The Aleph And Other Stories (2004) - Plot & Excerpts
“Oh God, I could be bounded by a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space.”Hamlet II:2 (quoted by Borges, in epigraph The Aleph)Borges, my blind king of infinite space and limitless imagination, published these 17 stories in 1949. The anchor story, “The Aleph,” describes a point in space that contains all other spaces at once. Most of these stories are variations on “The Aleph” and its themes of infinity, time, identity, labyrinths, and darkness. Here is a brief description of most of the stories (I have placed an asterisk after my favorites), followed by a quotation from the story. The Immortal *A Roman legionnaire drinks from the river of immortality. Are you sure you want immortality? With endless time on your hands, what would happen to your instinct to create and excel? Once the legionnaire becomes an Immortal, he embarks on a new quest. Can you guess what he thirsts for now?“Death … makes men precious and pathetic; their ghostliness is touching; any act they perform may be their last; there is no face that is not on the verge of blurring and fading away like the faces in a dream. Everything in the world of mortals has the value of the irrecoverable and contingent. Among the Immortals, on the other hand, every act (every thought) is the echo of others that preceded it in the past, with no visible beginning, and the faithful presage of others that will repeat it in the future.”The Theologians *Give me that old time religion! Oh for the days when heresy hunters in the early church killed each other over abstract notions of God! John refutes the heresy of one sect which believes that history circles and repeats itself. Meanwhile, Aurelian fights another heretical group that claims that there are no repetitions at all of anything. Today’s orthodox are tomorrow’s heretics. “The end of the story can only be told in metaphors, since it takes place in the kingdom of heaven, where time does not exist. Aurelian spoke with God and found that God takes so little interest in religious difference that He took him for John… in the eyes of the unfathomable deity, he and John (the orthodox and the heretic, the abominator and the abominated, the accuser and the victim) were a single person.”Story of the Warrior and the Captive MaidenIs switching sides a sign of cowardly betrayal or personal growth? A barbarian warrior ends up switching sides to defend Ravenna, center of the Roman Empire. A woman captured by “Indians” elects to remain with the tribe rather than to return home. A barbarian chooses civilization; a gentlewoman chooses life in the wild. “The figure of the barbarian who embraced the cause of Ravenna, and the figure of the European woman who chose the wilderness—they might seem conflicting, contradictory. But both were transported by some secret impulse, and impulse deeper than reason, and both embraced that impulse that they would not have been able to explain. It may be that these stories I have told are one and the same story. The obverse and reverse of this coin are, in the eyes of God, identical.”A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz (1829-1874)This is another story of a sudden switching of sides in a conflict. A soldier surrounds the outlaw that his unit is hunting, but then, overwhelmed by the vision of a solitary man fighting, decides to the defend his prey. “He realized his deep-rooted destiny as a wolf, not a gregarious dog; he realized that the other man was he himself.”Emma ZunzEmma Zunz frames a man to avenge her father whose suicide she attributes to her victim. “The story was unbelievable, yes—this convinced everyone, because in substance it was true. Emma Zunz’s tone of voice was real, her shame was real, her hatred was real. The outrage had been done to her was real, as well; all that was false were the circumstances, the time, and one or two proper names.”The House of AsterionBorges retells the story of Theseus and the Minotaur from the first person point of view of the Minotaur. “I know that I am accused of arrogance and perhaps of misanthropy, and perhaps even of madness. These accusations (which I shall punish in due time) are ludicrous.”The Other Death *Pedro dies thirty years after a battle. One witness claims that Pedro was a coward who ran away and another witness claims that Pedro died bravely in battle. How can both claims be simultaneously true and false? “I told myself that a man pursued by an act of