Nataly Tcherepashenets, Place and displace in the narrative world of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar

Place and Displacement in the Narrative Worlds of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar

Tamara Alvarez-Detrell and Michael G. Paulson General Editors

Vol. 151

PETER LANG New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern Frankfurt am Main Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford 

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Nataly Tcherepashenets

Place and Displacement in the Narrative Worlds of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar

PETER LANG New York Washington, D.C./Baltimore Bern Frankfurt am Main Berlin Brussels Vienna Oxford 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tcherepashenets, Nataly. Place and displacement in the narrative worlds of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar / Nataly Tcherepashenets. p. cm. — (Currents in comparative Romance languages and literatures; v. 151) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Borges, Jorge Luis, 1899– —Criticism and interpretation.2. Cortázar, Julio—Criticism and interpretation. 3. Borges, Jorge Luis, 1899– —Settings. 4. Cortázar, Julio—Settings. 5. PQ7797.B635Z933 Displacement (Psychology) in literature. I. 2005024268 Title. II. Series. 868’.6209—dc22 ISBN 978-0-8204-6395-7 ISSN 0893-5963 Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek. Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de/. Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reproduce the following: “Coleridge’s Dream” fromCollected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley (Penguin, 1998) Copyright © Maria Kodama, 1998. Translation and notes © Penguin Putnam Inc. 1998. “Coleridge’s Dream,” translated by Eliot Weinberger, from SELECTED NON-FICTIONS by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Eliot Weinberger, copyright © 1999 by Maria Kodama; translation copyright © 1999 by Penguin Putnam Inc. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. “The Aleph,” “The Disk,” “The Book of Sand,” “A Weary Man’s Utopia,” from COLLECTED FICTIONS by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, copyright © 1998 by Maria Kodama; translation copyright © 1998 by Penguin Putnam Inc. Used by permission of Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. From The Great Wall of China inMetamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka, published by Vintage. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. From THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA by Franz Kafka, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir, copyright 1936, 1937 by Heinr, Mercy Sohn, Prague. Copyright © 1946 and renewed 1974 by Schocken Books. Used by permission of Schocken Books, a division of Random House, Inc. From “Distances,” fromEnd of the Game and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar, translated by Paul Blackburn. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. From END OF THE GAME AND OTHER STORIES by Julio Cortázar, translated by Paul Blackburn, copyright © 1963, 1967 by Random House, Inc. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. From Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar, translated by Gregory Rabassa, published by Harvill. Reprinted by permission of The Random House Group Ltd. From HOPSCOTCH by Julio Cortázar, translated by Gregory Rabassa, copyright © 1966 by Randhom House, Inc. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.

The paper this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of theinCommittee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council of Library Resources.

© 2008 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York 29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006 www.peterlang.com All rights reserved. Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm, xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited. Printed in Germany

In memory of my grandparents my grandaunt Eva Ziselson and

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. Place in Borges’s Stories and the Irony of Revelation

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Familiar Places, Hidden Challenges: Revelation Present andDissipatedin“ElAleph” 2 Dreaming in Circles, Facing the Ruins: the Mystery and Limitations of the Human Self in “Lasruinascirculares” 11 The Illusion of Power: the Magic Disc, Human Vulnerability, and the Divine Presence in “El disco” 20 TheInfiniteBook:FearandLonging 24 Chapter 2. Place as Displacement in Cortázar’s Hopscotch

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Towards the Challenge and the Refuge: Oliveira’s Paris and the Capital Cities in Nineteenth Century Novels 34 Borges’s Voice in Cortázar’sBuenos Aires 42 Talita’s Dream: Between Borgesean and CarnivalesqueWorlds 47 The Carnivalesque City and the Anxiety of Alienation 49 Oliveira’s Homelessness: Displacement as “No Placement” 56

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Chapter 3. Fictional and ‘Real’ Places: Convergences and Divergences

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The ‘Exotic’ or/and ‘the Familiar’: “Someone’s Land” andtheTraditionsofLiteraryUtopia 64 Challenging Conventions and Breaking Illusions: the City and the Language in 62: Modelo para armar 73 Revisiting the Minotaur: Heterotopia as Place and Mode of Representation in Borges’s “LacasadeAsterion” 80 Boarding the Ship: the Unresolved Mystery of Cortázar’s“Malcolm” 83 Chapter 4. Displacement, Dreams and Archive in Borges’s Essays

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Dreaming with Freud: Displacement, Art and Magic in“ElsueñodeColeridge” 91 The Repression of Archive and the Archivization of Repression in “La muralla y los libros” 95 Shaping the Word: Displacement and Dialogical Discourse in Borges’s “La muralla y los libros” and Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China”

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Chapter 5. Displacement and the Divided Self in Cortázar’s Stories 107

Crossing the Bridge: Psychological Division and the Writing of Discontent Beyond the Door: Rediscovering the Multiple Self Divided Lives, Overlapping Spaces, and the Impossibility of Self-Deception

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Conclusion 129 Translations 135 “The Sealed Door” 135 “LettersfromMother” 141 Prologue to “Letters from Mother” by Jorge Luis Borges 156 Notes 159 Bibliography 183 Index 199

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to give special thanks to Efraín Kristal for a constructive and inspiring dialogue at all stages of my work on this manuscript. I would also like to express my gratitude to several individuals for their support during this project and for their valuable advice: Suzanne Jill Levine, Donald Yates, Michelle MsKay Aynesworth, Brian Morris, late John Kronik, Malva Filler, Ivan Almeida, Cristina Parodi, Kim Hewitt, Linzi Kemp, and Julie Shaw. During my work on this book, I was given several opportunities to present and discuss my work at professional conferences that helped me to put the present version in its final shape. I am most grateful to the dean, Dr. Meg Benke and to the Office of Academic Affairs of the Empire State College, State University of New York, for their generous support of my initiatives. I would also like to thank George Guba and Tony Costa for their technical assistance in preparation of this manuscript. A debt of gratitude is also owed to my family for helping me organize a working routine, and for encouragement. I am grateful to my father, Yuri Tcherepashenets, for giving me the idea for the book cover, and to Linda Shaw for its graceful realization. Stuart Wald is responsible for many improvements in this book. I greatly appreciate his intelligent help and understanding. I also would like to offer my gratitude to a wonderful staff at Peter Lang Press, especially to Dr. Heidi Burns, Brittany Schwartz and Richard Atkins for their patient assistance, and to Michael Paulson for his insightful comments. My thanks to Penguin Group, New Directions, Random House, and Carmen Balcells Agencia Literaria for giving me permission to quote from their English-language versions of Borges’s Labyrinths, Collected Fictions, Selected

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Non-Fictions; Cortázar’s Hopscotch, End of the Game and Other Stories; and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Different portions of the material of this book were first published in Variaciones, Semiotica, and the Romanic Review. I thank the publishers of these journals for permission to reprint mate-

rial here.

INTRODUCTION

Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar are among the writers who have brought an international fame to the Latin American literature. Borges himself played a crucial role in the recognition of Cortázar, for as an editor of Los anales de Buenos Aires, he published Cortázar’s first story “Casa tomada,” [“A House Taken Over”] in 1946. Borges proudly recalled this episode on numerous occasions and referred to Cortázar’s expressions of appreciation manifested during their meetings in Paris and Buenos Aires: “Él, cada vez que venía a Buenos Aires pasaba a saludarme” (105) [“Each time when in Buenos Aires, he came to meet me”]. Furthermore, in an interview forStatus magazine, Borges emphasized that an irreconciliability regarding their political views did not prevent him from having respect towards Cortázar as a writer: “Más tarde, en París, él recordó el episodio y me confesó que siempre me había estado muy agradecido. Después se hizo comunista, y como soy enemigo del comunismo esas circunstancias nos enemistaron. Pero a mí las opiniones políticas de Cortázar no me preocupan mucho, y si él viniera a conversar conmigo, me encantaría poder hacerlo.” (qtd. in Alazraki 52–53) [“Later in Paris, he reminded me this episode and confessed that he was always very grateful to me. Afterwards he became a communist, and I am the enemy of communism; these circumstances put a barrier between us. But I am not very much interested in Cortázar’s political opinions, and if he would come to talk to me, I would be delighted”]. For his part Cortázar acknowledged his literary debt to Borges. In a conversation with Omar Prego, Cortázar referred to Borges and Roberto Arlt as the most influential Argentinean authors in his literary career: “en que clase de estupidez caería yo si negara la doble influencia, muy específica cada una, de Borges y de Roberto Arlt. A los que he citado siempre” (62–63) 1

