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Collected Fictions
Borges Stories - M.R. 2013
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Discussion - Week Three - Borges - Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
I found this story hilarious. I first read it years ago and it stayed with me-when I reread it, I found my memory was amazingly accurate.
Mod
Did you flash on the connection between the listing of Menard's body of work and James O. Incandenza's filmography? The more we read, the more connections there are to be made...
There are probably many 'hidden winks' in the list of works, but I didn't try to figure anything out. I found the story to be very clever and funny. The part where he quotes two paragraphs from each of the authors (that are exactly the same) and compares them, is just killer. Nice work but definitely not one of his best. I should go back to "Tlon..." and join that talk, since I came in late on this group. Also look forward to the next story.Cheers
I have always loved Pierre Menard which has always been one of the most perfect short stories.One of things I've noticed over the past few weeks is that no one really has much to say about Borges. My question is how we get better discussions.
It is difficult perhaps to read an author who seems so much smarter and self-aware than you'll ever be. :-)
As with most 'brain pain' authors, our only hope for us mere mortals is to go with the flow, try to grasp as much as we can but acknowledge the limitations of our personal reading, and hope it can be enriched by the sum of all the individual interpretations. I already gave mine
I don't know. Mertin. That's not an interpretation from my perspective. I think Borges does make it hard to talk about Borges though. The question is, what line of thought to follow.
I wonder if Borges ever again returns to the theme of reinterpreting things as though they were written in an another time. Of course, the eternal return and time are themes of Borges, so is writing fiction as though it were lit crit or lit history, and the inevitability of solipsism, of seeing things from one's own perspective.
Okay, I'll try to rise to the challenge to say something, though not everything, and then I'll echo the challenge and ask Bill to say that which he believes must be said.The central idea of this story, the idea of the author writing Don Quixote, not by transcription, by alteration, or by imitation, but writing it originally-again, is an idea I relate to well. I've often thought that when it comes to the great ideas, they are useless until we make them our ideas. We must really innovate what we have already learnt. I recently read an echo of this idea in Hagakure, a.k.a. the Book of the Samurai... (quote to come later... I can't find it!)
In chess, it is valuable to be told how important the center is... but it is only marginally valuable. You will not understand it, though the idea is clear, indisputable, and essential. After some months or years of study and practice, after repeatedly being told that you must appreciate the importance of the center, wondering whether you have sufficiently appreciated the center, convincing yourself that you have appreciated the value of the center, and it's old hat, and you don't want to hear about it anymore... one day you will make a discovery: the center is important. Then, if you're lucky, talented, brilliant, or dedicated, you'll take the first step towards understanding what Paul Morphy understood and what all masters after him have taken for granted--what the masters since Steinitz have built into a science, which informs the very openings you've spent years memorizing though you didn't understand their foundations, all while being certain that you did understand.
It's the same with position in poker, by the way. It's very important, but you won't know it until you invent the very concept on your own.
More later... I'm busy.
Aha! The quote from Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai:"In Yui Shoosetsu's military instructions, 'The Way of the Three Ultimates,' there is a passage on the character of karma. He received an oral teaching of about eighteen chapters concerning the Greater Bravery and the Lesser Bravery. He neither wrote them down nor committed them to memory, but rather forgot them completely. Then, in facing real situations, he acted on impulse and the things that he had learned became wisdom of his own. This is the character of karma."
While searching for it, I stumbled across some other interesting fragments from Hagakure and from the Tao te Ching. They may or may not be interesting or relevant, but I'll share anyway. They relate to paradox, difficulties in appreciation, and cetera.
HAGAKURE:
"It is natural that one cannot understand deep and hidden things. Those things that are easily understood are rather shallow."
TAO:
"Words that are strictly true seem to be paradoxical."
"My words are very easy to know, and very easy to practise; but there is no one in the world who is able to know and able to practise them."