cowardice is more complex and more interesting than a man who is merely brave.”Deutsches Requiem *A Nazi war criminal about to be executed justifies his evil as necessary to change the labyrinth of history. “On this night that precedes my execution, I can speak without fear. I have no desire to be pardoned, for I feel no guilt, but I do wish to be understood. Those who heed my words shall understand the history of Germany and the future history of the world. I know that cases such as mine, exceptional and shocking now, will very soon be unremarkable. Tomorrow I shall die, but I am a symbol of the generation to come.” Averroes' SearchAverroes, the Islamic philosopher, cannot fathom the definition of "tragedy" and "comedy" in Aristotle’s “Poetics.”“I felt that Averroes, trying to imagine what a play is without ever having suspected what a theater is, was no more absurd than I, trying to imagine Averroes.”The ZahirThe narrator becomes obsessed with the coin, called “the Zahir.” “In order to lose themselves in God, the Sufis repeat their own name or the 99 names of God…. Perhaps by thinking about the Zahir unceasingly, I can manage to wear it away; perhaps the behind the coin is God.”The Writing of the God *An Aztec priest, imprisoned in a dark cell with a jaguar, finds God. (Remember, Borges himself was blind.)“At that my soul was filled with holiness. I imagined my god entrusting the message to the living flesh of the jaguars, who would love one another and engender one another endlessly…so that the last men may revive it. I imagined to myself that web of tigers, that hot labyrinths of tigers, bringing terror to the plains and pastures in order to preserve the design.”Ibn-Hakam-Al Bokhari, Murdered in his Labyrinth *A Moorish King flees to England and builds a labyrinth. “Please—let’s not multiply the mysteries. Mysteries ought to be simple….There is no need to build a labyrinth when the entire universe is one.”The Two Kings and the Two LabyrinthsThe King of Babylon puts the King of Arabia into a labyrinth. Paybacks are hell, and God has his own labyrinths that are more terrible than anything human’s can build.“Most unseemly was the edifice [the labyrinth], for it is the prerogative of God, not man to strike confusion and inspire wonder.”The WaitA man hides for years and calmly awaits his killers until they find him-- in his bed where he has expected them.“It’s easier to endure a terrifying event than imagine it and wait for it endlessly. His murderers would become a dream, as they had already been so many times, in that same place, in that same hour.”The Aleph *Borges, the narrator, discovers the Aleph, a mystical portal to visions of the whole world. The Aleph is a tiny sphere, two inches in diameter, "where all the places of the world, seen from every angle, coexist." Borges has an ineffable vision. Of whom? What does he tell a rival poet about his vision?“Aleph” is the name of the first letter of the alphabet of the sacred language. That letter signifies the pure and unlimited godhead; it has also been said that its shape is that of a man pointing to the sky and to the earth, to indicate that the lower world is a map of the higher.”My ConclusionI write this review, 3 ½ years after I discovered Borges and consumed all of his short stories in a burst of passion. Borges read everything and, after losing his sight, lived inside the illumination of his imagination. This king of infinite space shares that space with me through his fiction. This prophet is my Aleph—the portal through which I broaden my sluggish imagination. Though I still feel lost in a labyrinth of conflicting information, Borges teaches me to recognize the thread and to embrace its paradox. Here are links to my six Borges reviews.Ficcioneshttp://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...The Aleph:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...Dreamtigers:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...Universal History of Iniquity:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...Brodie’s Report:http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...The Book of Sand and Memoryhttp://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...November 13, 2012