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[“I couldn’t tell in which class of stupidity I would fall if I would deny a double influence, each of which is very specific, of Borges and Roberto Arlt. I have quoted them always.”]. In an interview with Evelyn Picon Garfield, he also expressed sincere admiration for the laconic and dense language which Borges’s texts manifest: “Mis lecturas de los cuentos y de los ensayos de Borges; en la epoca en que publicóEl jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan, me mostraron un lenguaje del que yo no tenía idea” (83) [“My readings of Borges’s stories and essays; in the epoch when he published The garden of the forking paths, showed me language which I had never dreamed about before”]. Moreover, in spite of the radically different political positions, he mentions “una influencia moral” [“a moral influence”] of Borges: “Lo que creo que Borges me enseñó a mí y a toda nuestra generación fue la severidad, ser implacable con uno mismo, no publicar nada que no estuviera muy bien cumplido literariamente” (12) [“What I think Borges taught me and our whole generation was a severity, to be merciless with oneself, not to publish anything that would not be highly accomplished from a literary point of view”]. Borges’s and Cortázar’s works have attracted attention and influenced both European and American literary critics and philosophers. Such leading scholars as Jaime Alazraki and Saúl Yurkievich have perceptively compared the Argentine writers’s texts with each other. In his influential article “Tres formas de ensayo contemporáneo: Borges, Paz, Cortázar” [“Three form of contemporary essay: Borges, Paz, Cortázar”], Alazraki discussed the impact of these authors on the formation of the essay genre in Latin America. He observes that both writers renovated the genre by transgressing its limits in their hybrid constructions. The rigorous structure of Borges’s essays hardly differs from that of his stories; the dialogical qualities of Cortá zar’s essays make them almost indistinguishable from the novelistic discourse. Alazraki has also offered a pioneering study of the influence of kabbalistic conception of the world as a system of 2

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oeuvre; and he developed the notion of “neosymbols ontoBorges’s fantastic”ofinwriting relation Cortázar’s stories, where the major puzzle is a human being. Yurkievich is responsible for an illuminating insight into the differences between Borges’s and Cortázar’s approach to the genre of the fantastic. In his “Borges/Cortázar: mundos y modos de la ficción fantástica” (1994) [“Borges/ Cortázar: Worlds and Modes of Fantastic Fiction”], the critic perceptively observes that the fantastic in Borges’s stories is an expression of awareness of literature as a tradition, a world of fantasy and dream created throughout past centuries. In contrast, in Cortázar’s literary universe, he discerns the

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psychological fantastic, based on the intention to reduce the distance between the created world and the one familiar to the reader. In recent years, numerous studies akin to postmodernist and deconstructionist approaches have been published on Cortázar’s and Borges’s narratives. Three collections of essays, which offer innovative readings of works from this perspective, stand out: (1)Borges: Desesperaciones aparentes y consuelos secretos, edited by Rafael Olea Franco, (2) Jorge Luis Borges: Intervenciones sobre pensamiento y la literatura, edited by William Rowe et al, and (3) Julio Cortázar New Readings, edited by Carlos Alonso. The first two are books, published in commemoration of Borges’s 100th birthday, and include articles by such diverse scholars as Iván Almeida, Julio Otrega, Daniel Balderston, Roberto González Echeverría, and writers CarlosFuentes and Juan José Saer. Placing Borges’s works at the crossroads of the national and the nuiversal, the idiosyncratic and the conventional, their essays can be seen as a myriadof responses to Josefina Ludmer’s rhetorical question “Cómo salir de Borges?” [“¿How topart de from Borges?”]. They implicitly suggest that her own answer “salir de Borges con Borges” [“to depart from Borges with Borges”] (289) is the mostprecise one. The writings collected in Julio Cortázar New Readings, as Alonso explains, aim to answer a similar question stated in a reverse fashion: “How indeed can one read Cortázar today?” (Alonso 3). Articles by such authors as Neil Larsen, René Prieto, Jean Franco, Lucille Kerr, Gustavo Pellón, and Doris Sommer emerge in response to the canonical image of the Argentine writer and his works established by earlier criticism and focused on his biographical facts and political views. Whereas duality was traditionally considered to be the structuring force behind Cortázar’s fictional universe, this book demonstr ates that Cortázar’s works can be interpreted as challenges to such dichotomies as self and ot her, and here and there and thus precede Jacques Derrida’s questioning of structuralism. Inspired by these studies, my book will show that in different, yet ultimately related ways, the fictional created by BorgesFrom and ancient Cortázartimes, question a strict opposition between worlds place and displacement. place has a primarily psychological function of distinguishing ‘self-’ andthe ‘not-self,’ between the subject and the surrounding world, a distinction that entails a fundamentally binary mental organization of space. By focusing on the “geography” of these writers’ texts, on the ways they utilize physical locat ions to develop their thematic arguments, my work will underscore thatplace is no longer associated with order, regulation, epistemologicalcertainty, particularization and security. Rather it merges with displacement as a result of dislocation, either a physical, imaginary or metaphysical removal ofapparently fixed relationships. 4

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The metaphors of place and displacement couch Borges’s and Cortazar’s metapoetical ideas. In Borges’s essay, “El primer Wells,” [“The First Wells”] for instance, the image of the artistic work is associated with the map and the mirror, where place and displacement converge: “La obra que perdura es siempre capaz de una infinita y plástica ambiguedad; es todo para todos, como el Apostol, es un espejo que declara los rasgos del lector y también un mapa del mundo” (Obras 2:76) [“Work that endures is always capable of an infinite and plastic ambiguity; it is all things for all men, like the Apostle; it is a mirror that reflects the reader’s own traits and it is also a map of the world” (Borges: A Reader 172)]. A literary work acts as a map and a mirror, in that it delineates a fictional world which reflects, displaces, and deviates from the one familiar to the reader. In his programmatic theoretical work, “Teoría del tunel,’’ where the tunnel is a subterranean passage, a place associated with transcendence, transit, and displacement, which “destruye para construir” (66) [“destroyes in order to construct”], Cortázar refers to the book as an architectonic structure, “el tunel verbal” [“a verbal tunnel”]: “el libro . . . successor de la arquitectura; columnas mentales, arquitrabes del sentimiento, fustes del espíritu; libro para durar” (46) [“a literary successor of the archi tecture . . .; mental columns, architraves of sentiment, timber of the spirit; a book to last”] . He further draws a parallel between literature, philosophy and mysticism, characterizing them as “tres nombres para una no disímil ansiedad óntica,” [“three names for one not dissimilar ontological anxiety”] and suggests that they have a similar structure of “el túnel” (66). By situating the notions of place and displacement at the intersection of literary, anthropological and philosophical discourses, Ihave set up a framework to compare the fictional worlds of Borges and Cortázar. From this perspective, drawing on the insights of Derrida, Michel Foucault, Mikhail Bakhtin and other major theorists, I will argue that Borges’s approach to “place” suggests imagined settings for mystical experiences objects. It is a and tropethethat stands for the human aspiration to bridgeand theimpossible gap between the finite infinite. Displacement is a creative act that involves de-centering and transformation of previously established relationships. In Cortázar’s works, on the contrary, place is a locality for dwelling and thinking, and displacement is an existential experience that carries ethical connotations. While mapping out the dynamic of place and displacement in some of these two authors’ most famous texts, I will also locate the ‘place’ of Borges’s writings within Cortázar’s fictional universe, and will explore the implications of my studyfor the dialogue between literature and philosophy.

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In his recent book Invisible Work. Borges and Translation, Efraín Kristal observes that there is a popular view in criticism that considers Borges’s philosophical insights among the major achievements of his literary work. He perceptively suggests that Borges is a “fabulist” (141) whose philosophical concerns serve literary purposes. One may also add that, rather than offering a particular stand or position, Borges’s texts transfer to his readers their author’s own interest in philosophy, and his curiosity about finding parallels, continuities and juxtapositions between ideas from various trends of knowledge. My reading of Borges’s and Cortázar’s writings are informed by assumption of the mutually enriching relationship between literature and philosophy. While mapping out the dynamics of place and displacement, I will bring distinct literary and philosophical world versions into a dialogue. This heuristic device will shed light on the construction of the different, yet ultimately related, narrative worlds of Borges and Cortázar, and would make one weight and [re]consider apparently familiar philosophical concepts. Putting into practice the network relationship between literature and philosophy, the first chapter brings kabbalistic, phenomenological and decon7

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structionist approaches to bear on an exploration of Borges’s ironic elaboration of the concept of place as revelation; it gives special attention to the following stories: “El Aleph” (Aleph), “Las ruinas circulares” [“The Circular Ruins”] (Ficciones), “Libro de arena” [“The Book of Sand”] and “El disco” [“The Disk”] (Libro de arena). Engaging existentialist, metafictional and metaphysical perspectives, as well as the carnivalesque, Chapter 2 delineates place as displacement in Cortázar’s Rayuela [Hopscotch], and unravels a presence of Borges’s metaphysical-artistic city in a gestation of the novel. Chapter 3 explores the controversial relationships between ‘fictional’ and ‘real’ places as it examines the concepts of utopia, dystopia and heterotopia both reflected and challenged by Borges’s stories “Utopía del hombre que está cansado” [“A Weary Man’s 9

Utopia”] “La casa de Asterión” [“The House of Asterion”] and Cortázar’s novels 62:and Modelo para armar [62: A Model Kit] and Los Premios [The Winners]. Whereas the first three chapters focus onthe notion of place as consistently linked with displacement, the last two give special attention to displacement as it shapes thematic developments and aesthetics in these authors’ works. Chapter 4 studies displacement, from a psychoanalytic point of view, as it informs both deconstructionist and postmodern approaches that overlap with Borges’s anthropological views in essays such as “La muralla y los libros” [“The Wall and the Books”] and “El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”]. Bringing to bear phenomenological, postmodern anthropological, and feminist

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perspectives as they subvert the subject/object dichotomy, Chapter 5 explores a parallelism between displacement and the divided self in Cortázar’s stories “Lejana” [“Distances”], “Cartas de mamá,” [“Letters from Mother”] and “La puerta condenada” [“The Sealed Door”]. In his seminal book The Voice of the Masters, Roberto González Echevarría has perceptively noticed that literature, rather then philosophy and politics has shaped Latin American thought. Borges and Cortázar’s texts exemplify this statement par excellence. A voyage through the narrative worlds created by these authors therefore would be of interest for readers of any background, who find pleasure and a rewarding challenge in these writers most famous works, as well as for those who are willing to become engaged in adynamic exploration of new routes in communication between different literary traditions, philosophical, and anthropological discourses.

