The Mountaineer Reading Room

At last, the recognition he really deserves.

Jorge Luis Borges is a difficult writer to classify, which, of course, makes him all the more interesting. How best to describe him? Perhaps as an “Anglo-Argentine classicist-inspired fantasy writer with magical realist and science fiction tendencies.” Now Noam Cohen adds cyberpunk and Web 2.0 visionary to the list in this article in the New York Times. You’ll find the collection of short stories mentioned in the article, Labyrinths, in the RHS collection.

Additionally, Borges is the author of my favorite poem, Juan Lopez y John Ward. Here’s my English translation:

Luckily, it was a strange time.

The planet had been divided into different countries,
Each one with its loyalties, dear memories,
An undoubtedly heroic past,
Ancient or recent traditions, rights,
Serious offenses, a peculiar mythology, heroes of bronze,
Anniversaries, demagogues and symbols.

This arbitrary division was favorable to wars.

Lopez was born in the city beside the immobile river;
Ward, in the outskirts of the city through which walked Father Brown.
He had studied Spanish in order to read Quixote.

The other professed a love for Conrad, which had been discovered
In a classroom on Viamonte Street.

They should have been friends, but they saw each other only once face to face,
On some unnecessarily famous islands, and each one of the two
Was Cain, and each one, Abel.

They were buried together. The snow and corruption know them.
The event I refer to happened in a time that we can’t understand.

For some background, read about the Falklands War of 1982, a conflict which Borges famously compared to “two bald men fighting over a comb.”