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Week 5: Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

Hey everyone! I hope all is well,

   This week's reading was "Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges. Although I recognized I was trying to read an assortment of short tales, they seemed to be linked separately in a different manner, leaving me dubious of what I was reading. However, I learned through reading up and researching the author that a lot of his work is intricate, nuanced and thought-provoking. His creations frequently defy logic and convention, exposing paradoxes by pushing concepts to their apparent limits. While having no clear storyline and seemingly blending two realities of real life and fiction, I found that his writing was hard for me to comprehend as I cannot jump quickly from one thing to another. Also, I realized after watching the lecture video for this week's lesson that Borges emphasized continuity and lineage and that he tried to make his work fascinating by being genuine and authentic. Therefore, it is understandable why other people and I may find his writing, particularly Labyrinths, to be challenging to follow as a reader.

   I made an effort to force myself to keep reading and identified just several themes that I considered particularly significant. Time, individuality, existence, reality, and the essence of it—which is incredibly complex—are some of the topics I encountered upon.

Some quotes that stood out to me -theme-wise- include:

    "Years ago I tried to free myself from him [Borges] and went from the mythologies of the outskirts to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things (p. 246-247)." This quote was from the short story called "Borges and I." Although I genuinely don't understand what he's saying, if I had to express it in words, I'd suggest that he's attempting to distance himself from him- as a writer. It has the appearance that he has two different personalities: one in which he knows and the other that nearly seems foreign and separate from the perceived.

    “God made himself totally a man but a man to the point of infamy, a man to the point of reprobation and the abyss. [. . .] He could have been Alexander or Pythagoras or Rurik or Jesus; He chose the vilest destiny of all: He was Judas (p. 99)." Although I don't understand this quotation, I have a significant amount of knowledge about the Bible, so simply having that awareness made me smile. I additionally appreciate the play on words.

Question:
Was there a story you think you fully grasped? 


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  1. JonFebruary 6, 2023 at 6:50 PM

    "Although I don't understand this quotation"

    Regarding this quotation from "The Three Versions of Judas"... I talk about that story at some length in my video lecture, and even cite the same lines. Did that not help?

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  2. JonFebruary 6, 2023 at 6:51 PM

    "Although I genuinely don't understand what he's saying"

    Likewise, in my video lecture I discuss precisely this quotation and try to explain exactly what he means by it. Again, did the lecture not help?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Daniel OrizagaFebruary 6, 2023 at 6:55 PM

    These stories are not a novel, but as you say, they have connections, perhaps more subtle ones for the development of the themes and the mechanisms used. By the way, some tools were already introduced by Dr. Beasley-Murray. Do you think that by reading all the texts and the comments on the videos you can gradually clarify some of them? We'll discuss some tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete

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