Borges' Reputation

[tegeus-Cromis]

Granted, I'm using "fantasy" here in the broad definition found in, say, Clute and Grant's Encyclopedia of Fantasy, not the narrow definition in some sectors of American publishing or fandom.

 

[Star-child]

I don't really agree with that. What else could "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," "The Library of Babel," "The Aleph" or "The Zahir" be classified as, if not as fantasy?

What would make Tertius (for instance) fantasy and not SF? It's about academics studying a fictional place, not a story about the impossible. No magic, no anti-historical realm.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

What would make Tertius (for instance) fantasy and not SF? It's about academics studying a fictional place, not a story about the impossible. No magic, no anti-historical realm.

Well, for one thing, finding an obscure book which reveals the existence of a hitherto unknown land is very much a trope of fantasy. For another, you are slightly misremembering the story: in the postscript, magic, or the fantastic, do appear (Tlönian objects appear on Earth though Tlön is supposedly a -- doubly -- fictional world). And for a third, Borges himself reprinted it in his Antologia de la Literatura Fantastica, translated into English as The Book of Fantasy.

 

[Star-child]

Well, for one thing, finding an obscure book which reveals the existence of a hitherto unknown land is very much a trope of fantasy. For another, you are slightly misremembering the story: in the postscript, magic, or the fantastic, do appear (Tlönian objects appear on Earth though Tlön is supposedly a -- doubly -- fictional world). And for a third, Borges himself reprinted it in his Antologia de la Literatura Fantastica, translated into English as The Book of Fantasy.

I think that would more show the way Borges is illustrating how even information is subverted - the objects may or may not be genuine.

I don't think his titling makes the work what we call "fantasy" in English. The stories are fantastic, but so is 2001.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

I think that would more show the way Borges is illustrating how even information is subverted - the objects may or may not be genuine.

I don't think his titling makes the work what we call "fantasy" in English. The stories are fantastic, but so is 2001.

Ambiguous/liminal fantasy is still fantasy. (See, for one, Farah Mendlesohn's Rhetorics of Fantasy, which has a chapter on the subject.)

Well, that's why I gave the book's English title, which uses the word "fantasy". The closest equivalent in English to the way Borges is using "fantastica" is probably "weird," as in "weird tale," but that's still a subgenre of fantasy.

But as I see you're going to stick to your guns no matter what, this will be my last post on this subject.

 

[Star-child]

ut as I see you're going to stick to your guns no matter what, this will be my last post on this subject

Every fiction is a fantasy.

Happy?

 

[CTRandall]

The idea of "genre" is, itself, a fantasy.

 

[Star-child]

The idea of "genre" is, itself, a fantasy.

Not when you're at the bookstore looking for something you want to read. I think Borges would fail to satisfy someone looking for what they consider a "fantasy" book.

 

[BAYLOR]

Not when you're at the bookstore looking for something you want to read. I think Borges would fail to satisfy someone looking for what they consider a "fantasy" book.

The Book of Fantasy by Jorge Luis Borges. It's an anthology of fantasy stories compiled by him decades ago. I used to have copy of it. You might find it of interest.

 

[BAYLOR]

Every fiction is a fantasy.

Happy?

Would that apply to historical fiction which is baed on real world events ?

 

[Extollager]

Fantastic literature, from Homer to Le Guin, can give us that sense that the stakes are high; a literary work, even though obviously dealing with imaginary persons, locales, events, may invite our attention as life-experience invites it. Frodo’s struggle with the growing power of the Ring doesn’t strike us as just a cool fantasy idea but as something partaking of the real world, and yet we remain deeply enjoying the reading of a literary fantasy as a fantasy.

I’m suggesting that Borges doesn’t give us the sense that the stakes are high. We are amused by his very great literary charm — and oh boy, is he ever a charmer! He knows it, too. But do we feel that the stakes are high? Does he not, rather, charm us, amuse us, but no more —as a rule?

 

[BAYLOR]

Fantastic literature, from Homer to Le Guin, can give us that sense that the stakes are high; a literary work, even though obviously dealing with imaginary persons, locales, events, may invite our attention as life-experience invites it. Frodo’s struggle with the growing power of the Ring doesn’t strike us as just a cool fantasy idea but as something partaking of the real world, and yet we remain deeply enjoying the reading of a literary fantasy as a fantasy.

I’m suggesting that Borges doesn’t give us the sense that the stakes are high. We are amused by his very great literary charm — and oh boy, is he ever a charmer! He knows it, too. But do we feel that the stakes are high? Does he not, rather, charm us, amuse us, but no more —as a rule?

He certainly does beguiles us with his story telling magic. .

 

[Star-child]

Fantastic literature, from Homer to Le Guin, can give us that sense that the stakes are high; a literary work, even though obviously dealing with imaginary persons, locales, events, may invite our attention as life-experience invites it. Frodo’s struggle with the growing power of the Ring doesn’t strike us as just a cool fantasy idea but as something partaking of the real world, and yet we remain deeply enjoying the reading of a literary fantasy as a fantasy.