·1· PLACE IN BORGES S STORIES ’ AND THE IRONY OF REVELATION

People are delighted with irrationalism . . . ; but for the most part they still talk and write all too “rationally.” Martin Heidegger

At different stages in his career, Borges was interested in the Kabbalah, which he called “una suerte de met áfora de pensamiento ” (Obras 3:274) [ “a lucky metaphor of thought”]. In his lecture “La cabala” [“The Kabbalah”], for Zohar, a major literary work produced instance, he referenced his readings of the by Jewish mystics, and Gershom Scholem’s On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism. In contrast to other religious thinkers, kabbalists intend to decipher and interpret the world as a reflection of divine mysteries. This interweaving of two realms, the divine and the mundane, Scholem observes, is unique for Jewish mysticism. They converge in a biblical notion of place as a locus where God might be worshipped and apparently encountered, and in that of an object-place as revelation, a mystical experience by itself, a theological synonym for God. I would like to bring kabbalistic, phenomenological and deconstructionist approaches to bear on Borges’ ironic elaboration of a biblical notion of“place” in “El Aleph” [“The Aleph”], “Las ruinas circulares” [“The Circular Ruins”], “El libro de arena” [“The Book of Sand”], and “El disco” [“The Disk”]. I contend that, in these texts, ‘place’ has a triple function. First, it is a locus where revelation happens, or is supposed to happen. Second, it is a pseudo-realistic 1

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setting which incorporates a false modality of the divine, a modality which is lacking in some divine attributes, such as existence in all time frames. Finally, it is an intrinsically ambiguous impossible object-place (or dream-world) which hovers between existence and non-existence. An imaginary encounter wit h this object provokes a mystical experience in characters, and makes them face ontological, epistemological and artistic challenges. In “El Aleph,” the presence of the impossible object-place within the familiar setting both evokes divine presence and can be interpreted as a comic parallel to the underlying biblical story. In “Las ruinas circulares,” the exotic location initiates a mystical experience which exhibits the human self as a mysterious being. In both “El disco” and “El libro de arena,” the impossible object-place illustrates the conflict between the ideas of infinity and the mundane boundaries which humans fail to dominate. Whereas “El disco” shows human aspirations and the impossibility of obtaining control over the universe embodied in the magic object-disk, “El libro de arena” exemplifies the ambiguity of the human wish to both give form to the infinite and to resist the idea of limits by simultaneously conveying the characters’ desire for possession of the endless book and the fear of that possession.

Familiar Places, Hidden Challenges: Revelation Present and Dissipated in “El Aleph” In his phenomenological study, Gaston Bachelard suggests that places stimulate imagination, and have stable symbolic functions in the life of an individual. In accord with this perspective, Carlos Daneri, the protagonist of “El Aleph,” firmly believes that he encounters ‘his’ Aleph, a source of his poetic inspiration, in the cellar of his childhood home. The character’s account of his vision, later shared and described by the narrator“Borges,” allows one to interpret it as a mystical experience. The narrator also explicitly draws a parallel between the experience the impossible object in Daneri’s cellar provokes, and the kabbalistic view of the Aleph which is “la ilimitada y pura divinidad” (Obras 1:627; italics added) [“. . . the pure and unlimited godhead ” (285)]. In his metafictional comment, he observes that in light of the meaning of the“aleph” in the Hebrew alphabet, the choice of the name “Aleph” for the mysterious object in Daneri’s cellar is not a mere coincidence: “Su aplicación al disco de mi historia no parece casual” (Obras 1:627) [“Its application to the disk of my tale would not appear to be accidental.” (285)]. Both Daneri’s and the narrator’s 3

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accounts of their visions are recognized and ironized by the text, which, as I will discuss below, evokes kabbalistic and deconstructionist depictions of revelation, as vacillating between“presence” and “absence.” These notions are found both in kabbalistic interpretations of the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet and Derrida’s metaphorical interpretation and useof the ambivalent Pharmakon. “El Aleph,” “uno de los puntos del espacio que contiene todos los puntos” (Obras 1:623) [“. . . one of the points in space that contains all points ” (280)], has been discovered by Carlos Daneri in the cellar of his childhood home. According to Bachelard, the cellar is“the dark entity of the house, the one that partakes of subterranean forces” (Bachelard 18). He emphasizes that in the house one has been born, “dream is more powerful than thought” (Bachelard 16). Being located in the house which possesses “one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams” (Bachelard 6), a cellar is a place which awakes the “unconscious” mind and stimulates the work of human imagination. It is a chronotope associated with the mysterious. As Bachelard observes, “when we dream [in a cellar], we are in harmony with the irrationality of the depths ” (18), and he continues that “the cellar dream 4

irrefutably increases reality” (20). In line with Bachelard’s phenomenological approach, Daneri characterizes the Aleph as “inajenable” [“inalientable”] as an imaginary complement to existent reality, and refers to it using the possessive pronouns “mi” (Obras 1:623) [“my” (281)] or “mío” (Obras 1:623) [“mine” (281)]. Daneri himself admits that an individual’s ability to imagine, which he believes he possesses, brings the Aleph into presence. As Naomi Lindstrom points out, “the Aleph suggests that the magic sphere is brought into being by forc e of desire and enjoys no existence unless sought” (56). Daneri’s perception of the cellar of his home as a place that evokes memories of his childhood also corresponds to its symbolic functioning, as defined by Bachelard. Recalling his memories, Daneri tells the narrator“Borges” about his mysterious discovery of the magic Aleph —the world in its totality, which dates back to his childhood: “yo lo descubrí en la niñez, antes de la edad escolar. La escalera del sótano es empinada, mis tíos me tenían prohibido el descenso, pero alguien dijo que había un mundo en el sótano. Se refería, lo supe después, a un baúl, pero yo entendí que había un mundo. Bajé secretamente, rodé por la escalera vedada, caí. Al abrir los ojos, vi el Aleph” (Obras 1:623; italics added) [“I discovered it in my childhood, before I ever attended school. The cellar sta irway is steep, and my aunt and uncle had forbidden me to go down it, but somebody said you could go around the world with that thing down there in

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the basement. The person, whoever it was, was referring, I later learned, to a steamer trunk, but I thought there was some magical contraption down there. I tried to sneak down the stairs, fell head over heels, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the Aleph.” (280–281)]. According to Daneri, the only place where his Aleph can be encountered is in his childhood home. Therefore, the intention of the businessmen to destroy that home means, for him, the destruction of his private universe. This causes his anger and despair: “—La casa de mis padres, mi casa, la vieja casa inveterada de la calle Garay!—repitió, quiza olvidando su pesar en la melodía” (Obras 1:622) [“The home of my parents—the home where I was born—the old and deeply rooted house on Calle Garay!” (280)]. Also, in their conversation, Daneri confesses to the narrator “con esa voz llana, impersonal, a que solemos recurrir para confiar algo muy íntimo” (Obras 1:622) [“in that flat, impersonal voice we drop into when we wish to confide something very private ” (280)], that he needs the house because the Aleph is necessary for him to complete the poem that he is writing. The narrator refers to his words: “dijo que para terminar el poema le era indispensablela casa, pues en unángulo del sótano 5

había un Aleph” (Obras 1:622–623) [“. . . he said he had to have the house so he could finish the poem—because in one corner of the cellar there was an Aleph.” (280)]. In this way, Daneri’s account of the discovery of his Aleph as possible only in the cellar of his childhood home exemplifies the psychological aspect of place as discussed by Bachelard. Irony, however, as a ludic and demystifying discursive strategy, challenges the stable symbolic connection between the place and the individual described by Bachelard and maintained in Daneri’s account of his “mystical” experience. Both Daneri ’s “creative process, ” as well as its result, the poem “La Tierra” [“The Earth”] inspired (Daneri insists) by the vision in the cellar arethe objects of satire. The function of the cellar as a stimulator of human imagination, according to Bachelard’s phenomenology, is parodized in the text: Daneri is mistaken in his belief that his Aleph will make him a good poet. Indeed, emphasizing the descriptive characteristics of the poem, the narrator is skeptical about Daneri’s work. He characterizes Daneri’s writing as a result of a collaboration of “la aplicación, la resignación y el azar ” (Obras 1:619) [ “Application, resignation, and chance . . . ” (277)]. In contrast to Daneri’s own belief, Borges’s readers realize that the poem does not reveal the character’s imagination or incorporate hisfantasy, but rather onlycontains observations framed within the conventions of Spanish prosody, which the author recites to the narrator with“sonora satisfacción” [“. . . ringing self-satisfaction”]:


