Borges

Pedro Jorge Romero · 18 Jun 1998, 20:37 · from urth-v0014.mbox · original

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From: Pedro Jorge Romero <bempjr at redkbs.com>
Subject: Re: (urth) Borges
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 21:37:40 +0100
Message-ID: <urth-v0014-0051 at digest.urth.net>
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Sorry for the delay.

Alice Turner escribi=3DF3:
> =3D

> [Posted from URTH, a mailing list about Gene Wolfe's New Sun and other =
=3D
works]
> =3D

> Pedro Jorge,
> =3D

> 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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