I’m suggesting that Borges doesn’t give us the sense that the stakes are high. We are amused by his very great literary charm — and oh boy, is he ever a charmer! He knows it, too. But do we feel that the stakes are high? Does he not, rather, charm us, amuse us, but no more —as a rule?

Have you read The Secret Miracle? I'm curious how you view that story in this light.

I found that story rather affecting for its themes of life's work and the backdrop of fascism, but it is also primarily an intellectual curiosity in the sense you mean.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Fantastic literature, from Homer to Le Guin, can give us that sense that the stakes are high; a literary work, even though obviously dealing with imaginary persons, locales, events, may invite our attention as life-experience invites it. Frodo’s struggle with the growing power of the Ring doesn’t strike us as just a cool fantasy idea but as something partaking of the real world, and yet we remain deeply enjoying the reading of a literary fantasy as a fantasy.

I’m suggesting that Borges doesn’t give us the sense that the stakes are high. We are amused by his very great literary charm — and oh boy, is he ever a charmer! He knows it, too. But do we feel that the stakes are high? Does he not, rather, charm us, amuse us, but no more —as a rule?

I feel exactly the opposite. I don't see the stakes in Tolkien: it's a fairy tale. But the stakes in Borges are huge: he gets you to contemplate the metaphysical mysteries of existence, of art, of creation, and gives you that shiver down your spine that I never get from Tolkien.

 

[Extollager]

I generally find Borges’ writing interesting enough that I finish the reading, but it’s very easy to put his books aside — I have a number of them — and not feel compelled to take them up again. I do think “The Aleph” is delightful, one of the best fantasies I have ever read. Those stories about gaucho knife-fights, nothing that matters much to me. Is “The Garden of Forking Paths” more than a deft entertainment? Does anyone think Borges himself took “The Circular Ruins” seriously? Pshaw! — I’m tempted to say.

In other words, I’ve liked Borges, but with Colin Wilson I have reservations about his importance.








But I hoped there’d be some good discussion — thanks!

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Different strokes.

 

[Extollager]

Different strokes.

There’s that aspect of literary experience that’s purely personal. But I don’t like to invoke it too quickly. Surely there’s also a great area of literary and indeed artistic experience that should be meaningful to good readers, listeners, etc.

Thus, to take the visual arts, I could just say cubism is not to my taste. It’s not. But I’m prepared to entertain the idea that if I fairmindedly set about to understand it, I might accept and value it at its best.

Conversely, Borges is an author I have enjoyed quite a bit at times. But with his work in general, is there less there than meets the eye?

But the discussion here makes me want to read some Borges. If Borges’ advocates just said, “Well, I like him” — that wouldn’t be much of a spur to take him up again.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

There’s that aspect of literary experience that’s purely personal. But I don’t like to invoke it too quickly. Surely there’s also a great area of literary and indeed artistic experience that should be meaningful to good readers, listeners, etc.

Thus, to take the visual arts, I could just say cubism is not to my taste. It’s not. But I’m prepared to entertain the idea that if I fairmindedly set about to understand it, I might accept and value it at its best.

Conversely, Borges is an author I have enjoyed quite a bit at times. But with his work in general, is there less there than meets the eye?

But the discussion here makes me want to read some Borges. If Borges’ advocates just said, “Well, I like him” — that wouldn’t be much of a spur to take him up again.

Well, I only invoked it after it seemed that you were repeating the same stance on Borges no matter what anyone said. At that point, any further discussion seems pointless. But if it does indeed make you want to reread Borges, possibly with an eye to different values than you picked up on before, excellent.

 

[Extollager]

Probably I was being redundant. I did appreciate the effort to advance the case for JLB.

Somebody wrote about JLB once in terms of the literature of exhaustion — I think.

 

[Randy M.]

It's been too long since I read Borges to feel confident about speaking, but I'm surprised that no one so far has commented on his flattening of character. He seems, to me, to be poking at if not openly disparaging the issue of individuality. "The Library of Babel" has no characters, that I recall; "Pierre Menard..." is notable for doing something already done by Cervantes; most of his stories are more taken with ideas, places and things. As note earlier, they become more like essays on the improbable, impossible and unbelievable, and in each case he leads you to think about these things, about the fecundity of inventions of the human imagination.

Something about him tickles the place in me also tickled by Saki and John Collier, possibly because he obliquely comments on current life, possibly just because his stories are incredibly clever. (A quality shared with his favorite writer, G. K. Chesterton.) But really the artist his work brings to mind most for me is Escher.

Is Borges a major artist? Well, yes, and part of the answer to that is what you didn't want to talk about Extollager, his influence on other writers. But also because he makes you think. The import behind his cleverness seems a bit hard to discern at times, but I think it's there. Or at least, it's shadow is.


Randy M.