Borges

Pedro Jorge, For fun, can you tell us where Ultan is quoting Borges? Good news for Borges fans: In September Viking is putting out a huge omnibus of Borges's shorter works which will includes FICCIONES, IMAGINARY BEINGS and a slew of other stuff, much of which has hardly been seen in English. Viking usually does a nice package, so this should be a must-have. With luck, there will be a nice compact bio in the intro. Derek, I agree that Oliver Sacks is really more suited to the Latro books (but he is certainly a fascinating read!). I'm going with Byzantium and Kafka for Week Two and can hardly begin to think of Three! How many weeks will there be? Akkk! -alga-

I do not have my copy of Torturer (I have the sort of quotes underlined in my copy) right here. In a couple of days I'll have it again (over the weekend) Pedro Jorge

Sorry for the delay. Alice Turner escribió:

Ok, Here it goes: At one point of TOOT Ulan tells about becoming blind and adds: "He who had given all books into my keeping made me blind so that I should know in whose keeping the keeper stand" (chapter VI). That's very similar to a poem by Borges ("Poem of the Gifts", my own translation of the title) where talking about God and commenting about been made head of the National Library he writes: "...with great irony/he gave me both the books and the darkness". I am not sure, but in his "Autobiographical Essay" (in THE ALPHA AND OTHER STORIES) there seem to be a similar sentence commenting on the irony of receiving 800,000 books and darkness. So, to me it has always been pretty obvious that Master Ulan is really Brogues. A good biography of Brogues: James Wood's The Man in the Mirror of the Book. Best Padre Gorge

Along Borgesian lines, it is worth remembering that Borges was quite a fan of Chesterton, and Wolfe cut his teeth on Chesterton, claiming (to me) to have read everything of Chesterton's. Nutria (Jim Jordan)