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He visto, como el griego, las urbes de los hombres, los trabajos, los días de varia luz, el hambre; no corrijo los hechos, no falseo los nombres, pero el voyage que narro, es . . . autour de ma chambre. (Obras 1:619)

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IThe have seen,the as did the and his fame, ’s cities works, days of Greek, variousman light, the hunger; I prettify no fact, I falsify no name, For the voyage I narrate is . . . autour de ma chamber. (18) As the author himself points out, the poem is an eclectic combination based on his own readings, which include the creations of Homer, Hesiod and Goldoni. The trip which it describes, therefore, takes placewithin Daneri’s own room, where he has been engaged in reading texts by these authors. In his own eyes, literary allusions, in which the strophe abounds, make the poem particularly sophisticated. As the authorproudly observes,“Estrofa a todas luces interesante” (Obras 1:619) [“A stanza interesting from any point of view . . . ” (276)]. The conflict of beliefs evokes irony. As Wayne C. Booth observes, “we are alerted whenever we notice an unmistakable conflict between the beliefs expressed and the beliefs we hold and suspect the author of holding ” (15). Indeed, Daneri is a character who belongs to an ironic mode, a talentless yet ambitious poet whose poor poetry is mocked by the text. According to Northrop Frye, a character belongs to the ironic mode “[i]f inferior in power or intelligence to ourselves, so that we have the sense of looking down on a scene of bondage, frustration, or absurdity” (34). Daneri’s frustration, caused, as he explains, by the impossibility of finishing his poetic description of the universe in its totality because his house and his Aleph will be destroyed, provokes laughter. Moreover, defying both the owner ’s and the narrator’s expectation, as the latter mentions in“posdata,” after the destruction of the house, Daneri becomes par“A los seis meses de la ticularly successful in his work. As the narratoromments, c demolición del inmueble de la calle Garay, la Editorial Procusto no seódej arredar por la longitud del considerable poema y lanz ó al mercado una selección de ‘trozos argentinos.’ Huelga repetir lo ocurrido Carlos Argentino Daneri recibi ó el ” (Obras 1:626) [“Six months after the Segundo Premio Nacional de literatura demolition of the building on Garay Street, Procrustes Publishers, undaunted by the length of CarlosArgentino Dineri’s substantial poem, published the first inits series ‘Argentine pieces.’ It goes without saying what happened: Carlos Argen tino ” (284)]. And he Daneri won second place in the National Prize for Literature.

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continues, “los diarios dicen que pronto nos dar á otro volumen. Su afortunada pluma (no entorpecida ya por el Aleph) se ha consagrado a versificar ílos tomes ep íaz” (Obras1:627) [“. . . the newspapers say he’ll soon be givdel doctor Acevedo D ing us another volume. His happy pen (belabored no longer by the Aleph) has been consecrated to setting the compendia of Dr. Acevedo íaz Dto verse.” (285)”]. Further, although the narratorinterprets Daneri’s and his own experiences in the cellar as mystical,their communication with the divine remains doubtful for the readers of Borges’s story. On the one hand, the narrator’s intent to reduce the distance between himself and the divine the “aleph,” “la ilimitada y pura divinidad ” (Obras1:627) [“the pure and unlimited godhead ” (285)] by claiming to experience it in the house on the street Garay, evokes a burlesqueethos. On the other hand, the characters’ encounters with the divine can be interpreted as acts of will and subjective truth. As Scholem notes,“[e]ach man has his own unique access to Revelation. Authority no longer resides in a single unmistakable ‘meaning’ of the divine communication, but in its infinite capacity for taking on new forms ” (13). Support for both of these assumptions can be found in the epigraphs to the story. One of them is from Thomas Hobbes ’s Leviathan: “But they will teach us that Eternity is the Standing still of the Present Time, aNuncstans (as the Schools call it); which neither they, nor any else understand, no more than they wouldHic a stans for an Infinite greatness of Place ” (Leviathan, IV, 46). In this quote, “an ” Infinite greatness of Place” stands for “the Incomprehensible Nature of God (693), which remains distant and enigmatic. Moreover, Hobbes suggests that “inhabiting” the divine diminishes it. In Part IV of his work, for instance, entitled “Of the Kingdome of Darknesse, ” the English author observes that:“To worship God, in some peculiar Place . . . implies a new Relation by Appropriation to God . . . . But to worship God, as inanimating, or inhabiting, such Image, or place; that is to say, an infinite substance in a finite place is Idolatry: for such finite Gods, are but Idols of the brain, nothing real ” (692; italics added). Likewise, the narratorrefers 7

to the discovery in the cellar, which he and Daneri share, as “un falso Aleph” (Obras 1:627) [“a false Aleph” (285)], for the divine cannot be reduced to a finite object “el diametro sería de dos o tres centímetros” (Obras 1:625) [“two or three centimeters in diameter” (283)], which human beings can possess and inhabit. Another reason for the narrator’s characterization of Daneri’s Aleph as false can be found in a source familiar to Borges, Baruch Spinoza’s concept of the Divine, probably influenced by Hobbes’ idea of the parallelism between the notions of God and Place, both of which are infinite and not totally accessible by people. According to Spinoza, a person can understand the realms of extensi on and thought, but other infinite divine attributes remain unknown to humans.


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In his seminal lecture“Baruj Spinoza,” Borges creatively re-elaborates Spinoza’s concept of the divine as extension and thought, and observes that, for Spinoza, God is as infinite as the universe,“an infinite circumference” which has “an infinite number of radii, but only two are known to us: space and time” (282). Daneri’s Aleph, however, which contains “el inconcebible universo” (Obras 1:626) [“. . . the inconceivable universe ” (284)], does not possess a temporal dimension. This also makes Daneri’s impossible object a false embodiment of the divine, which in its “true” forms exists in all time frames. The characters’ mystical experience, nevertheless, might be explained as an act of personal will. This option is suggested by the epigraph from Hamlet: “O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a King of infinite space” (Hamlet, II, 2). Indeed, evoking the prince’s desperate aspirations “to possess the infinite ” while recognizing his restricted condition, this quote alludes to the human perception of the world as a matter of will. This vision is in accord with Arthur Schopenhauer’s ideas shared by the Borges —author. In a way similar to Hamlet, who does not refer to the mimetic Denmark but rather to its metaphysical presence which is both a reflection and creation of 8

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his own mind, Daneri creates his own access to the remote world, where the divine and the mundane interweave, and which hecannot help falsifying in his reports. In this way, both implicitly referring to and challenging assumptions akin to those of Bachelard about the stable symbolic functions of places, Borges’s text ironically elaborates a biblical notion of a place where the possibility of encountering the divine remains open. The ludic affinity between the representation of the Aleph inBorges’s story and its biblical precursor, as well as the use of a narrative strategy which interrelates opposites, also suggest that Daneri’s impossible object oscillates between presence and absence. As Scholem points out, the Hebrew letter Aleph“pregis nant with infinite meaning,” yet it does not carry any specific meaning; it is “a spiritual root of all other letters and . . . hence all other elements of human discourse” (Scholem 30). To hear the Aleph, however, is to hear next to nothing: it is a preparation for all audible language but itself conveys no sound. According to Rabbi Mendel Torum, Scholem observes, the actual revelation to Israel consisted only of the aleph. This statement, Scholem asserts, transfor ms the revelation on Mount Sinai into a mystical revelation, “it had to be translated into human language and that is what Moses did ” (30). He further suggests: “But the truly divine element in this revelation, the immense aleph, was not in itself sufficient to expres s the divine message, and in itself it was more than the community could bear” (31).

