A Dialogue About a Dialogue - J. L. Borges
A: Absorbed in our discussion of immortality, we had let night fall without lighting the lamp, and we couldn’t see each other’s faces. With an offhandedness or gentleness more convincing than passion would have been, Macedonio Fernandez’ voice said once more that the soul is immortal. He assured me that the death of the body is altogether insignificant, and that dying has to be the most unimportant thing that can happen to a man. I was playing with Macedonio’s pocketknife, opening and closing it. A nearby accordion was infinitely dispatching La Comparsita, that dismaying trifle that so many people like because it’s been misrepresented to them as being old. . . . I suggested to Macedonio that we kill ourselves, so we might have our discussion without all the racket.
Z: (mockingly) But I suspect that at the last moment you reconsidered.
A: (now deep in mysticism) Quite frankly, I don’t remember whether we committed suicide that night or not.
Showing posts with label Borges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borges. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Order of Animals
“This book first arose out of a passage in Borges, out of the laughter that shattered, as I read the passage, all the familiar landmarks of my thought—our thought that bears the stamp of our age and our geography—breaking up all the ordered surfaces and all the planes with which we are accustomed to tame the wild profusion of existing things, and continuing long afterwards to disturb and threaten with collapse our age-old distinction between the Same and the Other. This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’. In the wonderment of this taxonomy, the thing we apprehend in one great leap, the thing that, by means of the fable, is demonstrated as the exotic charm of another system of thought, is the limitation of our own, the stark impossibility of thinking that."
Michel Foucault, The Order of Things (New York: Pantheon, 1970) xv.
(also in History of Sexuality and some interviews, on the emphasis on eating than sexual taboo)
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/blogs/singaporescene/woman-roasted-puppy-alive-061603091.html
Hey,
. The order of animals: pandas, whales, sharks, dogs, cats, birds, chicken, cows... endangered species, pets, poultry, cattle. Barbaric because dogs did not move up to the category of Pets in some places. Houseflies, cockroaches and lizards remain within the category of Pests in most places. Thus, public displays of sympathy for the puppy betray the fascistic inclination of the masses.
Red Herring - not about why some animals shouldn't be harmed, but rather why it is justifiable to kill (or eat) certain species. Anyway, this is just a thought exercise. I know you aren't an animal lover too, and love to eat meat.
Monday, September 6, 2010
The Garden of Forking Paths (Original version)
The Garden of Forking Paths
In the midst of this perplexity, I received from Oxford the manuscript you have examined. I lingered, naturally, on the sentence: I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths. Almost instantly, I understood: 'the garden of forking paths' was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'the various futures (not to all)' suggested to me the forking in time, not in space. A broad rereading of the work confirmed the theory. In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts'ui Pên, he chooses – simultaneously – all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel's contradictions. Fang, let us say, has a secret; a stranger calls at his door; Fang resolves to kill him. Naturally, there are several possible outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they can switch roles, they both can escape, they both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts'ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings and repetitions. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend. The scenario could also double itself as in a mirror. If you will resign yourself to my incurable pronunciation, we shall read a few pages."
His face, within the vivid circle of the lamplight, was unquestionably that of an old man, but with something unalterable about it, even immortal. He read with slow precision three versions of the same epic chapter. In the first, an army marches to a battle across a lonely mountain; the horror of the rocks and shadows makes the men undervalue their lives and they gain an easy victory. In the second, the same army traverses a palace where a great festival is taking place; the resplendent battle seems to them a continuation of the celebration and they win the victory. In the third, the same army strategically raided and completely razed a village the enemy troops laid ambush; the heroic victory necessitates the cruelty of undervaluing the lives of the peasant folks. I listened with proper veneration to these ancient narratives, perhaps less admirable in themselves than the fact that they had been created by my blood and were being restored to me by a man of a remote empire, in the course of a desperate adventure, on a Western isle. I remember the last words, repeated in each version like a secret commandment: Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and to die.
The Garden of Forking Paths – Jorge Luis Borges (pp.26-27)
In the midst of this perplexity, I received from Oxford the manuscript you have examined. I lingered, naturally, on the sentence: I leave to the various futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths. Almost instantly, I understood: 'the garden of forking paths' was the chaotic novel; the phrase 'the various futures (not to all)' suggested to me the forking in time, not in space. A broad rereading of the work confirmed the theory. In all fictional works, each time a man is confronted with several alternatives, he chooses one and eliminates the others; in the fiction of Ts'ui Pên, he chooses – simultaneously – all of them. He creates, in this way, diverse futures, diverse times which themselves also proliferate and fork. Here, then, is the explanation of the novel's contradictions. Fang, let us say, has a secret; a stranger calls at his door; Fang resolves to kill him. Naturally, there are several possible outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they can switch roles, they both can escape, they both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts'ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings and repetitions. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend. The scenario could also double itself as in a mirror. If you will resign yourself to my incurable pronunciation, we shall read a few pages."
