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Saturday, March 11, 2006
Some Brief Notes and Queries on Teaching Borges
I’ve taught some of Borges’s fictions in two out of three of my last classes and am spending this week on “The Immortal,” “The House of Asterion,” “The Zahir,” and “The Aleph.” I’d be interested in hearing from any of you who’ve taught Borges, particularly in an introductory course. How did it go, and how specifically did you handle Borges’s awesome and conspicuous erudition? “Pierre Menard,” which I taught a few weeks ago, is among the commented-upon of all the stories; and I have yet* to read a satisfactory explanation of Menard’s recapitulative bibliography or of the role of the atypical narrator. In a review of Danto’s relevant book here, one philosopher noted that it seemed like an interesting topic--perhaps quixotic--but that he’d live it to the literary scholars to figure out. More important philosophic issues about aesthetics and authenticity were at play, you see.
I think it would be a remarkable thing indeed if Lem’s “Odysseus in Ithaca” from A Perfect Vacuum were written without knowledge of “The Immortal.” The first-order, forgotten geniuses and the immortals are identically outside history and comprehension. I used Escher, Piranesi, and Lovecraft (and Giger if I’d thought of it, though as a negative--perhaps also de Chirico?) as examples for their city, as Xul Solar didn’t seem to fit here. Contemplation as a form of atavism, the logical extension of the ego into the present, also suggests itself. The Cynics, yes, but where’s the “if only hunger could be relieved thus?” Sex is almost entirely absent from Borges’s fiction.** My favorite Heraclitean fragment, “Homer was an astronomer,” is probably relevant to the alien gods of these troglodytes (the etymology of which and its nomenclatural usages are both worth mentioning).
There will be a good explanation for why Asterion’s concept of infinity starts at fourteen, I predict, though it may take some prompting. Theseus as the foretold redeemer teems with interest, esp. in a vaguely Hegelian cast of the hero as unifier of the city-state, deliverer from theriomorphy. Good luck asking a local barkeep for a brandy and orange juice and expecting your check card receipt to be the zahir. It has to be an object with presence, and, besides, people don’t drink brandy and orange juice anymore (though they do blend coffee and orange juice, apparently). Also, none of you are old enough for this bar nonsense.
“Money is abstract [. . .] money is future time.” Pedagogical gold, so to speak. And “The Aleph” is probably the most sentimental of Borges’s fictions that I’ve taught. Argentino’s pathetic subcreation seems a Mundane Comedy. The reference in the afterword to Well’s “The Crystal Egg” is particularly wry.
*Not that I’ve read all of the literature, mind you, and I certainly appreciate any suggestions.
**Not teaching “Emma Zunz,” and I’ve yet to get an untainted answer to “The Cult of the Phoenix.” Am particularly curious for comparisons on this last point.
Comments
Anyone know of interesting stuff on concrete poetry/ calligrammes etc??
A comment from left field, from a literary scientist.
You ask:
and how specifically did you handle Borges’s awesome and conspicuous erudition?
Is it erudition, or imagination? My very limited understanding of Borges is that a lot of his apparent scholarly allusions are just clever things he made up. I remember several discussions on Darwin-L years ago about Borges’ supposed “Chinese encyclopedia” with the classification that included amusing groups like “animals that from a long way off look like flies.” If you go here and put “Borges” in the search box you’ll come up with a number of citations:
My favorite Heraclitean fragment, “Homer was an astronomer”...
Is that from Borges also? Although translations may differ, I just scanned through my copy of Heraclitus and I couldn’t find anything close to “Homer was an astronomer.”
You can find the Heraclitus quote in Kahn’s edition, searchable full-text on Amazon or Google.
Some of his allusions are imaginary, yes, but they’re quite learned creations.
Foucault cited that as well.
I’ll just link to my earlier speculation here that Borges list was modeled on the 100 Buddhist dharmas, which include “seeing, the sight, the eye, volition, desire, vigor, stupidity, forgetfulness, torpor, the tongue, sound, differentiation of species, continuing/abiding, space, time, otherwiseness, and ipseity.”
Of which otherwiseness and stupidity are my favorites.
What is Danto’s relevant book?
The Transfiguration of the Commonplace (Harvard, 1981).
Yes, I really should have been able to figure that out.
Yes, but I’m happy to help.
"The Library of Babel” bombed with both my freshmen sections this spring. Of 38 students, one or two found it exciting. I had hoped, since this one isn’t highly allusive, that it would work, but it is about loving to read: a foreign habit to the majority of my students.
Still, I get the sense from the midterms that they enjoyed grappling with the Borges question, in which I asked them to account for the emotional arc between “extravagant joy” and madness upon “discovering” that the library includes all books.