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The ‘revelation’ in the house on Garay Street can be seen as a comic parallel with that on Mount Sinai. The basement in Daneri’s house becomes a location where revelation apparently occurs due to the presence of the “impossible object,” a place which embodies the spirit of the divine/mystical experience, the burning bush which is never consumed, and the Aleph which contains the infinite within it. The comic effect is produced “by transposing the natural expression of an idea into another key ” (Bergson 140). Referring to the whole event of the discovery of the Aleph as an oxymoron, Ana María Barranechea points out that the use of irony as a discursive strategy in the story makes “the concentrated vision of the planet . . . absurdly comical ” (84). The interrelatedness of opposites in Scholem’s definition of the letter aleph with its mystical connotations, as well as in the characters’ experience in Borges’s story, can be illuminated by a deconstructionist use of the term “pharmakon.” Derrida first refers to the word, “pharmakon,” which in Greek means both “remedy” and “poison,” in his essay “Plato’s Pharmacy,” included in Dissemination. The French philosopher finds this ambiguous word, the meanings of which display a contradiction, particularly interesting and useful to show 10

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that the inherent failure in Western metaphysics is in the either/or nature of its dialectics, such as truth and falsity, presence and absence, etc. In Borges’s story, the intrinsic ambiguity of the Aleph, both present and absent, “el infinito Aleph” (Obras 1:624) [“the infinite Aleph” (282) ] (‘remedy’) and “un falso Aleph” (Obras 1:627) [“a false Aleph” (285)] (‘poison’), may be seen as a parallel to Derrida’s interpretation of the “pharmakon.” Further, for Derrida, the word pharmakon is“extremely apt for the task of tying all the threads . . . together ” (96). He asserts that “one could follow the word pharmakon as a guiding thread within the whole Platonic problematic of the mixture” (128). The role of the pharmakon as “fil conducteur” in Derrida’s philosophical essay is analogous to its function in Borges’s story, which both celebrates and undermines the existence of a true Aleph, and in this way echoes Derrida’s observation that books “of a philosophical nature invariably include both the thesis and the antithesis, the rigorous pro and con of adoctrine” (qtd. in Gonzalez-Echevarría 231). Evoking Scholem’s description of mystical revelation which hardly can be communicated by human beings, and the interrelatedness of opposites explicit in Derrida’s metaphorical interpretation of the ambivalent pharmakon (the analog of which is the biblicalAleph/“falso” aleph in Daneri’s cellar), both Daneri and the narrator can hardly describe the Aleph. Indeed, while skeptical about Daneri’s “ineptas” (Obras 1:618) [“witless” (276)] ideas and his pseudo-artistic


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creation, the narrator nevertheless accepts for the moment the existence of the Aleph when, after following Daneri’s advice, he descends to the cellarand later attempts to describe his experience. The narrator’s account of his attempt to capture the totality of the universe incorporated in“el microcosmo de alquimistas y cabalistas ” (Obras 1:624) [ “The microcosm of the alchemists and Kabbalists,” (282)] reveals both presence and absence: the tiny Aleph incorporates in itself “el espacio cósmico . . . sin disminuci ón del tamaño” (Obras 1:625; italics added) [“. . . universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution in size” (283)] and brings it all into a center of simultaneity. The pharmakon-like ambivalent experience explains the narrator’s incapability to communicate his vision, as he confesses: “¿cómo trasmitir a los otros el infinito Aleph, que mi temerosa memoria apenas abarca?” (Obras 1:624) [“How, can one transmit to others the infinite Aleph, which my timorous memory can scarcely contain?” (282)]. The narrator “Borges” refers to his experience as the “instante gigantesco ” [“unbounded moment” (282)] full of contradictions, when limited becomes unrestricted and simultaneously multifocused: “Cada cosa (la luna del espejo, digamos) era infinitas cosas, porque yo claramente la 12

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veía desde todos los puntos del universo” (Obras 1:625). [“Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was infinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos.” (283)]. The correspondence between the names of the author and the narrator, recurrent in Borges’s fiction, provokes a double effect. On the one hand, it evokes a burlesque ethos. As Bakhtin also mentions, “[p]lay with a posited author is also characteristic of the comic novel . . . a heritage from Don Quixote ” (312). On the other hand, it emphasizes the author’s personal preoccupations, described by Barranechea as the “unutterable” (80) nature of non-shared experiences and the boundlessness of the universe, of the infinite. The story ends with the narrator questioning whether the Aleph in the cellar and that in a Sacred Book are one and the same, whether there isa “true” Aleph, and the entire substance of his vision: “¿Existe ese Aleph en lo íntimo de una piedra? ¿Lo he visto cuando vi todas las cosas y lo he olvidado?” (Obras 1:627; italics added) [“Does that Aleph exist, within the heart of a stone? Did I see it there in the cellar when I saw allthings, and then forget it?” (286)]. The rhetorical nature of this interrogative leaves the reader with a variety of inter“el En sof” (Obras 1:627) [“the pretations as to where the concepts of the Aleph, En Soph” (29)], and the Pharmakon, “the movement, the locus, and the play: (the production of) difference” (Derrida 27), converge. Like“el aleph” in both Jewish mysticism and in Borges’s story, “[t]he pharmakon,” Derrida writes,

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“keeps itself forever in reserve . . .. We will watch it infinitely promise itself and endlessly vanish through concealed doorways that shine like mirrors and open onto a labyrinth. It is a store of deep background that we are callingpharmacy” (127–128). The ludic use of the phenomenological symbolism of the house and the cellar in staging the characters ’ encounter with the Aleph can be considered a parodic reference to the mystical revelation as described by kabbalists, as well as its insightful interpretation by Borges inspired by Jewish mystical thought. Both Borges ’s ironic elaboration of the biblical notion of place as a locale where revelation occurs, and of the notion of object-place as an embodiment of the divine, manifest the lack of a single ‘unmistakable ’ meaning of revelation and show place to be a stage for a potential mystical experience which is “fundamentally amorphous” (Scholem 8) and closed to precise definition and univocal interpretation. This approach to the notion of place can be considered another example of the influence of kabbalistic thought on Borges ’s writings. In accord also with the phenomenological theory developed by Bachelard, Borges’s object-place, the Aleph, is both brought to existence by, and acts as a reflector of, human imagination. The coexistence of ‘familiar’/‘realistic ’ places and a “magic” place/object in “El Aleph” illustrates Bachelard’s observation that a ‘house’ is a “cradle” (7) which cherishes human daydreams, and also manifests a symbolic functioning of place as defined by Jewish mystics. Indeed, in his study of the symbols of the Kabbalah, Scholem points out the importance of the psychological aspect of traditional symbols as “means of expressing an experience that is in itself expressionless” (22), an observation literalized in Borges’s text. The phenomenological approach to place as a symbol, however, is both recognized and ironized in the story. The irony undermines the stable symbol14

ic connections between the place and the individual described by Bachelard, and displays the intellectual affinity between Borges ’s texts and the deconstructionist celebration of the play of differences that denies any idea of stabili ty. The simultaneous perception of the universe in its totality, inspired by an impossible object which hovers between presence and absence, is closed to any logical proofs or objective explanation. Revelation is present, and at the same time dissipated, by the ludic movement of the pharmakon, which suggests that an endless search is the only way to find it, to access the divine: “God is in the making. Dios está haciéndose” (Shaw qtd. in Borges Obras 3:273).


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Dreaming in Circles, Facing the Ruins: the Mystery and Limitations of the Human Self in “Las ruinas circulares” Whereas in “El Aleph,” a possibility of encountering the divine within familiar setting both ironized and left open, in “the Las presence ruinas circulares Circular ” [“Theand Ruins”]isthe exotic location both evokes of the divine turns out to be a manifestation of a mystery about the human self. In this text, the action takes place in a ruined temple, a stage fora potential mystical experience which reveals the apparent leveling of the human and thedivine to be an act of self-deception, and manifests the human selfas a false embodiment of thedivine. The title of the story establishes two dimensions of circularity/roundness which evokes “being” (Bachelard 239) and “ruinas” [“ruins”] associated with incompleteness, destruction, and nostalgia. These dimensions are reconciled in the story when circularity undermines the dream/existence dichotomy, unites the notions of eternal return and infinity, and subverts the creator/creation hierarchy. The “ruinas” point to the coexistence of presence and absence and the importance of the divine in the act of creation. The circular place, both as a physical locality and as“an object of thought” (Leibniz 132) associated with the presence of the divine , makes dream and‘reality’ converge in Borges’s text. The circular ruins of the temple,“[e]se redondel” [“[t]his circle” (45)], are chosen by the magician for his metaphysical project: “Quería soñar un hombre . . . e imponerlo a la realidad ” (Obras 1:451) [“He wanted to dream a man . . . and insert him into reality ” (46)]. Likewise, “un anfiteatro circular” (Obras 1:452; italics added) [“a circular amphitheater” (46)] is the place of action staged in one of his dreams. The narrator emphasizes the striking similarity between the temple, “el punto de comunicación entre lo humano y lo sobrenatural” (Arango 32) [“the point of contact between the human and the magic”], and the amphitheater, associated both with education and performance, which establishes the mirror relationship between dream and empirical reality of the fictional world of the story: “El forastero se soñaba en el centro de un anfiteatro circular que era de algún modo el templo incendiado” (Obras 1:452) [“The stranger dreamt that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which in some way was the burned temple” (46)]. Moreover, in the circular amphitheater of the magician’s dream, the pupils exhibit similarities with the teacher in their common connection with the past. In his description of the magician, the narrator points out that he came from 15