His face, within the vivid circle of the lamplight, was unquestionably that of an old man, but with something unalterable about it, even immortal. He read with slow precision three versions of the same epic chapter. In the first, an army marches to a battle across a lonely mountain; the horror of the rocks and shadows makes the men undervalue their lives and they gain an easy victory. In the second, the same army traverses a palace where a great festival is taking place; the resplendent battle seems to them a continuation of the celebration and they win the victory. In the third, the same army strategically raided and completely razed a village the enemy troops laid ambush; the heroic victory necessitates the cruelty of undervaluing the lives of the peasant folks. I listened with proper veneration to these ancient narratives, perhaps less admirable in themselves than the fact that they had been created by my blood and were being restored to me by a man of a remote empire, in the course of a desperate adventure, on a Western isle. I remember the last words, repeated in each version like a secret commandment: Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and to die.
The Garden of Forking Paths – Jorge Luis Borges (pp.26-27)
The Garden of Forking Paths – Jorge Luis Borges (pp.26-27) vertsub
[…]Naturally, there are several possible outcomes: Fang can kill the intruder, the intruder can kill Fang, they can switch roles, they both can escape, they both can die, and so forth. In the work of Ts'ui Pên, all possible outcomes occur; each one is the point of departure for other forkings and repetitions. Sometimes, the paths of this labyrinth converge: for example, you arrive at this house, but in one of the possible pasts you are my enemy, in another, my friend. The scenario could also double itself as in a mirror. If you will resign yourself to my incurable pronunciation, we shall read a few pages."
His face, within the vivid circle of the lamplight, was unquestionably that of an old man, but with something unalterable about it, even immortal. He read with slow precision three versions of the same epic chapter. In the first, an army marches to a battle across a lonely mountain; the horror of the rocks and shadows makes the men undervalue their lives and they gain an easy victory. In the second, the same army traverses a palace where a great festival is taking place; the resplendent battle seems to them a continuation of the celebration and they win the victory. In the third, the same army strategically raided and completely razed a village the enemy troops laid ambush; the heroic victory necessitates the cruelty of undervaluing the lives of the peasant folks. I listened with proper veneration to these ancient narratives, perhaps less admirable in themselves than the fact that they had been created by my blood and were being restored to me by a man of a remote empire, in the course of a desperate adventure, on a Western isle. I remember the last words, repeated in each version like a secret commandment: Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and to die.
The Garden of Forking Paths – Jorge Luis Borges (pp.26-27)
The working copy of the doctored excerpt, The Garden of Forking Paths, 2010, vertical submarine
His face, within the vivid circle of the lamplight, was unquestionably that of an old man, but with something unalterable about it, even immortal. He read with slow precision three versions of the same epic chapter. In the first, an army marches to a battle across a lonely mountain; the horror of the rocks and shadows makes the men undervalue their lives and they gain an easy victory. In the second, the same army traverses a palace where a great festival is taking place; the resplendent battle seems to them a continuation of the celebration and they win the victory. In the third, the same army strategically raided and completely razed a village the enemy troops laid ambush; the heroic victory necessitates the cruelty of undervaluing the lives of the peasant folks. I listened with proper veneration to these ancient narratives, perhaps less admirable in themselves than the fact that they had been created by my blood and were being restored to me by a man of a remote empire, in the course of a desperate adventure, on a Western isle. I remember the last words, repeated in each version like a secret commandment: Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and to die.
The Garden of Forking Paths – Jorge Luis Borges (pp.26-27)
The working copy of the doctored excerpt, The Garden of Forking Paths, 2010, vertical submarine
Monday, June 16, 2008
Borges on Wilde's Yellow Joke
Borges:...I remember a joke of Oscar Wilde's: a friend of his had a tie with yellow, red and so on in it, and Wilde said, "Oh, my dear friend, only a deaf man could wear a tie like that!"
He might have been talking about the yellow necktie I have now.
B: Ah, well. I remember telling that story to a lady who missed the point. She said, "Of course, it must be because being deaf he couldn't hear what people were saying about his necktie." That might have amused Oscar Wilde, no?
I'd like to have heard his reply to that.
B: Yes, of course. I never heard of such a case of something being so perfectly misunderstood. The perfection of stupidity. Of course, Wilde's remark is a witty translation of an idea; in Spanish as well as English you speak of a "loud colour." A "loud colour" is a common phrase, but then the things that are said in literature are always the same. What is important is the way they are said.
From an interview of Jorge Luis Borges in Latin Americcan Writers at Work (Modern Library: 2003, P.16)
He might have been talking about the yellow necktie I have now.
B: Ah, well. I remember telling that story to a lady who missed the point. She said, "Of course, it must be because being deaf he couldn't hear what people were saying about his necktie." That might have amused Oscar Wilde, no?
I'd like to have heard his reply to that.
B: Yes, of course. I never heard of such a case of something being so perfectly misunderstood. The perfection of stupidity. Of course, Wilde's remark is a witty translation of an idea; in Spanish as well as English you speak of a "loud colour." A "loud colour" is a common phrase, but then the things that are said in literature are always the same. What is important is the way they are said.
From an interview of Jorge Luis Borges in Latin Americcan Writers at Work (Modern Library: 2003, P.16)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)