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I've read an absolutely minimal amount of Borges' work, but all that I've read has been so memorable and insightful as to change my worldview to some extent. B

I've read an absolutely minimal amount of Borges' work, but all that I've read has been so memorable and insightful as to change my worldview to some extent. Borges' on taxonomy: https://www.liquisearch.com/celestial_emporium_of_benevolent_knowledges_taxonomy https://www.liquisearch.com/celestial_emporium_of_benevolent... Borges' on "the map is (not) the terrain" (pasted in its entirety): In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago
Ficciones is amongst the most impressive collection of short stories I have ever read, especially the first part which in isolation might actually be the best because everything in it is genuinely good. Nearly all the stories it contains could be the highlight of another collection and even the one I find the weakest, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", is still very enjoyable. It's amusing. I was checking on Wikipedia to see the exact title of the stories I wanted to highlight and I realised they all have articles and nearly all of them have an "Influence" section, a fact I'm not surprised about.
- adammarples 4y ago
  The man who attempted to rewrite Don Quixote is one of the best things over ever read
daniel-cussen 4y ago
Borges is perfect at format. And should have gotten a Nobel prize, but didn't get it strictly because he stood by the military dictatorship in Argentina. Not the only Latin American writer who likes the military, Diego Maquieira, my godfather, who I featured on this site when he let me put one of his poems online, wrote an epic poem called Los sea harrier, based on military technology of the 80's in the Falklands War, particularly its namesake airplane the Sea Harrier and mothership aircraft carriers. The military, which believe it or not wasn't completely devoted to persecution, and further which did produce culture at the time, I've seen many military men playing in orchestras, even saw a Dongelspiel at the very end of one. They wanted to take him to Antartica, the Chilean military has a strong presence and is very dominant in Antartica. There's other right-wing intellectuals, not so much into the money as into the military aspect, like there's a 90-year-old Mussolinist who will not apologize for his fascism even in his epitaph--but check this out, he didn't buy into the racial laws, and once he saw what War was when losing saw it wasn't all that glamorous. Roman. Black-shirt youth. But great artist, so Borges was a great writer, and in fact I would say nowadays the internet is increasingly a Borgesian library. All the way, you follow links, follow links, follow links, read some shit, decide what link is next, follow links, boom you see a list of social security numbers, and you're on it, and it has codes--who can explain the 3 digit numbers next to them? Who printed this, where does it come from? Like how can you interpret it to continue believing you're not being persecuted, it's not happening? That's when I talk my medicine from when I was considered schizophrenic, which I still get, it's a loophole. Instantly turns down the temperature. But you? What would you do, in a Borgesian library? The Borgesian library is a reflection of yourself, there's no objectivity to it, en este mundo en que nada es verdad y nada es mentira, todo depende del color del cristal por el que uno lo mira.

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

Ficciones is amongst the most impressive collection of short stories I have ever read, especially the first part which in isolation might actually be the best because everything in it is genuinely good. Nearly all the stories it contains could be the highlight of another collection and even the one I find the weakest, "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", is still very enjoyable. It's amusing. I was checking on Wikipedia to see the exact title of the stories I wanted to highlight and I realised they all have articles and nearly all of them have an "Influence" section, a fact I'm not surprised about.

adammarples 4y ago
The man who attempted to rewrite Don Quixote is one of the best things over ever read

daniel-cussen 4y ago

Borges is perfect at format. And should have gotten a Nobel prize, but didn't get it strictly because he stood by the military dictatorship in Argentina. Not the only Latin American writer who likes the military, Diego Maquieira, my godfather, who I featured on this site when he let me put one of his poems online, wrote an epic poem called Los sea harrier, based on military technology of the 80's in the Falklands War, particularly its namesake airplane the Sea Harrier and mothership aircraft carriers. The military, which believe it or not wasn't completely devoted to persecution, and further which did produce culture at the time, I've seen many military men playing in orchestras, even saw a Dongelspiel at the very end of one. They wanted to take him to Antartica, the Chilean military has a strong presence and is very dominant in Antartica. There's other right-wing intellectuals, not so much into the money as into the military aspect, like there's a 90-year-old Mussolinist who will not apologize for his fascism even in his epitaph--but check this out, he didn't buy into the racial laws, and once he saw what War was when losing saw it wasn't all that glamorous. Roman. Black-shirt youth. But great artist, so Borges was a great writer, and in fact I would say nowadays the internet is increasingly a Borgesian library. All the way, you follow links, follow links, follow links, read some shit, decide what link is next, follow links, boom you see a list of social security numbers, and you're on it, and it has codes--who can explain the 3 digit numbers next to them? Who printed this, where does it come from? Like how can you interpret it to continue believing you're not being persecuted, it's not happening? That's when I talk my medicine from when I was considered schizophrenic, which I still get, it's a loophole. Instantly turns down the temperature. But you? What would you do, in a Borgesian library? The Borgesian library is a reflection of yourself, there's no objectivity to it, en este mundo en que nada es verdad y nada es mentira, todo depende del color del cristal por el que uno lo mira.