MORE!I intended to say, when speaking of chess, that I'm glad that Pierre Menard proposed, analyzed and rejected his own idea regarding the elimination of one rook's pawn from the chess board. It reminded me of my impulse as a child, a bad impulse which many novices experience, the desire to develop rooks early... because we like rooks (who doesn't). But this would not improve chess, and rooks would still have great difficulty in developing where it counts: the center. Plus those rook's pawns have their own value (at least for chasing bishops and thus being of tertiary influence on the center).
And, finally, I criticize Borges while acknowledging that he's already anticipated me and stolen my thunder, and perhaps this whole story is already an answer to my criticism of it: my struggle comes from the realization that I would say exactly what he says, but I'd mean it differently, or I would mean what he means, but I'd say it differently. If I could.
Mod
We're not focusing on Borges, the man, but on these individual stories. If we were reading his biography and some critical essays about his life and work, that would be different.
So, for better discussions, why not dig deeper into this one story and say what you think about it. I'm sure Borges will emerge via discussion of Pierre Menard.
Mod
Or, you might say it identically, but your version would be infinitely richer!
Thanks for sharing those quotes.
Any thoughts about why Menard chose only a small portion of the Quixote to write?
This work, perhaps the most significant writing of our time, consists of the ninth and thirty-eighth chapters of Part I of Don Quixote and a fragment of Chapter XXII.
And later:
Shall I confess that I often imagine that he did complete it, and that I read the Quixote - the entire Quixote - as if Menard had conceived it? A few nights ago, as I was leafing through Chapter XXVI (never attempted by Menard), I recognized our friend's style, could almost hear his voice in this marvelous phrase: "the nymphs of the rivers, the moist and grieving Echo."
I haven't had a chance to look up those chapters in Cervantes to see how they apply to Menard.
Related back to the Samurai idea, I'm curious to see if there is some selected essence in the chapters Menard wrote that somehow support Borges' ideas, or maybe are essential to understanding the Quixote. Writing only what was most profound and important to what Cervantes was exploring. Or something like that...
I had assumed that Menard only completed IX, XXXVIII and the fragment of XXII because that was all he was able to accomplish of his self-appointed impossible task. But the fact that the narrator of this story read the entirety of Don Quixote as if it had been written by Menard raises doubt as to whether this were in fact the case, plus it raises the additional doubt of what it means to suggest his work was incomplete... the premise is overtly absurd, as, if it was really his goal to write the complete Don Quixote then the work was already complete before he started it. But then, it's not imbued by the author's magic if he didn't do it himself, unless of course we do him the favor of imbuing it with his magic by imagining he had written it.(That reminds me of one of the funny bits, when it is suggested that we should attempt to "read the book Le jardin du Centaure by Madame Henri Bachelier as if it were by Madame Henri Bachelier"! And here we revisit the impardonable false-cataloger of Menard who inflicted her falsehoods on the Calvinists and circumcised Masons.)
By the way, before reading the story, I had guessed that maybe it would be a story about the author of the "spurious" Don Quixote Part 2. Before Cervantes could complete his own continuation of the Don Quixote story, another author (or authors) wrote and published a Don Quixote 2, under the pseudonym "Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda." Looking into the Wikipedia page on this name, it's commented that Cervantes may have been having a bit of fun at his own expense when he criticized Avellaneda for the error of using the wrong name for Sancho Panza's wife, when Cervantes himself had used multiple inconsistent names for her, perhaps by error or perhaps as a bit of playfulness.
These seem like the kind of details and ideas that would have been fascinating to Borges, and certainly he was aware of them, so it was surprising that Borges elected to pass this over completely.
In fact, Borges has Menard plan not to write the "autobiographical prologue to the second part of Don Quixote," which I know is the part of the book in which Cervantes directly addresses the issue of the spurious Avellaneda version. But Menard explains his intention to omit this part only in order to avoid introducing the character of Cervantes, and the story entirely dodges the question or the mention of the Avellaneda text.
Hmmm...
Mod
Hmmm... ..."
This is what makes Borges so much fun. The more you probe, the more there is to find.
