Fictions, J.L. Borges

Origin, originality, and time recur as principal touchstones in these highly original stories in which no originality per se is described—rather, endless re-creation of an all-encompassing and timeless original. The dreamer of “The Circular Ruins” finds out that he, too, is but a dream. Of course they are clever, but not merely clever—the source they return to every time is the transcendent and mysterious power that animates life, and the powers that reconfigure, slow and destroy it, in turn.

I understand that Borges is often referred to as foreshadowing post-modern literary concerns, such as the inclusion of the response of the reader (an idea that to me is marvelously Borgesian, because it identifies the book, not the reader, as being the active agent). Also, Borges will have to be credited with foreshadowing the current art world tendency away from the idea of genius as being individual or particular.

Any number of passages could be cited, but page 76 seems especially rich. In one paragraph Borges includes the principles of all perception, art, psychology, and Einstein’s definitions of relativity and acceleration in the “greater than” and “less than” reference—think of a black and white photograph that exists only as areas that are lighter or darker than each other. The next sentence includes the scientific notion that is most clearly associated with Quantum physics in the reference to counting, and how the act “changes” the outcome, a concept now universally understood in many fields, say, sociology, and Borges includes it here as a funny aside that contests the notion of fixed ideas of reality while at the same time suggesting that, at base, everything is “fixed”—just a different view of the one eternal “it.” And yet, at the same time, agreement is most often merely the predictable result of forgetfulness, or collective expectations and coercion.

My favorite of these stories so far is “Menard.” How perfect for the consummate artist to avoid tautology by working steadfastly on something not of his own creation (Cervantes’ “Quixote”). The principle theme that strikes me is life in its present moment, the only moment in which one can “do” anything. Menard is like a monk making a sand painting of the divine.