Join the Joe Mesics' Literary Canon book club! This month we are reading Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges, and discussion will be led by guest speaker Prof. Gene Bell-Villada.
Professor Gene Bell-Villada has thoughtfully chosen a subset of the pieces from Borges’ collection Labyrinths he’d like us to concentrate on, as well as a list of questions to help us explore the intricacies of this celebrated collection. Labyrinths contains 24 short stories (usually very short), 10 essays and 9 pieces Borges labels as “Parables.” Labyrinths was put together, translated and published soon after Borges won the International Publishers' Prize with Samuel Beckett. Borges had some international renown prior to this, but this was first whole book to appear in English. It was drawn from previous Spanish collections. Bell-Villada writes: Let me take the liberty to compile a list of Borges stories that the group might read in preparation for our meeting on October 27 (and in this particular order, if possible). A pdf with the stories in this order is available to download under "Attachments."
- “The Sect of the Phoenix”
- “Death and the Compass”
- “Funes the Memorious”
- “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”
- “The Secret Miracle”
- “The Garden of Forking Paths”
- “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”
- “The Library of Babel”
- “Story of the Warrior and the Captive"
- “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”
- “Borges and I”
- “Everything and Nothing”
Also, in preparation for our discussion, here follow some topics readers could watch for:
1) In a lecture Borges once delivered in Uruguay, he stated that there are four ways to create unreality in literature. They are: A) The work of art within another work of art, B) The contamination of reality by dreams, C) The journey through time, and D) The Double. (That of course is simply an outline and not a final, total truth.) Which of his stories fit these categories?
2) What is the “Secret” in “The Sect of the Phoenix”? And who are the Sectarians?
3) What do the short fictions “The Sect of the Phoenix” and “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” resemble? What do they seem to be?
4) What genre does “Death and the Compass” belong to? How do its contents differ from those of the standard formulae?
5) What do the titles of “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” and “Story of the Warrior and the Captive” suggest? How do the plots of the stories diverge from their titles?
6) In reading “Death and the Compass,” keep an eye out for A) the numbers 3 and 4, and B) for the names of the detective, the policeman, and the criminal, respectively.
7) In “The Secret Miracle,” p. 93, following line 4, there should be three dots (“Julia von Widenow was the symbol…”) that are in the original but have been omitted in the translation. Q: What might that ellipsis suggest about the preceding paragraph?