pynchon/borges

[Michael J. Hußmann]

jbor at bigpond.com (jbor at bigpond.com) wrote:

> No, there's no quote, but you can sort of map Slothrop onto Dahlmann in 
> a couple of ways (particularly the description of Dahlmann's treatment 
> at the sanitarium on the Calle Ecuador.) But I think that if there is 
> an intentional allusion in that episode (263-4), it's in a similar 
> ironic vein to the comparison between Tyrone and "Tannhauser, the 
> Singing Nincompoop" later (364). Slothrop, costumes and disguises 
> notwithstanding, is nearly as much an anti-hero as Benny Profane.

Pynchon is drawing from Borges' works here, no doubt about that. Surely
there are allusions to "El Sur", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and
other short stories. Just as in Eco's "The Name of the Rose", where the
arch villain, a blind old librarian hiding in a labyrinthine library,
bears the name of Jorge of Burgos (readers were asking Eco what grudge
he held against Borges, to which he replied that a blind old man in a
labyrinthine library spelt Borges, and that he couldn't have done
anything about that). 

But for Fernandez' line of argument, it is crucial that there isn't just
an allusion, but a verbatim quote, and more than just a few words at
that. Because he goes on to argue that: "Pynchon's trick is precisely in
the spirit of Borges' short story, Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote,
written as an academic monograph, about a 20th century Frenchman who
publishes Don Quixote verbatim and which the narrator of the mock
monograph finds a totally original work by virtue of being attributed to
an author other than Cervantes." If there is no verbatim quote in GR,
the link to "Pierre Menard" breaks down, and so does the introduction to
an article which is about Borges, after all, not Pynchon. Overall, I get
the impression that Fernandez just makes up facts as he goes along. He
erroneously states that Lem -- Borges' "child", in Fernandez' view --
was awarded the Nobel Price, just so he can point out that Borges was
not: "... Stanislaw Lem. The latter won a Nobel Prize, something that
Borges never did to the eternal shame of the Swedish Academy." As long
as it suits his praise of Borges, Fernandez isn't overly concerned about
the validity of his claims.

- Michael


Michael J. Hußmann

E-mail: michael at michael-hussmann.de
WWW (personal): http://michael-hussmann.de
WWW (professional): http://digicam-experts.de