A student writes, “The entire first page of Borges’s short story “The South” is completely irrelevant to everything that happens after.”
And later, “Borges obviously didn’t know hot to explain this legitimately, so he just came out with something completely improbable.”
And then some more, “Obviously, not enough planning on the writer’s part went into the creation of this short story.”
I wrote “let’s not condescend to Borges” in the comments. Is there anything else I can add?
A healthy self-esteem is great but I’m not sure how healthy it is to consider oneself so much smarter than Borges.
Clarissa's Blog 
Er maybe that the student ought to bone up on Romanticism and Borges’s conceptions of Argentina’s southern districts a little bit?
P.S. I ❤ Borges.
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You know how much time we spent (or should I say wasted) talking about the Argentinean national identity, the immigrants, the gauchos, etc.?
But who cares when you can condescend to Borges?
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I could never condescend to a guy who basically out-Poe’d Poe.
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Complexity is a bastard.
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“Complexity is a bastard.”
You should try thinking within the ultra-Berkeleian epistemology of the world of Tlön.
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I wonder what the students would write on my evaluations if I said something like this. 🙂
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Do it.
Tell them you wish they had half of Lonnröt’s perspicacity.
Tell them that you don’t expect them to have Funes’s memory but they could have kept your lectures in mind.
Tell them that you didn’t ask them to write Menard’s Quixote, but a little original thinking never did anyone any harm.
Did I mention I ❤ Borges? I ❤ Borges.
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No, I’m okay, thanks.
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Yeah but “The Library of Babel” is probably the tightest and best example there is of the postmodern literary sublime and a damn good story IMHO. It’s freeeeaky. Everybody drop what you’re doing and go read it right now.
While you’re at it go for “The Garden of Forking Paths” and “Death and the Compass.” Hell, just read all of Borges there is. Guy was crazy smart weird fucker. Apparently also a sweetheart (as long as no one mentioned Perón) and good at chess.
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I happen to dislike Borges passionately. 🙂 It was so fashionable to like him when I was a student that I felt I could only preserve my sense of self by disagreeing.
He is brilliant, though.
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I spent a lot of my awkward bookish teen years in love with Stephen King and H. P. Lovecraft and so when I discovered Borges in my awkward bookish early twenties it was like those guys with all the goofiness and obscenity boiled away to reveal a pristine core of mind-boggling wackitude.
I’m done creeping everyone with my Borgasm for now. 🙂
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God, I love this comment!
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I read him as a child…I mean as an undergraduate.
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He is sort of my nostalgic, comfy, snacky read, for all his erudition. He makes me think of a big stuffed teddy bear (with the ten heads of the beast of revelation). 🙂
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I like him more now than I did. Everyone used to be *so* excited about him; when I first read him I thought he seemed formulaic! Oh, yeah, I said – he’s playing a certain kind of
game, yawn-.
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He hated women, too. Well, he’s Argentinean, what can you expect?
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“Emma Zunz.” Perhaps “El sur.”
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“Emma Zunz” really rocks as a reading assignment for Intermediate language courses. My female students (which are always the majority) totally dig it.
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This is weird. I just quoted J L Borges on a post yesterday. Small world.
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Wow… I am hoping there is no Tolstoy in the syllabus 🙂
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I hope there is no Tolstoy on the syllabus 🙂
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