The equivalence between the fragment from the Quixote and Menard's can be seen as a description of the ideal translation, the word for word and line for line correspondence between the source text and the translation. From Chapter IX of the Quixote, the same chapter the quoted fragment/s are taken, we can also read (trans. John Rutherford, emphasis added):I had to draw on all the discretion I possess not to reveal how happy I felt when I heard the title of the book [History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by Cide Hamete Benengeli, an Arab historian]; and, getting in ahead of the silk merchant, I bought all the papers and notebooks from the lad for half a real; and if the lad himself had had any discretion and had noticed how much I wanted them, he could well have expected and indeed exacted more than six reals. Then I went off with the Moor to the cathedral cloister and asked him to translate the notebooks, or at least all those that had to do with Don Quixote, into Castilian, without adding or omitting a single word, and I offered to pay him whatever he asked.
Mod
Excellent Rise! Thank you for digging that out. I'll have to reread those chapters tonight.
Also, lots of food for thought in your two blog posts. Thanks for sharing those. I have the Edith Grossman translation, so I'll see how she compares with Rutherford on the lines you selected.
Jim wrote: "Bill wrote: "One of things I've noticed over the past few weeks is that no one really has much to say about Borges. My question is how we get better discussions..."We're not focusing on Borges, t..."
I think readers who are familiar with Don Quixote will probably enjoy & understand this story more. Borges, afterall,was hugely inspired by Cervantes. The comic & absurd aspect of the story is clearly a tribute to the original.
I could elaborate but Carlos Fuentes has said it so eloquently,so let me quote from his lecture:
"Borges himself once wrote: "All men who repeat one line of Shakespeare are William Shakespeare." This provocative idea is central to the idea of the "open work," a conception of literature that sees each book as a work forever in the process of being written. Given that each reader engages a work with a different set of preconceptions, notions, and cultural biases, the real nature of the book is inextricably bound to the creative act of reading it, and is therefore never truly a contained universe...Thematically, Borges is always concerned with the mystery of absence vs. presence, a mystery that may be resolved differently for each reader. As a chess player might say, "The moves we do not make are as important as the moves we do make." This is indeed an apt metaphor for reading Borges, where each reader may take a different branch in a garden of forking paths. Fuentes drew upon the story "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" to further illustrate this point. The Don Quixote of Cervantes means something different to the Don Quixote of the later Menard, even though the text is identical: times have changed; language has changed; readers have changed. As Fuentes would restate again throughout his lecture, a book is never finished, for it belongs to the future."
Thus Borges sees nothing ironical or absurd that Don Quixote is being written again,word for word. I read somewhere that there a catch in the story & thought that perhaps Pierre is a translator & the translated version turns out to be better than the original! Any thoughts on that?
@ Bill : I understand your frustration cause I'm looking at the final discussion of The Ice Shirt & feeling the same! I think except for you,most of us are Borges newbies,so pls bear with us.
Any discussion would benefit from having a good mix of veterans & freshers.
Ah,I see Rise has already discussed the 'translation" aspect! I was responding to the earlier email update.
Mala,I agree with what Fuentes wrote, and I think it's evident in the story. Each reader must read a different book, there is no escaping it any more than solipsism which I think is one of themes to which Borges eternally returns.
But the critical acuity that already exists in the ficciones almost as part of the narrative makes conversation a particular problem. Pointing out the obvious ironies is almost unnecessary.
But what can we add, what can learn from his particular approach? That's what I'm curious about.
Bill wrote: "Mala,I agree with what Fuentes wrote, and I think it's evident in the story. Each reader must read a different book, there is no escaping it any more than solipsism which I think is one of themes..."
What we learn from "his particular approach" is that readers bring an open mind to reading & the writers/writing be receptive/accepting of that– with Borges this approach is particularly necessary cause he plays mind games with his readers (more of that hopefully I'll try to cover in my review). Thus Borges places readers right there in the process of writing-reading along with the writer & the text.
