Borges - Dictionary of Borges

don doggett · 24 Nov 2009, 08:02 · from 2009-November.txt.gz

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From: kingwukong at yahoo.com (don doggett)
Date: Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:02:35 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Borges - Dictionary of Borges
In-Reply-To: <95B577B74BDB468BB9E4197C54A2D9D1@eMachinePC>
Message-ID: <822213.67288.qm at web32408.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hey all,

One of the great things about this list, and about Wolfe in general, are the tangents you end up traveling on. God love google, I typed in Ulster and Borges (looking for an Ultan connection) and I came up with this:
http://www.borges.pitt.edu/bsol/pdf/fishburn.pdf a 280 page Dictionary of Borges with a hyperlinked (I think that's right?) index. It has nothing to do with Ultan, as far as I can tell (though the word Ulster is somewhere in the document. heh) but who really cares. This is damn cool.

you're welcome

Don

Doggerel
www.don-doggett.blogspot.com


--- On Mon, 11/23/09, James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: James Wynn <crushtv at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: (urth) Borges
> To: "The Urth Mailing List" <urth at lists.urth.net>
> Date: Monday, November 23, 2009, 10:17 AM
> >>I've always thought the
> Borges=Ultan theory was tenuous.
> >>Not impossible, just not much supporting it beyond
> Utlan's
> >>blindness. Borges is a great writer, but other than
> "The Book of
> >>Imaginary Beings" which cites the Baldanders, I
> haven't noted much
> >>influence from him. Of course, that might be due to
> a deficiency in
> >>my Borges knowledge.[snip]While Wolfe might well
> have been
> >>introduced to the monster "Baldanders" by
> Borges...
> 
> >In terms of Borges influencing Wolfe (in general and
> BOTNS in particular),
> >the Borges story Funes the Memorious features a
> character who
> >remembers everything in perfect detail
> >[snip]
> >Gene Wolfe has also commented on the influence of
> Borges:
> >GW: Yes, I took the name of the giant who is still
> growing from
> >The Book of Imaginary Beings
> 
> Well, that certainly settles where he got the name,
> although how it relates 
> to Wolfe's constantly growing giant is still a mystery to
> me.
> 
> And also Borges was a blind librarian of South America.
> Even if one happily 
> embraced the theory that Buenos Aires is Nessus, that's
> still a thin hook to 
> hang a theory that Ultan was patterned on Borges...not that
> I don't *like* 
> the theory and it certainly does no harm. But while I heard
> and read Wolfe 
> repeatedly allude to Chesterton and Vance being
> "influences" (and he 
> explicitly identified The Dying Earth as his "golden
> book"), I've never 
> heard him say that about Borges. Its seems such a grand
> honor to give to 
> another writer (some have even associated Cyby with Wolfe
> himself). It 
> suggests an association greater than mere professional and
> artistic 
> admiration.
> 
> By the way, does anyone have the lyrics to 70s folk band
> Ougenweide's song 
> "Bald Anders"?
> 
> J. 
> 
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