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I am reading now "A Personal Anthology" of Borges' work, a book of which the author says in the prologue, "I should like to be judged by it, justified or reoroved by it." I'm surprised to find so much in it that is new to me -- I knew I knew nothing of Borges the poet; my imagined familiarity with his short stories is being disproved as well. Of the first 7 pieces (2 poems, 5 stories) I knew only 2 and possibly only 1 before now -- "Death and the Compass" seems like something I've read before but I could not say where or when. So the seventh piece "Funes, the Memorious" is the first that I know well -- and as I read the first paragraph I see something brand new. The narrator remarks parenthetically, "I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb," meaning "remember", and suddenly I think about the similarity in form between "remember" and "dismember" and wonder how remembering somebody might involve reassembling the pieces of his corpse into a lifelike mannequin... Is this a false etymology? Let's see... Hm well yes, Etymology Online believes it is -- "member" in "remember" comes from "memor", "member" in "dismember" comes from "membrum". Still a nice conceit to base a poem on. Let's see if anyone has... Hm well somebody wrote an essay about it... somebody else wrote a punk rock album about it...
posted evening of July 23rd, 2005: Respond
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Borges is the genius of 20th-Century literature. His short stories defy description but demand to be read.
