tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post4337409912099593203..comments2024-01-05T20:26:44.857-08:00Comments on Thinking Again: Borges Takes the Bronze. Is There Partisan Outcry?mark wallacehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-29517037730167285072008-08-02T10:02:00.000-07:002008-08-02T10:02:00.000-07:00That's a very 20s (and maybe through the 40s) drea...That's a very 20s (and maybe through the 40s) dream of these writers, Dan. The 90s version goes something like this: after struggling a bit in Paris, Poe and Kafka go to Argentina to take advantage of the weak currency. Living like kings, or at least more so than ever before, one evening they come across Borges, who seems confused by this economic downturn and doesn't quite know where he is. Later that night, while all drunk, Poe and Kafka shank Borges, and he dies a bloody death. In the morning though, hungover, Poe and Kafka wake up to find that they have both become Borges, and the economies of their own original countries, which had seemed strong the night before, are now also in a shambles.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-2061006268237797592008-07-29T18:01:00.000-07:002008-07-29T18:01:00.000-07:00I imagined, for some reason, Borges and Poe marchi...I imagined, for some reason, Borges and Poe marching Kafka around the streets of Prague, just like the two Stasi-esque agents march around Josef K. at the end of THE TRIAL, until they shank him, do Poe and Borges. All writers do that to Kafka, whether they precede him or follow. It's a minor tragedy, but one I can live with, that you won't be doing "A Fasting Artist," a Kafka story, one of the greats. I think "A Fasting Artist" plus THE TRIAL plus Babel's Red Cavalry stuff (I'm partial to "The End of the Almshouse") plus Celan's Holocaust stuff -- could give one a pretty big glance into the rejection of discipline in favor of aggression, then the lament in the aftermath. What hath we wrought, etc. Kafka / Babel / Celan. Indeed. ----BADAN / DANIEL GUTSTEINhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11440571794661801261noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-80137660060481790072008-07-28T21:09:00.000-07:002008-07-28T21:09:00.000-07:00Thanks for these comments, everyone.I'm sure one c...Thanks for these comments, everyone.<BR/><BR/>I'm sure one could indeed use those films, Tom. Of course, this is a short story class, and we'll be reading some actual literature around here for once. I intend to insist on it.<BR/><BR/>The points both you and Joe made caused me to think again about the strengths of these Borges stories relative to my students, and I came up with two main ones:<BR/><BR/>1) The stories really are short. Even if I have them read three per class period, that'll be barely 20 pages total.<BR/><BR/>2) The fact that Borges stories have an "I get it!" twist idea means that their main ideas can be boiled down very easily. Thus, in "Funes, the Memoorius," I could say, "Man has accident on horse and afterwards remembers every single moment of his life and sees every detail in the world as if it's incredibly close up. These abilities exhaust him to the point of death within a few years." So when I can boil down the concept this clearly, that means we can move to a discussion of the ideas in the story.<BR/><BR/>Joe, did you mean "Death and the Compass"? That's the story that literally has a detective, and I'm teaching it. But I'm definitely teaching "Garden of the Forking Paths" also because of its murder/thriller aspect as well as some hints of detective elements, and you're right that such things can definitely be a draw in Borges. Plenty of mystery, murder, and bloodshed even if there's not a lot of conventional action.<BR/><BR/>Plumber, it's interesting to think about Borges in terms of the concept of the linked story collection. The idea of stories as both independent and part of a larger whole is definitely something I'll be talking about in the class. Joyce's Dubliners is an earlier book I'll be using that's one of the first examples of that kind of linked story, and actually the Cisneros book that I'm doing in tandem with Borges does the same.<BR/><BR/>What's different about Labyrinths of course is that it's a compilation put together by editors rather than Borges himself. But it still highlights the interrelatedness of all of Borges' key concerns.<BR/><BR/>Joe, that's an amazing quote from Borges. Certainly it says a lot about how he treats character and identity. It's a questionable comment too of course, one well worth talking about more. The total denial of subjective identity is always a fascinating one, but it's also clear how Borges is linking this to a profound absence, one that may have a spiritual element that thinks of itself as far beyond identity?<BR/><BR/>A lot to consider...mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-40170981577761328432008-07-28T16:07:00.000-07:002008-07-28T16:07:00.000-07:00This comment has been removed by the author.mark wallacehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10047292022080114501noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-42772058237729063362008-07-27T20:53:00.000-07:002008-07-27T20:53:00.000-07:00hello Mark,I've only discovered Borges recently. I...hello Mark,<BR/><BR/>I've only discovered Borges recently. I find the concept of the Aleph very interesting, but this is perhaps more of a theoretical subject than a fictional one.<BR/><BR/>In Labyrinths I noticed there is the recurring theme of the Infinite, for example in the story of the man in prison with the pacing jaguar in the cage next to him. This concept could lead to interesting discussions.<BR/><BR/>Also I've noticed that some themes appear in one story, then another, but not in a third, but in the third story a theme appears that was in the first. In the Immortals there is a lot of cataloging going on, there is also that in Pierre Menard, but in the Immortals the traveler is looking for a explanation for what he sees and not finding it. This fruitless searching also happens in the story of the SS officer condemned to die. But in the officer's story he tells of the futility of philosophical inquiry, this sentiment is also in Pierre Menard. So maybe Borges arranged these stories as a labyrinth unto themselves, with overlapping "passageways", so to speak?Doughttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03127984623890722872noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-27941310901987449782008-07-27T17:46:00.000-07:002008-07-27T17:46:00.000-07:00Mark, I taught "The Garden of Forking Paths" to my...Mark, I taught "The Garden of Forking Paths" to my community college world lit class last spring, and it went over well with the two or three motivated and intelligent students in the class, not so well with the others (I realize you could probably substitute any work at all in that sentence and still retain a high degree of truth value!) But the trappings of the detective story there were what lured people in; for that reason, I'd consider "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" as well -- the idea of tracking down the one encyclopedia with a textual variant has a bit of mystery to it, and makes the big philosophical issues, when they come, go down a bit easier.<BR><BR>You know, the only benefit of being a bit older than most of the poetic blogosphere is having had the ability to actually see Borges, at UCLA, when I was a young pup circa . . . 1973. I asked him to riff on the concept of "ego" (apparently a concern of mine at the time) and he repeated that great line (was it Hume?) "Whenever I look inside, I find nobody home."Joe Safdiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10146108321237585329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3432817549859327458.post-43843865996754755982008-07-27T14:51:00.000-07:002008-07-27T14:51:00.000-07:00mark,borges is another one whom i've not read clos...mark,<BR/><BR/>borges is <A>another one</A> whom i've not read closely in probably 20 years. and for all the reasons you mention i can imagine him being very hard to teach. i even wonder if these days the only one's who will laugh aloud while reading "pierre menard" (one of my faves too) are grad students in english.<BR/><BR/>i wonder tho too if some of the same metaphysical dread and ontological hoaxery in borges could be teased out with recourse to films like <I>the matrix</I> or <I>memento</I>. the latter of course being a kind of detective story told in reverse in which the protagonist suffers from amnesia and must piece together the clues in reverse. and the former, along with <I>the truman show</I> now that i think of it, has that "reality is a constructed illusion" <BR/>that students might have more difficulty locating or identifying with in the borges...<BR/><BR/>t.tmorangehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13540323590390887131noreply@blogger.com