But there are other writers,such as William T Vollmann whose writings seem not to encourage that (see Nathan N.R. review & comment thread of Fathers and Crows).
We had some controversy regarding the reading of Alexander Theroux's books here on Goodreads, ie were we bringing our own prejudices to the work & thus not being an impartial judge of its literary worth or were we justifed in our own interpretations cause readers are an integral part of reading?
Will a book still exist if nobody reads it? In that sense,isn't readers' respnse a necessary one? Can a writer really write only for himself?
Also Bill when you bring up the theme of solipsism,kindly do so with examples from his text. I've finished reading Collected Fictions so know very well which stories you may be referring to,others are not reading the full book so details will be welcome.@ Rise: Thank you so much for sharing those blogs with us– you nailed it!
In his Foreword to Ficcions (1944),Borges is not really being very helpful with this story:
"In 'Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' the unreality lies in the fate the story's protagonist imposes upon himself. The catalog of writings I have ascribed to him is not terribly amusing, but it is not arbitrary, either; it is a diagram of his mental history.... " Exactly what is he trying to say here?
I'm sharing here a paragraph from Rise's blog-
in lieu of a field guide: "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" ( Jorge Luis Borges)
"There is no definitive reading; there is no definitive translation. Individual readings will not arrive at the same feeling, the feeling of completeness or incompleteness, of closure or open-endedness. Every reading is a new reading, just as there is no definitive writing. The author himself, Cervantes himself, does not fully know his own work because it created for itself a life of its own the moment he put down pen and paper, and the moment the presses printed the pages and bound the epic between the spine and covers. Writing may have given breath to books, but it is reading through the ages that gives life to books through the ages. That enables for it to survive oblivion, become a classic. The narrator of Borges’s Menard did the reverse: he elevated a translated version of a classic that only exists in oblivion, or in any case, that is consigned to it."
Mod
Ah, the old "If a tree fell in the forest" question.
The way I think of it is that any work of art, including fiction, is a kind of communication. The artist (source) has an idea to communicate (message) via the medium of choice (channel) to the audience/reader/viewer (receiver). Or:
Source -> Message -> Channel -> Receiver
That's a linear model for all kinds of communication, and built into the model is the idea that the receiver "completes" the communication via the reading/seeing/hearing.
This assumes you agree with the idea that creative products are intended to communicate...
"This assumes you agree with the idea that creative products are intended to communicate..."Of course I do but I guess some ppl prefer the "Art for art's sake..." principle where it's not really incumbent upon the writer/artist/creator to conform to reader/audience expectations & hence the latter becomes kind of redundant...
I'm on the opposite end of this debate, and I've put myself at odds with many people who disagree strongly. Maybe I could point to some other debates elsewhere, but briefly I'd state that a work is complete, self-encapsulated, and audience is entirely irrelevant. If a book reaches no audience, it has the same intrinsic "value," but that could be regarded as perhaps "potential." The room for multiple interpretations which a Borges work allows/creates/invites is an intrinsic property of the text itself. It would be there even if no one ever discovered those multiple interpretations... or if it was never read at all.An unread book, in a box, may be a great book.
An unread book, thrown into the fire, may have been a great book.
And, by extension, An audience that didn't read, thrown into the fire, may have been a good potential audience. But they never mattered anyway.
Then Zadignose you'll make a great Buried Book Club member!
Mod
An unread book, thrown into the fire, may have been a great book.
And, by extension, An audience that didn't read, thrown into the fire, may have been a good potential audience. But they never mattered anyway. .."
Please use this as the introduction to your first novel!