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a place separated by time and distance from the world where the actions of the story take place: “el hombre taciturno venía del Sur y . . . su patria era una de las infinitas aldeas que están aguas arriba, en el flanco violento de la montaña, donde el idioma zend no est á contaminado de griego y donde es infrecuente la lepra” (Obras 1:451) [“the silent man came from the South . . . his home was one of the infinite villages upstream, on the violent mountainside, where the Zend tongue in not contaminated with Greek and where el prosy is infrequent” (45)]. Similarly, “las caras de [los alumnos] pendían a muchos siglos de distancia y a una altura estelar, pero eran del todo precisas” (Obras 1:452). [“the faces of the [students] hung many centuries away and at a cosmic height, but were entirely clear and precise” (46)]. In this way, distance in time and space is annihilated both in the place of narration and in thatof dream: the contrast between past and present and far and near is undermined in the temple/amphitheater. The linguistic peculiarities of the text also emphasize the reflective relationship between the ‘reality’ and the dream. For instance, parallel syntactic constructions describe the actions of the magician both during the time he is awake and while he is dreaming: “Quiso explorar la selva, extenuarse; apenas alcanzó entre la cicuta unas rachas de sueño débil, veteadas fugazmente de visiones de tipo rudimental: inservibles. Quiso congregar el colegio y apenas hubo articulado unas breves palabras de exhortación, éste se deformó, se borró” (Obras 1:452; italics added) [“He tried to explore the jungle, to exhaust himself; amidst the hemlocks, he was scarcely able to manage a few snatches of feeble sleep, fleetingly mottled with some rudimentary visions which were useless. He tried to convoke the college and had scarcely uttered a few brief words of ” (47)]. The effect exhortation, when it became deformed and was extinguished of the alliteration might in addition contribute to the confusion between the magician and his dream that manifests essential “phantasmagoria” (Barranechea 122) of being:“En el sueño del hombre quesoñaba, elsoñado se despertó” (Obras 1:453) [“In the dreamer’s dream, the dreamed one awoke” (48)]. Thus, “Las ruinas circulares” [“The Circular Ruins”] exemplifies the interrelation between the “dream”/ “existence” realms in Borges’s fiction, where “[d]reams are another way of suggesting the undefined boundaries between the‘real’ and the fictitious worlds. Within the economy of histales they hold roles which are premonitory, labyrinthine, cyclically repetitive, and allusive to infinity. At times, they are clearer than life itself and existence tends to become somnolent for that reason” (Barranechea 126). The process of creation also undermines the inside/outside opposition, for it makes “[E]l espacio entero de su alma [del mago]” (Obras 1:451; italics added)


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[“the entire space (better then content) of his soul” (46)] and “el templo inhabitado y despedazado, porque era un m ínimo de mundo visible” (Obras 1:451) [“The uninhabited and broken temple suited him, for it was a minimum of visible world” (46)] to become one. Being completely absorbed by his task, the dreamer ignores his other life experiences because the round temple is a sufficient world for him. Commenting on roundness, Bachelard observes that this is a form that “guides and encloses . . . dreams ” (Bachelard 239). As the narrator points out, “si alguien le hubiera preguntado su propio nombre o cualquier rasgo de su vida anterior, no habría acertado a responder” (Obras 1:451) [“if someone had asked him his own name or any trait of his previous life, he would not have been able to answer” (46)]. The dream acquires a spatial dimension, for it is equivalent to the desert in the narrator’s description of the insomnia which the magician tries to overcome:“El hombre, un día emergió del sueño como de un desierto viscoso, miró la vana luz de la tarde que al pronto confundió con la aurora y comprendió que no había soñado. Toda esa noche y todo el día, la intolerable lucidez del insomnio se abatió contra él. . . . En la casi perpetua vigilia, lágrimas de ira le quemaban los viejos ojos” (Obras 1:452; italics added) [“The man emerged from sleep one day as if from a viscous desert, looked at the vein light of afternoon, which at first he confused with that of dawn, and understood that he had not really dreamt. All that night and all day, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia weighed upon him. . . . In his almost perpetual sleeplessness, his old eyes burned with tears of anger” (47)]. The temple chosen by the magician for his project, considered by the narrator as “sobrenatural” but not “imposible,” is not, however, unique. Already at the beginning of the story, the narrator mentions“el otro templo despedazado de dioses incendiados y muertos” (Obras 1:451), which alludes to the idea of the eternal return suggested byNietzsche. In “La doctrina de los ciclos” [“The Doctrine of Cycles ”], Borges insists on the logical fallacies of Nietzsche ’s 17

approach: “¿Basta la mera sucesión, no verificada por nadie? A falta de un arc ángel especial que lleve la cuenta, ¿qué significa el hecho de que atravesamos el ciclo trece mil quinientos catorce, y no el primero de la serie o el número trescientos veintidós con el exponente dos mil? Nada, para la práctica—lo cual no daña al pensador. Nada, para la inteligencia—lo cual ya es grave” (Obras 1:391). [“Is mere succession enough, unverified by anyone? Without a special archangel to keep count, what does, what does it mean that we are passing through the 13,514th cycle, and not the first of the series or number 322 ? Nothing, as far as practice goes—which does not harm to the thinker. Nothing, as far as intelligence—which is serious” (71)]. He attacks Nietzsche’s idea that 2

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“el universo tiene que repetirse” (Nietzche qtd. in Borges Obras 1:385) [“the universe must repeat itself” (65)] with Cantor’s theory of series, which asserts“la perfecta infinitud del número de puntos del universo” (Obras 1:386) [“[t]he perfect infinity of the number of points in the universe” (66)]. However, Borges’s conclusion is that “[l]a prueba es tan irreprochable como baladí” (Obras 1:386) [“[t]he proof is as irreproachable as it is worthless” (67)], and he recognizes that “[a]lguna vez nos deja pensativos la sensación ‘de haber vivido ya ese momento’ ” (Obras 1:390) [“[a]t times the sensation of having already lived a certain moment leaves us wondering” (70)]. In “El tiempo circular” [“Circular Time”], while outlining three ways of interpreting the idea of the eternal return srcinally suggested by Plato, Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius, Borges agrees with the last one, with “la concepción de ciclos similares no id énticos” [ “the concept of similar but not identical cycles”] as “el único imaginario” (Obras 2:394) [“the only one that is conceivable” (226)]. Analyzing Aurelius’s approach to the eternal return, he makes observations that define this doctrine as well as appear to be determinant for Borges’s own aesthetics. These observations are “negar la realidad del 19

pasado y del porvenir” [ “a negation of the reality of the past and the future ” (227)], to view history as a block, and to “negar cualquier novedad” (Obras 2:395) [“negat[e] all novelty” (227)]. “Las ruinas circulares” exemplifies Borges’s ideas about eternal return through the reference to the cyclical development of human history, analogous to the destinies of individuals. The presence of repetitive architectural structures is emphasized by the syntactic parallelism which introduces the idea of circularity in time and space: “Sabía que ese templo era el lugar que requería su invencible propósito; sabía que los árboles incesantes no habían logrado estrangular, río abajo, las ruinas de otro templo propicio, también de dioses incendiados y muertos” (Obras 1:451) [“He knew that this temple was the place required by his invincible purpose; he knew that, downstream, the incessant trees had not managed to choke the ruins of another propitious temple, whose gods were also burned and dead” (45)]. The repetition of places (temples) is inevitably connected with the concept of circular time, because for Borges “[e]l espacio es un incidente en el tiempo” (Obras 1:200) [“space is an incident in time”]. This idealist vision is also prominent in Plato ’s Timaeus, whose argument Borges summarizes in “El tiempo circular” [“Circular Time”]: “si los períodos planetarios son cíclicos, también la historia universal lo será” (Obras 1:393) [“if the planetary periods are cyclical, so must be the history of the universe ” (225)]. In his comment about “Las ruinas circulares” which appears in Aleph and Other Stories, Borges


