pynchon/borges

[jbor at bigpond.com]

Before this gets any muddier, can we just clarify what is and isn't 
correct in the article originally posted.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/14895289.htm

"When on page 263 of his now classic 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow 
Thomas Pynchon tells us that Rivadavia Street is ''where the true South 
begins,'' the sly American is sampling Jorge Luis Borges' 
personal-favorite story, El Sur. He continues for a few paragraphs, 
word for word, before returning to his own text. [...]"

Correct?

"At one point in Gravity's Rainbow, Pynchon moves the action to Buenos 
Aires and makes Borges a minor character in his novel -- a nod that his 
sampling El Sur is there for some reason the reader should ponder. 
Pynchon quotes a Borges sonnet, this time with full attribution. It is 
quite beautiful in English, the gift of this bilingual master who 
echoes in many languages and many minds as a reminder that literature 
itself can be greater than most of the small stuff we call life."

Incorrect? The two lines attributed to Borges on p. 383 aren't actually 
written by Borges? And they're obviously in Spanish, not English.

But what about von Göll's "I can take down your fences and your 
labyrinth walls, I can lead you back to the Garden you hardly remember" 
(388)? Is there a Borges sampling or allusion in that couplet?

best

On 28/06/2006
 
>> >always thought that the "El laberinto de tu incertidumbre/Me
>> >trama con la disquietante luna..." bit was a hoax.

> well blow me down, so it does appear.
>  
> how deliciously funny: newspaper hack and obvious fan of Borges (if 
> not Pynchon) follows a false lead and ends up in what sounds awfully 
> like a pynchonesque or borges-inspired sitcom: quoting a quote as if 
> it were real, and as if it meant some kind of literary affinity, when 
> it isn't, though it does.