I haven't had much time to discuss literature at all lately due to life being choatic at best, but this discussion was without a doubt the one I wanted to be a part of. Although I imagine I might be repeating what has been said before, the context is perhaps different, being my own.If books are indeed open books, then even the mere suggestion of an original Quixote by Menard, is enough to craete it. And once it is in our heads, it is too late. The Quixote of Menard is already there. What is more, the fragmentary nature of Menard's Quixote lends itself to that reading. Note that the selection Borges quotes from Cervantes's Quioxte concerns the myth of Echo/Narcissus:
"Shall I confess that I often imagine he did finish it and that I read the Quixote —all of it—as if Menard had conceived it? Some nights past, while leafing through chapter XXVI—never essayed by him—I recognized our friend’s style and something of his voice in this exceptional phrase: 'the river nymphs and the dolorous and humid Echo.' ”
Echo was one of Zeus' conquests and was punished by Hera by taking away her voice, except in reptition of what had just been said to her. This is a parallel to the Cervantes/Menard books, and perhaps even the communication vs art arguement. Although note Echo is still able to communicate with repitition becaue context makes it different. Just as Borges suggests that Menard's Quixote IS different for it being "written" in the 20th century.
Also Borges says to us that Menard liked to suggest ideas in his writings that were the exact opposite of the ones that he would want put forward himself:
"his resigned or ironical habit of propagating ideas which were the strict reverse of those he preferred."
And yet, I think that was Menard's point. Any time you espouse a counter-arguement, you also uphold the first arguement to the light of day. Every opposite can suggest its original. Thus Jim and Z, BOTH your points (communication vs art for art's sake) may in fact be valid and legitimate in this case.
Perhaps the funniest aspect of this work is that there is the sly suggestion that Menard may never have read the entirety of Cervantes' Quixote himself. Which to me would put one at a disadvantage to making a new original Quixote, and yet Menard (and thus Borges and also in fact the reader) has managed to make an original one anyways.
Mala - I think the notion of l'art pour l'art -- art for art's sake -- really just means that art is to concern it self with aesthetic values, not moral values. That's not the same thing as saying those values shouldn't be communicated.But yes there's the old battle between "expression" and "communication" -- although in a ideal world there shouldn't be one at all. But in fact most of the time most artists, I think (obviously I can't prove it), look for a balance in which they are true to their own vision without losing the audience.
Zadignose,If an unread book in a box is a great book how is its greatness measured? By what its effect on a hypothetical audience might have been? If not, then what? If yes, you can't lose the audience.
Bill wrote: "Zadignose,If an unread book in a box is a great book how is its greatness measured? By what its effect on a hypothetical audience might have been? If not, then what? If yes, you can't lose the au..."
No, Bill, no! Do not unleash the Zadignose, you play with fire as if it were a child's toy!
But, kidding aside, here's a link to the original discussion on objective greatness that Z referred to, starts around message 105[. And I would LOVE to see you enter the fray :-)
Clash of the Titans
Bill wrote: "Zadignose,If an unread book in a box is a great book how is its greatness measured? ..."
It isn't measured.
If a particular stone of mass x (unknown to man), on the dark side of the moon isn't placed upon a scale, then how is it weighed?
It isn't weighed. But it's still there. And it has mass.
I've got another mad analogy which occurred to me, whether or not it makes sense. Consider this my own Zen koan:"Bill thinks fire is hot. David says fire is hot. Which of them is right?"
Yes, but mass is subject to objective measures. It's a property in the physical world. Greatness is by definition itself a measure -- either objective like size or strength or it is subjective, the relative power of felt experience for an individual but it has no objective meaning.You could argue that "greatness" isn't a subjective measure, but you need to come up with an example of non-subjective measurement for it with regard to art.
You also have the greater problem that there is no way to define either "art" or "literature" without entailing problems or subjectivity. If you cannot say what something is, with precision, it is difficult to compare it to something else, which "greatness" as a concept seeks to do.
As for your koan, I'm tempted to get the kyosaku !!!
Heat is capable of an objective definition. It is meaningless to say an object is hot if the temperature is -273 Kelvin, absolute zero, at which point there is no molecular motion, molecular motion being what causes heat. After that, it becomes a matter of how high above -273 K you wish to define "hot".
It all depends on previous definitions and objective measurement.
Or you can say "I feel hot" which is entirely subjective in which case measurement is irrelevant. You're just describing your own sensations.
