Bring on the Borges

1. Link to THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS short story:
http://www.american-buddha.com/garden.fork.htm

In a second reading of this story, I find myself interesting in a sensation Borges describes: "From that moment on, I felt about me and within my dark body an invisible, intangible swarming. Not the swarming of the divergent, parallel and finally coalescent armies, but a more inaccessible, more intimate agitation that they in some manner prefigured." He describes it again later on: "Once again I felt the swarming sensation of which I have spoken. It seemed to me that the humid garden that surrounded the house was infinitely saturated with invisible persons. Those persons were Albert and I, secret, busy and multiform in other dimensions of time." What, I now ask, is the swarming? Is Borges describing a sort of existential dread that Tsun feels at discovering new notions of time?

2. Wikipedia article on THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Garden_of_Forking_Paths

I was looking up hypertext fiction on Wikipedia after I read about The Garden of Forking Paths, and I found it funny that the Choose Your Own Adventure series is considered an example. Would this simple pop-culture concept be possible without Borges? Seems like a no-brainer but perhaps it took genius to trickle down to young adult fiction...

3. Link to Wikipedia Bio on Borges:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges

Finally some criticism of Borges! "The Contorno writers acknowledged Borges and Eduardo Mallea for being "doctors of technique" but argued that their work lacked substance due to their lack of interaction with the reality that they inhabited, an existentialist critique of their refusal to embrace existence and reality in their artwork." I agree with this criticism to an extent. Of course, magic realism does not intend to deal with existence and reality. On the other hand, while Borges' work does not document reality, it certainly deals with issues of existence and reality. See the difference?

4. Link to Bio #2 on Borges: http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/index3.htm

I once read that many writers rely on their childhood as inspiration for their writing, because they experience more in their childhood than they are able to experience as adults. I think this very much applies to Borges, whose early life seems to have impacted his later writing life. From his father explaining philosophy through chess, to his obsession with knives...and then of course this quote pretty much says it all: "If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library."

5. Borges website: http://www.themodernword.com/borges/

On this website, one section lists a collection of authors that have been influenced by Borges, including masters like Umberto Eco, Thomas Pynchon, and Garcia Marquez. Might I add one more: Daniel Handler, or as he is most commonly known, Lemony Snicket-- author of the beloved children's series The Series of Unfortunate Events. One easy similarity is the tendency of both authors to latch onto certain themes and images. Borges liked to include dreams, labyrinths, libraries, animals, fictional writers, religion and God. Snicket likes secrets, libraries, and mistaken identities. Just a thought.

6. NY Times Borges Obit.: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0824.html

This quote stands out to me from Borges. "I can't think of myself in a bookless world. I need books. They mean everything to me.'' I wonder how Borges would feel about the reputation he has gotten after his death as the founder, so to speak, of new media, when in fact a very old medium was so dear to him?

The last line of the obit was somehow haunting to me though I have no idea what it means: "Through the years a man peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, tools, stars, horses, and people. Shortly before his death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the image of his own face." Can we discuss in class?

7. NY Times Articles on BORGES AND THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/books/06cohenintro.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/arts/13alsmail-BORGESANDTHE_LETTERS.html?ref=arts

If Borges were alive today, would he be into steampunk? That's what I wondered when I read this quote in the first NYTimes article: "Ms. Sassón-Henry, an associate professor in the language studies department of the United States Naval Academy, describes Borges as 'from the Old World with a futuristic vision.'" Sounds a lot like steampunk, no?

8. NY Times Article on Borges’ Buenos Aires: http://travel2.nytimes.com/2006/05/14/travel/14foot.html

The last line of this article stuck out to me: "Borges, still peering out quizzically at a world that seemed so alien to him that he had to invent his own." In many ways it seems that Borges, indeed, lived alienated from the world, which reflects in his writing. He spent most of his time in libraries, reading, so he was removed from the activity of outside. Later in life, he was blind, separated from the world of sight. In his work, Borges does not seek to describe the world as it is. Borges' otherworldly writin is clearly the product of his lifelong bookishness and intellectualism.

9. -- Borges ON EXACTITUDE IN SCIENCE:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Exactitude_in_Science

https://notes.utk.edu/bio/greenberg.nsf/0/f2d03252295e0d0585256e120009adab?OpenDocument

Have we, in a sense, already achieved "the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province"? I'm thinking of the map of the US roads in Blaise Aguera y Arca's Photosynth demo. The map "describes" and "duplicates" nature completely, on a grand scale, but we can still see it in all its microscopic detail using the zooming power of Photosynth.