Subject: (urth) Borges

From: Alice Turner <al at interport.net>
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 1998 19:53:46 +0000

[Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other works]

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-

*More Wolfe info & archive of this list at http://www.urth.net/urth/

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From: Pedro Jorge Romero <bempjr at redkbs.com>
Date: Thu, 30 Apr 1998 05:51:44 +0000

> For fun, can you tell us where Ultan is quoting Borges?

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

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From: Pedro Jorge Romero <bempjr at redkbs.com>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:37:40 +0000

Sorry for the delay.

> For fun, can you tell us where Ultan is quoting Borges?

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

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From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan at gnt.net>
Date: Mon, 07 Sep 1998 01:03:47 +0000

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)