Quite different from, say, Joshu's "Mu".
I believe you have taken the wrong approach to the Koan. The question does not depend on the subjective definition of "hot," or is not intended to. The unstated axiom is that fire is hot. That is not in doubt here. But the question remains.Bill thinks fire is hot. David says fire is hot. Which of them is right?
I'll probably find time for more musing soon, but meanwhile, in the thread cited by Whitney above, I attempted to explain why I do not believe it is necessary to define a measure of greatness in order argue that there is such a thing as objective greatness, as by analogy to "English" which cannot be precisely defined, but which no one doubts exists.
I read what you wrote in Whitney's link. I just don't find it hangs together. Either you provide objective measurement or you have subjectivity. You can't rename subjectivity "objectivity".We conveniently use the word "art" without being able to define it in such a way that it will include all cases which are considered art and no cases which are not. However, we cannot pretend we know what art is. We can't say things that are true of all art. Or we can but we're talking nonsense.
"Greatness" is even more problematic because it's a statement that somethings are greater -- bigger, better, etc. -- than other things.
Therefore, the only way an individual could perceive greatness would be if he appreciated everything and could compare them. But you said individuals can only appreciate a fraction of what is out there. In that case they can't meaningfully compare.
As a matter conversation, I will say Shakespeare is a great writer. But there's no way to prove it. It's a subjective judgment -- it's just a subjective judgment which many people share, but all don't.
____
If there is an unstated axiom that fire is hot, there is no contradiction, and there is no koan. I will get the kyosaku.
Perhaps I should stop waiting for someone to see what is intended in the Koan (and sorry, Bill, I did not intend to use your name as one of the characters, it's just some guy named Bill):Who is right?
-Bill? But Bill did not express any opinion.
-David? But he may be lying (although his lie turns out to be the truth).
Bill's unspoken thought that fire is hot is the unpublished truth, no less true though it is unspoken. Communicating an idea (or not) does not impact its validity.
David's published statement is true, though he may not have intended it, while his unpublished belief may well be false, though no one hears it or corrects it.
Now, let me turn to the challenge which no person has yet attempted to answer, though I've posed it several times in various ways.Reginald truly believes that the value of art is a 100% subjective and arbitrary judgment. It has nothing to do with any objective entity, it's entirely in the mind of the person who judges.
I say that Reginald believes this, because he demonstrates his belief by acting as one who believes it. That is, he does not merely purport to believe it while acting contrary to his stated belief.
(By the way, I have never met a Reginald, and I suspect no Reginald has ever lived, except perhaps for a few moments before expiring or being locked away on account of his psychosis).
Someone proposes to Reginald that he should write a novel. Reginald now faces a dilemma. Of the three ways that a person can respond to this challenge, one way seems arguably correct, one seems unassailably correct, one is impossible.
The arguably correct response would be to write a book that aims at maximum popularity, with no other regard than the public's approval. This is very difficult, because it's difficult to predict public approval, and it's difficult to gain public approval, and Reginald has a weak philosophical basis for maintaining that the "best" work is the work that is best appreciated. Nonetheless, the work that is best appreciated cannot be less than the best. At worst it is equal to all works (and non-works).
But that leads to the second, unassailable response, which would be to not write at all. It's rather silly, after all, for Reginald to strive to create a work which has no value whatsoever, except for the arbitrarily assigned value of a fickle public which will soon perish in any case. The public will always find something else to please them if Reginald doesn't trouble to pander to them. He can't, of course, write for himself, because he KNOWS that there can be nothing within the work itself that has any intrinsic value. He is free to assign equal value to all things, or to nothing. Which points to the third, impossible, option.
What Reginald cannot possibly do is try to write a work that is good regardless of the opinion of the masses. He KNOWS that no such work exists. He, of course, has no basis for opinions of his own, so he has nothing at all to guide him, if he were to stray from the mainstream course. It would not merely be perverse to go against public opinion, it would be absolutely futile.
