Borges

I was just reading through my class notes to help me form a couple of quiz questions for tomorrow, when I stumbled across the name ‘Borges’. I had written under it something along the lines of “that we are all variations of each other, or of ourselves” or something like that, it was fairly illegible, so I looked him up. And wow what did I find?! Only a well full of relevant information (which is obviously why he appeared in my notes in the first place).

I found an article that basically explains Borges argument regarding fact and fiction. In an attempt to sum it up, the thought is that we need to reexamine the way we “collectively relate to the world”, by reexamining our concept of “truth”. The following paragraph explains it best:

“This intentional undermining of conventional “truth” emphasizes the value found in the story, rather than the story’s basis in fact. Borges seems to find merit in the notion that a single event in history, much like both of these stories, can be manipulated and contorted to fit a dozen interpretations. The craft of writing, historical or literary, carries with it the intimate relationship between writer and reader, which facilitates the cyclic morphing of reader into narrator. As Pierre Menard teaches us, history serves better as the mother of truth, rather than a truth unto itself. Through the progression of history, the readings, interpretations and rewritings of narratives create a thousand different meanings – where history, religion and literature twist and turn in Borges’ labyrinth and everything becomes just another story.”

What we have been grappling with in Beckett and the story that Professor Sexson recited to us, are the conventions of storytelling and the revelation of the mechanism. To what extent is that which we are hearing/reading real or factual? Borges dismisses this question on the premise that fact and history are continually rewritten, that the reader evolves to become the narrator. By engaging in writing or storytelling, we can’t help but abstract what is supposedly “truth” in a tale or an account, simply because interpretation and relation, by nature, are altering forces.

What we then must foster, is indifference to whether or not a story is “true”. We shouldn’t care if the woman on Michael’s plane was Jewish, was lying about the concentration camp, or if she really did present him with a gift that has yet to be opened. We needn’t even be concerned with the abusive, berating, and neurotic tendencies Moran harbors towards his son. The importance lies not in the elements surrounding the story, but within the story itself.