Laith
The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much though, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).
The Library of Babel is one of those short story collections you absolutely must read. Borges is your favorite author's favorite author and so many of his ideas have seeped their way into contemporary lit. Whether it's his inventive narratives or his remarkable use of language every story in this collection, no matter how short, will stick out in your mind and leave you thinking well after the pages are completed. You never really "finish" Borges.
What really drew me on this reading was the introductory essay- The Duration of Hell in which Borges detonates a theological hand grenade. I vividly recall Sunday school lessons where the concept of eternal damnation was introduced to me. I never really gave it all that much though, it was as if the concept tracked along with the other religious tenets (Charity, Prayer, Pilgrimage, etc). But as Borges points out the crime and the punishment are not proportional, sin is finite, but the punishment is infinite. He presents the logical problem, god is just and justice is proportional; and then he walks away resolving nothing. You can't stop thinking about it once you've read this piece.
The titular Library of Babel is of course the main draw here, it's a variation on the idea that a room full of monkeys and typewriters will eventually produce a work of Shakespeare on a long enough timeline. It's incredible, and it has gone on to inspire and influence every generation of authors that followed its publishing- if you had a good professor you've probably already read it or at least some other Borges.
Following along the themes present in The Duration of Hell, the last piece that's an absolute must read is the Babylonian Lottery. It's another Borges masterpiece and it really highlights his talent for building elegant but labyrinthine logical puzzles. This is a deceptively simple piece about a lottery in Babylon that introduces punishments, secret drawings, and then invisible administration. Eventually the lottery governs everything and nobody knows what's chance and what's by design. There are so many wild interpretations that this story invites, and the one that I personally continue to ruminate on is whether or not randomness is different from destiny, whether chaos is just another form of order. From the outset chance is presented as liberating, but as randomness comes to govern over all it really becomes indistinguishable from fate.
I loved this, and I read it right after the disappointment that was Shadows Upon Time. I wonder how much better that series could have been had Roucchio been a Borges fan (and if he is a Borges fan, I guess that's even more of a let down).