Mario Milosevic » borges

Strange Paths

mm — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Regular readers of my various blogs will know of my high regard for the works of Jorge Luis Borges. Here are some random bits of trivia about this singular writer:

1. In later life he tried to buy up all the copies of his earliest works because he believed them to be inferior and embarrassing to his reputation.

2. He loved westerns.

3. He bumped his head quite severely in 1938. It was only after this injury that he began writing the surreal works for which he became famous.

4. His first introduction to the English speaking literary world was with a story translated by Anthony Boucher and published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Yup, a pulp magazine. I love that.

Borges Was Right

mm — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 15:53:00 +0000

I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.

—Jorge Luis Borges

I work at a small town library in the Pacific Northwest. It’s a good job. I get to be around books, which I love, and I feel like I’m helping people everyday. Patrons come in looking for automotive manuals to help them fix their cars, or they need information on an illness they have just been diagnosed with, or they want a good mystery and figure since I’ve read all the books in the library I can find one for them, or they want to know the origin of the name of Beacon Rock, a volcanic structure near here. (It was named by Lewis and Clark on their expedition.) We do our best to get them what they want and most people are very appreciative of our efforts.

The point is that such places as the library are like bits of paradise in this world. Libraries are one of the best things that civilization has given us and I would not want to live in a world without them.

Michael Swanwick's Bottled Stories

mm — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 17:14:00 +0000

When he was a teenager Borges used to write stories and poems, print them up as chapbooks, then take them around his town and slip them into the pockets of coats he found hanging on coat racks at restaurants, barber shops, stores, and other establishments. I have always found this image of the young Borges as literary Johnny Appleseed to be disarmingly charming. I might well have invented a character for one of my CR posts who writes stories and surreptitiously slips them into coat pockets. Or how about this: write stories and put them into bottles, then send the bottles into the world. So Borgesian. Now I learn that the inestimable Michael Swanwick does exactly that with his Bottled Stories. Such projects fill me with unexplainable joy. Sure, we can write for a wide audience, but to write for an audience of one, or even none, has its own kind of poetry.