Discussion - Week Thirteen - Borges - The Secret Miracle

[Jim]

This discussion covers the story, The Secret Miracle


A case of be careful what you ask for? A reminder to be very specific when asking god for favors? Or possibly a way to overcome writer’s block – but not, for everyone… for those who love action maybe…

[Whitney]

I missed the start of the discussion on this one. Apparently I'm not the only one.

I loved the idea of Hladik trying to imagine all the possible executions because reality never corresponds to how you picture it will happen.

This story was obviously influenced by 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'. Unlike Bierce, though, Borges (typically) left it more ambiguous as to what really happened.

[Zadignose]

I thought this was remarkably well executed (really not punning, but it's the best way I can express it). I kept fearing Borges would blunder, but he pulled it off perfectly, in my opinion. Of course it touches on a topic that keeps arising for me, which is the inherrent value of a work regardless of audience. Here a perfect work is created without being written or even uttered.

On the other hand, it's fundamentally a two note piece (I don't want to sell it short as "one note") and they're familiar notes.

Regarding the idea that he can prevent his execution by imagining all the possibilities, that scared me (in a literary sense). If he'd followed through on that idea any further or developed it into a central idea, it would have metamorphosed into a bad idea. But he did the right thing, he threw the idea out there as something to ponder and relate to, then dismissed it as the magical thinking of a desperate man facing execution, and countered it with the equally absurd superstitious notion thatby i agining a terrible death he could cause it to be carried out.

Meanwhile, regarding being careful what you ask for, I'm going to ask for the very same thing when I'm facing death... except I think I'll make it a century.

[Mala]

"To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour."
I remembered these memorable lines by Blake while reading The Secret Miracle– a beautiful,moving tale,& yet again a favourite!
There is so much going on here- real world politics,anti-semitism,Jewish mysticism, labyrinth, blind librarian, the book of God & not to forget,magical realism,the dual nature of time,memory,and the act of creation.
Strangely enough,most of my readings lately deal with the nature of Time & Memory–Mann's Magic Mountain explores it at length,chapter after chapter,through philosophy,through music,through relationships & so on. Proust,perhaps our literary authority on memory,shows in volume after volume,how a whole lost time can be recaptured through memory & Perec's Life A User's Manual becomes a repository of the collective memory of its building's residents.
What I'm trying to say is that human mind is capable of rising above limiting circumstances– in his act of creation,a writer is God-like. His creation is an act of miracle. The fact that it happens secretly,that nobody will ever get to read it,doesn't take away its intrinsic value,as Zadignose correctly pointed out.
As the aesthete would say- the art that is self-pleasing,is the best cause it doesn't involve compromises.
P.S.
I didn't know the map of my country carries such magical properties! I need to keep it close to me,one never knows...