So, Reginald, being sensible, after consideration, chooses not to write. But then he's confronted by a new dilemma. A friend asks Reginald to express an opinion on a book.
"How can I express an opinion?" Reginald asks. "I can have no opinion. I KNOW that there is nothing whatsoever, within one book or another, which makes it better or worse than any other. The best I can do is to say 'this book is popular,' or 'this book is not popular,' but to have an opinion of my own? On what basis. I KNOW that there can be no basis."
So he resolves to express no opinion. But then he's faced by a new dilemma, when his friend recommends that he read a book.
He cannot read a book. There is no purpose in reading a book. There is nothing within the book to give his attention to. The reading of a book is an equal aesthetic experience to not reading a book.
So now we have Reginald, the true believer in the subjectivity of Aesthetic judgment, unable to write, opine, or read. But at least, thank God, he's not a solipsist, or not yet! For if he sank so low as that, he would no longer have any cause for eating or breathing!
Mod
Reginald truly believes that the value of art is a 100% subjectiv..."
Z, you're never going to find a job in product marketing with this attitude, LOL!!!
BTW, some of Reginald's ideas can be found in the character of Adrian Leverkühn in Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus which is (sorta) being read/discussed over in the Faustus project.
Zadignose wrote: "Now, let me turn to the challenge which no person has yet attempted to answer, though I've posed it several times in various ways.Reginald truly believes that the value of art is a 100% subjectiv..."
You're argument hinges on believing that just because something can't be valued objectively, it doesn't have value. Outside of Donald Trump, I don't think anyone would agree.
Mod
Reginald truly believes that the value of art is a 100% subjectiv..."
PS. Everything in this post is subjective opinion. Also, there is no such thing as objectivity - it's a phantom.
Whitney wrote: "You're argument hinges on believing that just because something can't be valued objectively, it doesn't have value. Outside of Donald Trump, I don't think anyone would agree."But "Something can't be valued objectively" absolutely does mean "it doesn't have value." It's a simple identity.
If it can't be valued objectively, then how can it be said to "have value." And if we talk of "value" as value assigned by some outside entity, then the object clearly does not "have" value. The outside entity has the quality of valuing it.
One of course would be right to question why that fool entity values something which has no value.
Zadignose wrote: "But "Something can't be valued objectively" absolutely does mean "it doesn't have value." It's a simple identity...."No, it absolutely doesn't. The definition of value absolutely isn't restricted to "how much something costs". Your thinking of the definition of 'intrinsic vale', a term needed to make that distinction. One can value a friendship, a sunset, etc. If I value it, it has value.
Bill wrote: "Mala - I think the notion of l'art pour l'art -- art for art's sake -- really just means that art is to concern it self with aesthetic values, not moral values. That's not the same thing as sayin..."Technically yes,but in terms of the writers I mentioned in my comment ,namely Vollmann & Theroux– In both their subjects & their treatment of them ie in both their aesthetics & moral choices,they haven't flinched from taking positions that have cost them readership. There are others too,Barth for example (whom I'm yet to read).
Jim wrote: "Z, you're never going to find a job in product marketing with this attitude, LOL!!!"Oh I thought he is a potential writer...How many pies has he got his fingers into?
PS. Everything in this post is subjective opinion. Also, there is no such thing as objectivity - it's a phantom.
Are you kidding! Of course there is objectivity & there is subjectivity too– why are we forced to take extreme position?
I'm objective enough to acknowledge that a book has value but subjective enough to know that it's not to my taste. Is there something wrong in that?
A book will exist even if there is no one to read it but what's the point of such existence? Writers are not bubbles that they can survive on air & water! If they have to live by their writing; they need readers otherwise why are we exhuming & consuming in the BBC?
Whitney wrote: "No, it absolutely doesn't. The definition of value absolutely isn't restricted to "how much something costs". Your thinking of the definition of 'intrinsic vale', a term needed to make that distinction. One can value a friendship, a sunset, etc. If I value it, it has value. "Some confusion has entered into the equation, as I did not refer to anything remotely related to cost, nor was I aware that you were referring to cost. That, plus "cost," in the marketplace, is extrinsic value. It's also variable.
another semantic hitch we've run into is behind this: "If I value it, it has value."
