READIN

🦋 Fictions

He thought that good literature is common enough, that there is scarce a dialogue on the street that does not achieve it. He also thought that the æsthetic act cannot be carried out without some element of astonishment, and that to be astonished by rote is difficult.

I'm finding this, well, a lot of fun -- the degree of layering of fiction on fiction is really astonishing. (Particularly when Borges admits to having adapted one of his own stories, "The Circular Ruins," from a manuscript by Quain.) I'm waiting for personalities to emerge, but am confident they will; for the time being I'm just enjoying the technical beauty of the composition.

It has been several years since I read any of Borges' stories; his mastery of language is washing over me again. I'm reacting to his voice in a way I never did before, which is to feel like Borges is a control freak who wants me to react to every word of his in a particular way, and is leaving no room for my own reading; not sure how valid this is, it's just a spur-of-the-moment thought.

(According to The Modern Word, Saramago is not the only author to make use of The God of the Labyrinth. In Philip K. Dick's notes for a sequel to The Man in the High Castle, there is mention of Joseph Goebbels reading Quain's book.)

posted evening of Monday, August 4th, 2008
➳ More posts about The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis
➳ More posts about José Saramago
➳ More posts about Readings
➳ More posts about Ficciones
➳ More posts about Short Stories
➳ More posts about Jorge Luis Borges

Do you read him in the original language? (I am not even sure if it is Spanish or Portuguese.)

posted evening of August 4th, 2008 by Randolph

Borges' original language is Spanish and Saramago's is Portuguese; but I read both in translation. It's a little misleading I guess for the collection of stories in English to be titled Ficciones.

posted evening of August 4th, 2008 by Jeremy

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