When I read the work of Jorge Luis Borges I feel like my universe is expanding a thousand-fold. And for good reason - my universe is, in fact, expanding a thousand-fold! This is especially true as I read The Aleph and Other Stories. Such sheer imaginative power. Fantastic! There are nearly fifty stories and brief tales collected here from three Borges books: The Aleph, the Maker and Museum -- and every tale worth reading multiple times.For the purposes of this review, I will focus on 4 stories, the first 3 being no longer than 2 pages. (4,3,2 . . . moving down to the infinity of the Borges 0, which happens to be the shape of the Aleph). Sorry, I am getting too carried away.The Two Kings and the Two LabyrinthsThe king of Babylonia builds a labyrinth ". . . so confused and so subtle that the most prudent men would not venture to enter it, and those who did would lose their way." Although the king of Babylonia tricked the king of the Arabs into entering his diabolical labyrinth, the king, with the help of God, manages to find the secret exit. After claiming victory in a bloody war, the king of the Arabs leads the king of Babylonia, in turn, into a different kind of labyrinth, and says, " . . . the Powerful One has seen fit to allow me to show thee mine, which has no stairways to climb, nor doors to force, not wearying galleries to wander through, nor walls to impede thy passage." Then, the king of the Arabs abandoned the king of Babylonia in the middle of the desert. These two images of a labyrinth, one intricate, convoluted, infinitely confusing and the other an endless desert, have remained with me since I first read this tale some thirty years ago and will remain with me as long as there is a `me' with a memory.The CaptiveA tale of identity where a young boy with sky-blue eyes is kidnapped in an Indian raid. The parents recover their son who is now a man and bring him back to their home. The man remembers exactly where he hid a knife. Not long thereafter, the man, now an Indian in spirit, returns to the wilderness. The story ends with a question, "I would like to know what he felt in that moment of vertigo when past and present intermingled; I would like to know whether the lost son was reborn and died in that ecstatic moment, and he ever managed to recognize, even as a baby or a dog might, his parents and the house." For Borges, memory and identity are ongoing themes. After reading Borges, I can assure you, memory and identity have become ongoing themes for me also.The PlotHow many volumes have been written pondering and philosophizing over fate and free will? In two short paragraphs Borges gives us a tale where we are told, "Fate is partial to repetitions, variations, symmetries." How exactly? Let's just say life is always bigger than human-made notions of life.The AlephAround the universe in fifteen pages. There is a little something here for anybody who cherishes literature - a dearly departed lover named Beatriz, a madman and poet named Carlos Argentino Daneri, who tells the first person narrator, a man by the name of Borges, about seeing the Aleph, and, of course, the Aleph. What will this Borges undergo to see the Aleph himself? We read, "I followed his ridiculous instructions; he finally left. He carefully let down the trap door; in spite of a chink of light that I began to make out later, the darkness seemed total. Suddenly I realized the danger I was in; I had allowed myself to be locked underground by a madman, after first drinking down a snifter of poison." Rather than saying anything further about the Aleph, let me simply note that through the magic of literature we as readers are also given a chance to see what Borges sees. I dare anybody who has an aesthetic or metaphysical bone in their body to read this story and not make the Aleph a permanent part of their imagination.Go ahead. Take the risk. Be fascinated and enlarged. Have the universe and all its details spinning in your head. Read this book.
What do You think about The Aleph And Other Stories (2004)?
To like borges, is to like books, labyrinths and the enigmas. There is this elegant erudition which brings back us to essential. The world is a library, that of Buenos Aires. My preferred short novel is the immortality. A conqueror like Alexandre intended to speak of people which draw his immortality from the river which crosses their city. He spend a long time to find them. This is a big deception. These people live as animals the river is a dirty brook.The conqueror drinks water of the brook. He begins immortal. But trouble gains it. Its state is unbearable. He flees possible further. He watches for the signs of ageing. He accommodates them with joy.Which more beautiful metaphore of the human condition.
