to their deaths. The doctor had hoped to keep the deaths limited and as humane as possible. The judge/panel said that there came a time to quit when the doctor realized that his work of controlling the damage served no purpose, proved to be of no success.

As true as that statement is, as much as I wanted to yell across time to the doctor that he should have stopped, I had no date to offer him. Humans do what they think best even when all hope is lost.

Maybe that is what happened here. The SS officer did what he could to serve Germany even as he served no one and instead destroyed many.

Too evil of SS officer. So sad for humans and humanity.

Reading "Averroës' Search"

We are all bound by time, place, culture, language, experience.

Cynda wrote: "about Message 33
This will make sense--if I understood your comments correctly. It's not you or me that lacks understanding as much as it is the variety of questions and ideas that reading Borges b..."

I love that perspective, that Borges gets us to think. One reason I like him so much.

You comment on children took my breath away. I'm going to ask my best friend, who has a 7 year old, what she thinks.

You're so well read. I appreciate your comment on Dante. I am going to give it some thought, though I have not (yet) read The Divine Comedy I am listening to The History Of World Literature for the second time. I thought his lecture on Dante was excellent. I don't know if you do audible, but this is an exceptional class (for $15 on audible with one credit).

Good goal to pursue! According to Great Courses The History Of World Literature, I am not well read, although I am here to be be better read. I am looking forward to reading Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings next year. I hope to read it with you. In this way I/we can read something else on the courses' list.

about " The Dead Man"

Cynda wrote: "about " The Dead Man"
I have lived in the Wild Horse Desert of Deep South Texas. I know about frontier justice--also about karma."

While this is not one of my favorite Borges' stories, it does have a few of his common themes, and all in all shares a flavor with the stories I've read in A Universal History of Iniquity, which included a lot of cowboy stories of the Americas. Later in life Borges felt that collection was not his best work (perhaps his worst). His writing style changed after that and established the more famous Borges story styles.

We've got someone narrating a tale that he had heard. And the tale has specific names and places. I expect the names are fiction, not sure about the places. Maybe a mix.

There's chance involved i.e. Otalora accidentally meets Bandeira and so tears up the letter of introduction. A bit of a twist. And then, Borges theme of forgeries, fakes:

"Though Azevedo Bandeira is a strong, well-built man, he gives the unjustifiable impression of being something of a fake, a forgery. "

Another theme of identity, Otalora wanting to take over Bandeira's identity (become a fake of his own) and another twist at the end. If anyone has read Borges short story The Garden of Forking Paths, I get some similar feelings with the ending of those two. A death perhaps not expected, but fated.

Comments welcome.