The essence of Jorge Luis Borges’ literature involves a criticism of modern language, leaving the reader to decide whether humans can ever truly share experiences. In two famous short stories by Borges, he explores the limitations of modern literature, and these are compared and contrasted below. Through the lens of Gilles Deleuze’s views on repetition, further insight is analyzed. If accurate, such analysis reveals that language is no mere tool, or artifact separate from those making and using it, but is a living process of enframing to reveal, and of becoming.
In the short story Aleph by Borges, he explores the character of a writer who works at an obscure library. The character, Denari, has a literary style that is“extravagant,” but with “metric regularity tended to tone down and to dull that extravagance.” Denari is described as having a “mind to set to verse the entire face of the planet,” which appears to confirm he writes to encode knowledge and pass on its most perfect and beautiful forms. Daneri laments that bad poets forget “BEAUTY.” In spite of his best efforts, Borges criticizes Denari’s prose as “sprawling, lifeless hexameters,” and a “pedantic hodgepodge.” Borges’ aleph becomes defined, as “a point in space that contains all other points.” He reveals the word aleph is known by some as a multum in parvo, which means a great deal in a small space. He posits that “all language is a set of symbols whose use among speakers assumes a shared past.” Through his experience with observing the aleph in Denari’s home, Borges is changed and has a hard time expressing what he has seen. He remarks that “experience is instantaneous and language is successive.” In knowing everything from every angle, Borges resigns that he is afraid he may “never again be surprised, or be free of all [he’d] seen.” To describe full knowledge as such a burden, is a mystery Borges leaves his reader to ponder. [1]
In the short story, Funes, The Memorious, Borges describes a boy whose tragic fall left him crippled and without a working memory, or any thoughts. Funes, the boy, was described as always knowing the time of day. In one example of the boy’s way of thinking, the dog he sees at one time is different to him than the same dog seen at a different time, and he gives each their own unique name. He goes so far as to give every ordinal number its own random, nominal value. Borges hints his story is playing off of Locke’s “idiom of giving each thing its own name.” Borges then elucidates his own beliefs about living. He conjects that “to think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract.” He uses a Latin phrase, ut nihil non iisdem verbis redderetur auditum, which means nothing that has been heard can be repeated with the same words. He claims, “that we all live by leaving behind.” He posits humans are collectively “immortal” and sooner or later every man will “do all things and know everything.” [1]
These short stories of Borges contain parallels yet appear to make different arguments about different facets of human consciousness. In Aleph, Borges remarks on the relativity of human perception while in Funes, The Memorious, he uses the device of allegory to demonstrate the absurdity of letting no detail go unnoticed. In both stories, however, are themes of the power of experience, the limitations of language, and the plurality of truth. Both stories appear to conclude similarly, that to deconstruct the process of recognition is to be freed of the folly of ignorance, for whatever that may be worth.
Deleuze, in Difference & Repetition, provides a description of repetition that gifts others a lens with which to view Borges’ criticism of generalizations. He writes the “power of language in speech and writing is to pass a genus (words) into existence, and to disperse it, in discreteness, under the sign of a repetition.” He appears to be defining an echo chamber where he writes “concepts with indefinite comprehension are concepts of Nature…not in Nature, but in the mind which contemplates it or observes it, and represents it to itself.” He posits “a dynamic space must be defined from the point of view of an observer tied to that space.” If Deleuze is correct, that no representation is a true representation, then he confirms Borges’ view of the limitations of language. Deleuze concludes that repetition is a sort of a miracle, because of its resulting, multiplicitous diversity and so presents it as less of a burden than as a wonder to behold. [2]
Is truth, like beauty, in the eye of the beholder, or is it a matter of fact and plain to see for all? For Deleuze and Borges, the former is most accurate it seems. A rehashed remix of the past may be all that humans are capable of recognizing. Then to represent such truth to oneself, presents another challenge. Yet another altogether, is to represent it to another person. So, in experiencing the language of these authors one is left with more questions than answers as to the nature of our shared reality itself. Ultimately, their views at least bring to light the truth within the beauty of the chance to more-fully participate in this shared adventure called living.
Resources
[1] Borges, Jorge Luis, and Andrew Hurley. Fictions. Penguin, 2000.
[2] Deleuze, Gilles, and Paul Patton. Difference and Repetition. Continuum, 2004.
Joshua Ray Jongema 