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asserts that “[t]he title [of the story] itself suggests the Pythagorean and Eastern idea of cyclical time” (267). The ideas of eternal return and infinity coexist in “Las ruinas circulares.” On the one hand, the magician experiences a sense of repetition in the process of creation for “[a] veces, lo inquetaba una impresión de que ya todo eso había acontecido . . .” (Obras 1:454) [“[a]t times, he was troubled by the impression that all this had happened before” (49)]. Moreover, the repeated symbols offire and architectural structures (temples) are explicitly mentioned in the text. Interrupting the magician’s meditations, fire approaches the temple, as had happened many years before: “Primero . . . una remota nube en un cerro, liviana como un pájaro; luego . . . el cielo que ten ía el color rosado de la encía de los leopardos; luego las humaredas que herrumbraron el metal de las noches; después la fuga pánica de las bestias. Porque se repetió lo acontecido hace muchos siglos” (Obras 1:454) [“First . . . a faraway cloud on a hill, light and rapid as a bird; then . . . the sky which had the rose color of the leopard ’s mouse; then the smoke which corroded the metallic nights; finally, the panicky flight of the animals. For what was happening had happened many centuries ago ” (50)]. The association of fire with the cyclical development of history dates back to ancient mythologies to which Borges refers in his “La doctrina de los ciclos” [“The Doctrine of Cycles”]: “En la cosmogonía de los estoicos, Zeus se alimenta del mundo: el universo es consumido cíclicamente por el fuego que lo engendró, y resurge de la aniquilación para repetir una idéntica historia” (Obras 1:387) [“In the Stoic cosmogony, “Zeus feeds upon the world”: the universe is consumed cyclically by the same fire which engendered it and rises up again from annihilation to repeat an identical history” (68)]. According to Donald Shaw, the repetition of the temples, which occur successively along the banks of the river, also “symbolizes human history” (26). On the other hand, the use of such phrases as “las infinitas aldeas” (Obras 1:451) [“the infinite villages” (45)], “los árboles incesantes” (Obras 1:451) [“the incessant trees” (45)], “el vasto colegio” (Obras 1:452) [“the vast . . . college ” (47)], and “la enorme alucinación” (Obras 1:452) [“the enormous hallucination” (47)] indicates the presence of the infinite, an issue Borges was passionate about ’s thoughts and actions bridge the ideas of eterthroughout his life. The magician nal return and infinity. Meditating about the difficulties involved in creating into a substantial existence someone who is first conceived in a dream, he realizes that “el empeño de modelar la materia incoherente y vertiginosa de que se componen los sueños es el más arduo que puede acometer un varón, aunque penetre todos los enigmas del orden superior y del inferior: mucho más arduo

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que tejer una cuerda de arena o que amonedar el viento sin cara” (Obras 1:452) [“the effort to mold the incoherent and vertiginous matter dreams are made of was the most arduous task a man could undertake though he might penetrate all the enigmas of the upper and lower orders: much more arduous than weaving a rope of sand or coining the faceless wind ” (47)]. The magician’s successful realization of his project, which turns out to be just a link ina chain of creations (none of which is realized in exactly the same way), however, exemplifies the possibility of giving form to the unlimitable and reconciles the ideas of repetition and infinity. The temple, “el recinto circular” (Obras 1:451) [“the circular enclosure” (45)], where the magician feels the presence of the sacred forces necessary for creation, is also a place that reveals that the intent to level the distance between the magician and God is an act of self-deception. In the ruins, the temple, the place where “dios no recibe honor de los hombres, ” [“god no longer received the homage of men” (45)] the magician is treated almost like a god by the native people: “los hombres de la región habían espiado con respeto su sueño y solicitaban su amparo o temían su magia” (Obras 1:451) [“men of the 20

region had respectfully spied upon his sleep and were solicitous of his favor or feared his magic” (46)]. The magician is also introduced to the story as a part of the legend, by means of the mythical discourse, full of suspense and apparent contradiction that creates an aura of mystery over him:“Nadie lo vio desembarcar en la unánime noche, nadie vio la canoa de bambú . . . Lo cierto es que el hombre gris besó el fango” (Obras 1:451; my italics) [“No one saw him disembarking the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe . . . .The truth is that the obscure man kissed the mud.” (45)]. The magician, a man, seems to obtain divine knowledge, for he makes pact with the God of Fire who breathes lifeinto the magician’s creation; together they bring the magician’s dream to “reality”: “Ese múltiple dios le reveló que su nombre terrenal era Fuego, que en ese templo circular(y en otros iguales ) le habían rendido sacrificios y culto y que mágicamente animaría al fantasma soñado, de suerte que todas las criaturas, excepto el Fuego mismo y el so ñador, lo pensaran un hombre de carne y hueso” (Obras 1:453) [“This multiple god revealed to him that its earthly name was Fire, that in the circular temple (and in others of its kind) people had rendered it sacrifices and cult andthat it would magically give life to the sleeping phantom, in such a way that all creatures except Fire itself ” (48)]. and the dreamer would believe him to be a man of flesh and blood Further, the interaction between the magician and his pupil, identified in the story as father and son, has both human and divine connotations. The


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characters have intrinsic similarities. Physically, the boy resembles his ‘father’: “Era un muchacho taciturno, cetrino, díscolo a veces, de rasgos afilados que repetían los de su soñador” (Obras 1:452) [“He was a silent boy, sallow, sometimes obstinate, with sharp features which reproduced those of the dreamer ” (47)]. The boy is also a part of the legend, of a mythical elliptical discourse which refers to an indefinite but long time:“Al cabo de un tiempo que ciertos narradores de su historia prefieren computar en años y otros en lustros, lo despertaron dos remeros a medianoche: no pudo ver sus caras, pero le hablaron de un hombre mágico en un templo del Norte, capaz de hollar el fuego y de no quemarse” (Obras 1:454) [“After a time, which some narrators of his story prefer to compute in years and others in lustra, he was awakened one midnight by two boatmen; he could not see their faces, but they told him of a magic man in a temple of the North who could walk upon fire and not be burned” (49)]. The similarity culminates in the revelation of the ontology that they share, namely that they are both creations of someone else’s dream. The magician discovers that he himself, like his own pupil, is just somebody’s dream: “Con alivio, con humillación, con terror, comprendió que él también era una apariencia, que otro estaba soñándolo” (Obras 1:455) [“With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another ” (50)]. “[un] mero simBy means of his own creation the magician reveals himself to be ulacro” (Obras 1:454) [“a mere image” (50)] that challenges the Christian idea that “el Hijo es la reconciliación de Dios con el mundo” (Obras 1:210) [“the Son is God’s reconciliation with the world” (85)]. His attempts to reconcile the existence of his son with the ‘real’ world result in the magician’s recognition of his own distance from it due to his own dream-like ontology. The magician’s revelation undermines the uniqueness of his project. The magician’s activity as a creator echoes Schopenhauer’s idea that the “world is the objectification of the will ” (IX). A similar idea is suggested by Lewis Carroll, whose Through the Looking Glass Borges quotes in the epigraph: “And if he left off dreaming about you . . . . ” In his prologue to Carroll ’s Obras Completas, Borges refers to the “sueño recíproco” (Obras 4:102) [“a reciprocal dream”] described in this book which undermines the hierarchy between the creator and the creation. A similar principle functions in Borges ’s own text: though the dreamers do not dream each other, they are both dream-creations in the narrative, creation. The image of ruins introduces the motifs of destruction and nostalgiato the text. On the literal level, the ruins of theemple t symbolize both the absence and presence of God. Indeed, in this mutilated place, the God of Fire is no longer

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worshipped but still can be evoked. The magician ’s dream, inspired by his vision of the “ruinas” of the temple, and the monument that is both a tiger and a horse (and dedicated to the God of Fire), brings that divinity into“presence”: “[el mago] soñó con la estatua. La soño viva, trémula: no era un atroz bastardo de tigre y potro, sino a la vez esas dos criaturas vehementes y también un toro, una rosa, una tempestad. Ese múltiple dios le reveló que su nombre terrenal era Fuego” (Obras 1:453) [“. . . he dreamt of the statue. He dreamt of it as a living, tremulous thing: it was not an atrocious mongrel of tiger or horse, but both these vehement creatures at once and also a bull, a rose, a tempest. Thismultiple god revealed to him that its earthly name was Fire” (48)]. The temple, devoted to the God of Fire, is first ruined by fire and then is brought to ashes: “Las ruinas del santuario del dios del Fuego fueron destruidas por el fuego. En un alba sin pájaros el mago vio cernirse contra los muros el incendio concéntrico” (Obras 1:454–455) [“The ruins of the fire god’s sanctuary were destroyed by fire. In a ” (50)]. birdless dawn the magician saw the concentric blaze close round the wall The ruins also function as a metaphor for incompleteness in this text. The physical incompleteness of the magician’s creation is emphasized throughout 21

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the story. The boy has been created from the fragments: “Lo soñó activo, caluroso, secreto, del grandor de un puño cerrado, color granate en la penumbra de un cuerpo humano aún sin cara ni sexo ” (Obras 1:453) [“He dreamt it as active, warm, secret, the size of a closed fist, of garnet color in the penumbra of a human body as yet without face or sex ” (47–48)]. The similarity between the magician’s creation and “un rojo Adán” from clay emphasizes the dependence of the created boy on the magician. With this parallelism, the narrator introduces the golem motif to the text: “En las cosmogonías gnósticas, los demiurgos amasan un rojo Adán que no logra ponerse de pie; tan inhábil y rudo y elemental como ese Adán de sueño que las noches del mago habían fabricado” (Obras 1:453) [“In the Gnostic cosmogonies, the demiurgi knead and mold a red Adam who cannot stand alone; as unskillful and crude and elementary as this Adam of dust was the Adam of dreams fabricated by the magician ’s nights of effort ” (48)]. In addition to physical imperfections and incompleteness, the created boy has essential cognitive gaps: he is lacking in knowledge about his srcin and his past “para que no supiera nunca que era un fantasma, para que se creyera un hombre como los otros” (Obras 1:454) [“So that he would never know he was a phantom, so that he would be thought a man like others” (49)]. As the last paragraph of the story indicates, the magician himself displays similar ontological and epistemological limitations. His desire to escape the fire 23