—Philippe Malzieu
Borges'in fantastik öyküler kitabı. Ölümsüzlük, büyülü paralar, zamansızlık. Latince kısımların çevrilmemesinin mantığını anlayamadım, ama Twitter'dan ettiğim sitem sonrası yeni baskısında bu hatanın giderileceği cevabını aldım. Ve incelik olarak da basıldığında göndereceklerini ilettiler. Bir gün ya da bir gece -benim günlerimle gecelerim arasında ne ayrım olabilir ki?- zindanın zemininde bir kum tanesi gördüm düşümde. Önemsemedim, yine uyudum, düşümde uyandığımda, zeminde iki kum tanesi vardı. Yine uyudum, kum tanelerinin sayısının üçe yükseldiğini gördüm. Böyle çoğalıyor, sonunda zindanı dolduruyorlardı, ben de o kum yarıküresinin altında ölü yatıyordum. Düş gördüğümü kavradım; büyük bir çabayla silkindim ve uyandım. Uyanmanın yararı yoktu; sayısız kum taneleri boğuyordu beni. Biri dedi ki: Sen uyanıklığa değil, önceki bir düşe uyanmışsın. O düş, bir başka düşle sarmallıdır, o da bir başkasıyla ve bu böyle sonsuza kadar gider, sonsuz da kum tanelerinin sayısıır. Geriye dönerken izlemen gereken yolun sonu yoktur ve sen bir daha gerçekten uyanmadan öleceksin.Zâhir, Buenos Aires’te yirmi centavo değerinde çok rastlanan bir paradır. Bir yüzünde N T harfleri ve 2 sayısı jiletle ya da çakıyla kazınmış gibidir; öbür yüzündeki tarihse 1929’dur. (Güzerat’ta, 18. yüzyılın sonuna doğru, Zâhir bir kaplandı; Cava’da, İnananların taşladığı, Sukarta Camii’nden gelme kör bir adamdı; İran’da, Nadir Şah’ın denizin dibine attırdığı, yıldızların yüksekliğini saptamaya yarayan bir gökbilim âleti, bir “usturlap”tı; 1892 sıralarında Mehdi’nin zindanlarında, Rudolf Karl von Slatin’in eliyle dokunduğu, bir sarığın katları arasına gizlenmiş küçük bir pusulaydı; Zotenberg’e göre Kurtuba Camii’nde on iki bin sütundan birinin mermerindeki bir damardı; Tetuan gettosunda bir kuyunun dibiydi.)Yeryüzü, baştan başa epeski biçimlerle kaplıdır, bozulmayan, sonsuz biçimlerle; aradığım simge onlardan herhangi biri olabilirdi. Bir dağ olabilirdi tanrının söylemi, bir ırmak, ya da imparatorluk ya da yıldız kümeleri. Ne var ki yüzyılların sürecinde dağ yassılır, ırmak yatağını değiştirir, imparatorluklar başkalaşmalara uğrayarak alaşağı edilir ve yıldız kümelenişleri değişir. Gökkubbede değişme vardır. Dağ ve yıldız bireydirler ve bireyler yok olur.
—Jale
Trippy in the best, Borgesian sense. One of my favorites is "The Zahir," about a coin the narrator can't stop thinking about (this happenned to me once with the Redwall books when I was much younger: I found myself unable to stop thinking about the picture of Cluny the Scourge on the Redwall paperback cover, and I FREAKED out thinking that it would be the only thing I would think about for the rest of my life!! Thankfully, that didn't happen... until now...*ominous music*). "The Immortals" is about immortality and one of the most well-written stories in the bunch; it encapsulates most of the themes present in the other stories: time, death, doubles, infinity, and so on (summarizing Borges' favorite themes is so fun!). "The Theologians" deals with doubles and mirror-images, a theme I always enjoyed since I'm a twin. "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden" is brief but powerful and thought-provoking. I liked "Emma Zunz" quite a bit, despite Borges criticizing its "timid execution" in the afterword. It's one of those rare Borges stories with a female protagonist. "The House of Asterion" is very creepy and probably inspired "House of Leaves." "A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz" and "The Dead Man" are examples of Borges' ongoing interest in gauchos. "The Other Death" is a trippy time traveling story and expounds on Borges' interest in military failures and cowardice rather than bravery and success. "Deutsches Requiem" reminds me a lot of "By Night in Chile;" you can really understand Borges' influence on Bolano through this story. My least favorite stories are "The Wait" and "The Man on the Threshold," neither of which I really understood (maybe I just read them too quickly. I didn't really get "Averroes' Search" either, though the last paragraph certainly packs an oomph (think of it as a "Sixth Sense" moment, Borges-style). "Ibh-Hakam al Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth" is a detective story. "The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths" is a cautionary tale read by a priest in the former story. "The Writing of the God" is... I don't really know what to say about it. It has a jaguar in it. And "The Aleph," of course, is vintage Borges, all the more so because he manages to link the personal with the epic."Words, words, words taken out of place and mutilated, words from other men--those were the alms left him by the hours and the centuries."
—Julie
