Traveller’s Comments (group member since Jan 14, 2015)

Traveller’s comments from the On Paths Unknown group.

Cecily wrote: "You can read it here:
http://wsblog.iash.unibe.ch/wp-conten...

or another translation here:
http://mycours.es/gamedesign2012/file...
.."

Hmm, out of those 2 translations, I found the second one a lot more natural and pleasant to read. :)

Cecily, you spoke of assumptions about the Chinese, and I do know that one of the stereotypes about Chinese people is that culturally speaking, they can be a bit pompous in the sense of leaning towards being ceremonious and indulging in pomp and circumstance, oh, and there's that famous burocracy as well, of course.

...so I was wondering if the stiff and unnatural way the narrator speaks in the first translation was perhaps to consciously or unconsciously strengthen this sort of stereotypical idea of the Chinese?

Certainly the idea that a Chinese scholar would invent an infinite maze would seem to me to fit in with that...

In any case, to me, Borges seems very occupied with the idea of parallel universes and all possibilities.

To me there is a lot of reworking in this story of some of the ideas from Library of Babel.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with those "game" books, where it starts off with a narrative, and then gives the reader a choice - if you choose A, then you have to skip to, say page 6 for the outcome of that choice, and if you choose B, you have to skip to page 10 for the outcome of choice B, and so forth.

Like these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_...

Hmm, and this might also be of interest: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Types_o...

Hmm, would you say this is one of his most realistic and exciting stories, with an almost thriller flavor to it? ...or is that just me?

Apatt wrote: "I'm going to have to reread The Circular Ruins to say anything useful about it, on the first pass which I kind of whizzed through it and I didn't really get anything from it. .."

Please do - it will be interesting to get your second-reading take on it.

Hmmm... I wonder.. shall we just skip the poll and decide to do a discussion? (With the proper announcements, of course) Or, we could always do a poll with it and 2 or 3 other really crappy books in the poll. XD (Problem tho if a crappy book wins... :P)

Starting, say... early November?
Grr, if only my October running into start of November wasn't so busy!

On second thought, this text is probably not a good one one to start Borges off with - it's startling in its apparent lack of an actual plotline and of, well, - a story.

But it is probably one of his most pervasively referenced stories - one can spend hours and hours looking up cultural reactions and replies and references to this Borges text. :)

You sound a bit like myself - always have good intentions, but.....

Alex wrote: "never know though with my magpie reading, plans always get forgotten .."

Alex wrote: " I have a small tendency to want to read authors in publication order "

*Traveller scratches head.*

Looks like a poll is in order. I'll do one shortly. :)

I think we must definitely make a plan to read If on a Winter's Night a Traveler .

I don't think they follow on, but yes, we should finish our read of City of Saints still!

the gift wrote: "this may have been my first borges fiction, read before having read of him, so there is a certain nostalgia, but i think it is the first time read thoughts of world-as-dream. i have in subsequent y..."

Ah, understood. Well said.

the gift wrote: " as borges himself once says, sometimes the original is unfaithful to the translation... ."
What a wonderfully Borgesian saying! BD

Oh wow! Thank you so much, Cecily! I for one, will need a bit of time to chew on all this, but you've certainly whetted my appetite. ;)

I must admit that I'm enjoying comparing the translations. (I have managed to get hold of 4) Not everyone might have the patience, though. :P

Cecily wrote: ""Foreboding"? It's not gruesome, or even necessarily a tragedy."

Might not be gruesome, but (view spoiler)[ finding out that you are not real, the exact thing that you'd been trying to shield your child/creation from knowing, must be a horrible shock. To me, the terror and humiliation it caused him is understandable. (hide spoiler)]

I've also been wondering how many of these dream-creations then roam the earth in Borges's scenario. That is probably beside the point of the story.... but I can't help focusing on detail. :P For example, can they be destroyed? Who is the first one in the chain? If that first dreamer is destroyed, then, do they all cease to exist?

But there is a particular circular pattern in this story that you don't see as often, except if you go for the analogy that on one level, what is being described here is the perpetual cycle of life itself.
In many ways, parents 'create' their children - not just physically, but psychologically as well, and both those aspects seem to be reflected in the story.

On a different tack, i love how 3-dimensional Borges work appears to be.
From the Giovanni translation: He felt it, he lived it from different distances and from many angles.

..and on yet a different tack, in one of the translations, the slopes of the mountain are described as "violent" (and in another version simply steep). Initially, before finishing the story, the "violent" in tandem with the fiery ashes and the 'fire' god made me wonder if this was a volcanic mountain. I wonder if "violent" and "steep" can have a similar meaning in Spanish?
Because i still think the story takes place on the slopes of a volcano, in which case the "violent" slope makes a lot of sense.

Alex wrote: "Nakamura Reality Advance Copy

My novel Nakamura Reality will be published by The Permanent Press [“On a shoestring turning out literary gems.”—The New York Times] in February 2016. I'm making avai..."

Huh? Now why do I feel certain that I have either read this or seen a movie of this? ...or else, something extremely similar. The first 5 paragraphs of it, in any case. I must be going nutty or something. Did you perhaps put it up for free at some point, Alex?

the gift wrote: "about the difference of creation from speaking vs dreaming- there is yes the argument it is impossible to have language limited to oneself, but the Judeo-Christian God is beyond such logical quibbl..."

Indeed...

Cecily wrote: "mark wrote: "blog posts that connected the ideas in this story to films like The Matrix and virtual reality experiences like Second Life...."

Plato's cave and Alice in Wonderland as well, perhaps?"
Indeed! Plato's cave is a good one - i suppose Alice as well, and especially with reference to the quote that the story refers to at the start - because the quote would be referring to a dream within a dream as well.

I think i might have lost you guys wrt "the translation" a bit, but i am being particularly duh today. Are we referring to one specific translation here? Sorry if i am being particularly dense, but it can't hurt to ask...?

Yolande wrote: " At any rate it would make for a good discussion in which we can talk about the aspects of his literature and who he is as a person. I think for that reason I would read it myself.

As long as we are aware of an author's prejudices and do not support it, reading and discussing their literature can't be such a bad thing to do. .."

Indeed! In fact, we can approach it, like we did with Like Water FC, with an awareness that there are feminist issues involved, and we can discuss those along with the book.