I would counter that "If I value it, I value it." We can go no further than that when regarding subjective value. "If it has value, it has value." That "has" implies that the value is intrinsic.
Mod
valoris ergo sum? (Latin for "I shop therefore I am")
@Mala - what is "objectivity"?
A HUGE thank you to Whitney, Bill, Jim, and the others in the group who encouraged me to start my "Borges-reading" with Pierre Menard. I missed the first two stories, and I have never read ANY Borges prior to this. I sort-of knew what to expect, just from reading various articles here and there about Borges, but I did not expect it to be so much fun, so outrageous, so funny. Just one read, yesterday, of this story, and now I'm hooked. A Borges junkie.If the next story is this good, I'll be able to quit my recreational drug habit because this "Borges stuff" is better than any "high" I've had in a long time. (Just kidding -- I don't use recreational drugs.... anymore. But I can see becoming addicted to Borges.)
I'm not ready to contribute anything significant to this discussion, due to the fact that this is my first of his works. I'm going to read all the stories with this group and I will eventually have a point-of-view which may help me to discuss future stories.
My favorite type of paintings are abstract expressionist. Over the years, in galleries or museums with various friends who prefer representative (or figurative) art, they've asked me: "What do you like about this? It's just a mix of paint thrown on a canvas! It doesn't look like anything! I want to see a horse or a house or people, etc. How can you like this so much??"
I can point at the painting and show the "feeling" in the brush strokes, the choice of colors, the expression and absolute feeling in the painting, and I can say "I am just so in love with it -- I could stand here for hours looking at it. It does something for me, but I really can't explain any more than what I've already said." In other words, after a certain point, all of the arts -- literature, painting, sculpture, music, theatre, etc., are individual and personal for each individual person.
Yes, perhaps I'm a bit early (since I've only read one story), but I think Borges definitely falls into this category. If someone else read Pierre Menard the same time I read it, and we both finished at the same time, while I absolutely loved it, he/she might have hated it. (Yes, "hated it" -- a strong word, but this type of literature and art tends to provoke people to feel strongly in a positive or negative way. I've heard people say "If I can't understand the story, or if it doesn't make sense, or if I have to work hard to "get it" then what's the point of reading it??) I'm not going to judge someone for their reading preferences -- it's like politics -- if we don't agree, let's discuss other things. (Or let's have a huge argumentative debate over it -- that's fun, as long as both parties are capable of allowing themselves to "hear" the other side.)
So that's what I can share right now about my first experience with Borges and I am REALLY looking forward to getting started on the next story.
There are so many quotes and phrases that were beyond hilarious, and I may come back after another read this weekend with more quotes, but this one was so brilliant:
"Cervantes' text and Menard's are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say, but ambiguity is richness.)"
Was Borges laughing while he wrote this as much as I laughed while reading it? The entire piece is hilarious from start to finish, IMHO, but some lines were just beyond brilliant.
Zadig,With regard to you friend Reginald, he strikes me as a peculiar case. We -- better -- I -- don't write because I expect to create something "objectively" good.
On the other hand, I hope some people will value, even those their value is entirely subjective.
You seem to be confusing subjective value with no value.
And worse you seem to be confusing physical properties with values.
Aesthetic value does not inhere in an act anymore than moral value. It's a judgment of others about the object to be considered.
"Greatness" can be measured if it's a physical property. "Greatness" cannot be measured if it's a value.
Brain Pain
Books mentioned in this topic
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values (other topics)Doctor Faustus (other topics)
Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (other topics)
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote is possibly the funniest and wittiest of his stories. Written in a deadpan critical voice, Borges fills each page with humor, poking fun at literature and criticism throughout. And as he perhaps rightly notes:
“There is no intellectual exercise that is not ultimately pointless.”