Barth
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Barth

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On this page:  {Quotes}
               {A Writer is...}
               {Abrevs for Borges' works}
See also:      [Ultraism]

Quotes

  
Stuff



 
A Writer is...
A writer is a user of symbols. This 

By a quite strange irony (or by the usual sort of irony that
goes around, pretending to be silvery or goldery -- but in 
point of ac tual fact, is simply the same old Irony (that
we know and love), but simply wearing a DIFFERENT HAT -- (see map))
THIS was listed as "Preface by Jorge Luis Borges" on the cover,
but inside, it is listed as the FORWARD, but in fact this
forward-preface preceeds the preface by Ronald Christ.

START AGAIN.
TAKE TWO...

   "A writer is a user of symbols. This word, in the broadest sense,
may stand for a range of things: tales, metaphors, plots, word
music, the dramatic moment. Bernard Shaw once said that the writer
does not work from an idea but toward an idea; similarly, Kipling
wrote that it is given a writer to invent a fable, but that its
morality must be found by the reader. So, in Kim [Kipling],
the native characters are move likable than the British 
officialdom [that] Kipling wanted to extol. All these, of 
course, are but variations on the old concept of the Holy
Ghost or the Muse. Modern mythology prefers the Subliminal
Self.
   "Some un-suspected things, many secret links and affinities,
have been revealed to me by this book of Ronald Christ's. I am
often asked what my message is; the obvious answer is that I 
have no message. [No, really???? ;)] I am neither a thinker
nor a moralist, but simply a man of letters who turns his
own perplexities and that respected system of perplexities
[which] we call philoophy into the forms of literature. The
fact that in one of my stories the man is both the dreamer and
the dream does not necessarily mean that I am a follower of 
Berkley and of the Buddah.
However, the writer must be thankful for being shown that he 
has gone beyond what he attempted, beyond his intentions.
   "The fact that I am dictating these lines in the very 
same room of the Biblioteca Nacional where I first had the 
pleasure of meeting Ronald Christ[, ] makes me feel the 
reality -- or un-reality -- of that un-graspable substance,
Time.
    "My gratitude to Ronald Christ."

-- Jorge Luis Borges
   December 17, 1968
   Buenos Aires, Terra

AS QUOTED IN: "The Narrow Act:  Borges' art of allusion",
Ronald Christ, (New York/London, 1969) -- New York University
Press, Terra.

NOTE: I have taken certain editorial liberties with the next
(as noted by the [] thingies).  wibble.  (oh, yes, and natch
*i* added the bit about Terra.  May our world find its way
in these absurd times. Peace to all, later.  Pizo)


 
Borges' Works
(abreviations)

NOTE: I am indebted (as all we are is) to Ronald Christ for
the following list (to which i have freely added to the end of)

P. xvii, Loc. Cit.

"Finally a word about references. All of Borges' works which
have been collected in book form will generally be abbreviated
in the text and indicated by the following signs:"

  A  El AlephEvairsto Carrigeo
  D  Discusión
  HE Historia de la eternidad 
  F  Ficciones 
  H  El hacedor
  HI Historia de la infamia
  IA Idioma de los argentinos
  OP Obra poetica 
  OI Otras inquisiciones
  P  Poemas
  TE El tamaño de mi espersanza

(and the rest)

  BB Biblioteca Babelia (not to be confused with Zaphod Beeblebrox) [42]
  NF Non Fictions 
(that nice Jewish chap)








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