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displays him as living in the fallacy of thinking that he would be burnt aswould any human being. As the fire approaches, however, he realizes that it cannot harm or hurt him because his existence, as that of his creation, the golem-boy, is (a part of) somebody’s dream: “En un alba sin pájaros el mago vio cenirse contra los muros el incendio concéntrico. Por un instante, pensó refugiarse en las aguas, pero luego comprendi ó que la muerte ven ía a coronar su vejez y a absolverlo de sus trabajos. Camin ó contra los jirones de fuego. Estos no mordieron su carne, éstos lo acariciaron y lo inundaron sin calor y sin combustión. Con alivio, con humillación, con terror, comprendió que él también era una apariencia, que otro estaba soñándolo” (Obras 1:455) [“In a birdless dawn the magician saw the concentric blaze close round the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the river, but then he knew the death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him of his labors. He walked into the shreds of flame. But they did not bite into his flesh, they caressed him and engulfed him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearanc e, dreamt by another” (50)]. There are several allusions, however, on the fictional nature of the magician—of which he was not aware—that make irony a discursive strategy and illustrate its demystifying function in this text. The story evokes a burlesque ethos, particularly when, in the narrator ’s meditations about father-son human relationships, metafictional references are embedded: “A todo padre le interesan los hijos que ha procreado (que ha permitido) en una mera confusión o felicidad; es natural que el mago temiera por el porvenir de aquel hijo, pensado entraña por entraña y rasgo por rasgo, en mil y una noches secretas” (Obras 1:454; italics added) [“All fathers are interested in the children they have procreated (they have permitted to exist) in mereconfusion or pleasure; it was natural that the magician should fear for the future of thatson, created in thought, limb by limb and feature by feature, in a thousand and one secret nights ” (50)]. The text mocks the magician’s worries that his son will discover that he is a phantom, as opposed to ‘real’ people among whom the magician includes himself: “Temió que su hijo . . . descubriera de algún modo su condición de mero simulacro. No ser un hombre, ser la proyección del sueño de otro hombre ¡qué humillación incomparable, qué vértigo!” (Obras 1:454) [“He feared his son might . . . discover in some way that his condition was that of a mere image. Not to be a man, to be the projection of another man’s dream, what a feeling of humiliation, of vertigo!” (50)]. The magician’s erroneous consideration of himself as a human being and God ’s rival may provoke the reader ’s retrospective laughter, as the magician himself turns out to be a reflection,

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“un fantasma,” [“a mere image”] and his knowledge about himself and human beings is limited by his creator ’s ability to dream. The magician inherits both the ability to dream and the limitations of the human-dreamer; he turns out to be a false embodiment of the divine. The circularity provides the reconciliation and the leveling of the apparent dichotomies of dream/reality, eternal return/infinity and creator/creation.

The Illusion of Power: the Magic Disc, Human Vulnerability, and the Divine Presence in “El disco” The persistent human desire to transcend the limits of its control over the surrounding world and to surpass the borders between the object and its infinite environment is a theme of Borges’s later stories, such as“El disco” and “El libro de arena.” In “El disco” [“The Disk”] the search for a magical object “el disco,” a metaphorical embodiment of the infinite divine power over the universe, becomes the protagonist’s obsession. The mimetic archaic setting and the impossible object-place makes this story almost a Borgesean “fairy-tale ” (Lindstrom 104) which challenges any possibility of understanding and limiting the universe by giving it a geometric form. The inherent human aspirations for power and money embodied by the “inevitably ironic ” narrator prove human control over the universe to be an illusion. The disk, “el c írculo euclidiano, que admite solamente una cara ” (Obras 3:73) [“the Euclidean circle, which has but one face” (485)], cannot be materialized, and therefore the narrator’s desire to possess it leads to its inevitable loss. For Isern, the king of Secgens, who claims to have the disk, it symbolizes the divine power of Odin, “the father of all gods” (Sturluson 48), who he asserts is 24

his relative: “Mi nombre es Isern y soy de la estirpe de Odín” (Obras 3:66) [“My name is Isern and I am of the line of Odin ” (478). The possession of this unique disk defines Isern’s identity as a king: “—Es el disco de Odín. Tiene un solo lado. En la tierra no hay otra cosa que tenga un solo lado. Mientras esté en mi mano seré el rey” (Obras 3:67) [“ ‘It is a disk of Odin,’ the old man said in a patient voice, as though he were speaking to a child. ‘It has but one side. There is not another thing on earth that has but one side. So long as I hold it in my hand I shall be king ’” (478)]. This disk, an invisible image/object, is brought into existence by the power of Isern ’s imagination and mythical 25


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consciousness. Typically for the latter, as described by Ernst Cassirer, the object “is not a fixed form that imprints itself into consciousness but is a product of formative operation” (Cassirer 29). Indeed, the narrator is unable to see the disk: “Abrió la palma de la mano que era huesuda. No había nada en la mano. Estaba vacía” (Obras 3:67) [“He opened his hand and showed me his bony palm. There was nothing in it” (478)]. The existence of the disk appears to be a matter of beliefand magic. As the king explains, there is no other object of this shape in the universe. The narrator’s attempts to trade the disk inevitably fail, as his conversation with the king illustrates: “—En la choza tengo escondido un cofre de monedas. Son de oro y brillan como la hacha. Si me das el disco de Odín, yo te doy el cofre. Dijo tercamente:—No quiero” (Obras 3:67) [“ ‘In my hut I’ve got a chest full of money hidden away. Gold coins, and they shine as my ax . . . If you give the disk of Odin to me, I will give you the chest.’ ‘I will not,’ he said gruffly.” (478)]. The disk lacks any material value and cannot be exchanged. For this greedy woodcutter, a representative of the generation and religion that have replaced those of the king, the medal is associated only with materialistic advantages:

“Entonces yo sentí la codicia de poseer el disco. Si fuera mío, lo podría vender por una barra de oro y ser ía un rey” (Obras 3:67) [“It was then I felt a gnawing to own the disk myself. If it were mine, I could sell it for a bar of gold and then I would be a king” (478)]. Though the narrator never obtains the disk (as the universe cannot be limited to a geometrical form accessible to people), he never abandons his aspiration to possess this symbol of the world in its totality. The search for the disk becomes the main preoccupation of his life:“Al volver a mi casa busqué el disco. No lo encontré. Hace años que sigo buscando” (Obras 3:67). [“When I got back to my house I looked for the disk. But I couldn’t find it. I have been looking for it for years” (479)]. The story takes place in the almost‘realistic’ archaic setting where the narrator lives, and his self-introduction emphasizes the contrast between himself and the king Isern who possesses, or believes he possesses, the magic disk, an impossible object. The references to the narrator’s ascetic house breathe with antiquity, a remoteness in time and space, and introduce the ideas of uniformity and circularity which the man’s life and the shape of the world have in common: “La choza en que nací y en la que pronto habré de morir queda al borde del bosque. Del bosque dicen que se alarga hasta el mar que rodea toda la tierra y por el que andancasas de madera iguales a la mía” (Obras 3:66; italics added) [“The hut I was born in, and where’m I soon to die, sits at the edge of the woods.

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They say these woods go on and on, right to the ocean that surrounds the entire world; they say that wooden houses like mine travel on that ocean” (477; italics added)]. From the first paragraph, which gives the story the tone of legend and incorporates metafictional elements, the narrator points to his cognitive and physical limits: “Del bosque dicen que se alarga hasta el mar que rodea toda la tierra y por el que andan casas de madera iguales a la mía. No sé; nunca lo he visto. Tampoco he visto el otro lado del bosque.” (Obras 3:66; italics added) [“They say these woods go on and on, right to the ocean that surrounds the entire world; they say that wooden houses like mine travel on that ocean. I wouldn’t know; I’ve never seen it. I’ve not seen the other side of the woods, either.” (477, italics added)]. As with his cabin, located somewhere in medieval Scandinavia, the woodcutter is one among many: “Soy leñador. El nombre no importa” (Obras 3:66) [“I am a woodcutter. My name doesn’t matter” (477)]. The king, however, is unique. He is associated with the physical and spiritual strength of the person-prophet-god:“Abrí y entró un desconocido. Era un hombre alto y viejo, envuelto en una manta raída. Le cruzaba la cara una cicatriz. Los años parecían haberle dado más autoridad que flaqueza “ (Obras 3:66) [“I opened the door and a stranger came in. He was a tall, elderly man all wrapped up in a worn-out old blanket. A scar sliced across his face. The years looked to have given him more authority than frailty” (477)]. The appearance of Isern, as described by the narrator, echoes some elements of the scene of the appearance of Odín before Olaf Tryggvason, the king of Norway, to which Borges and Mariá Esther Vázques refer in Literaturas Germánicas medievales: “a la ó una noche corte de Olaf Tryggvason, que se había convertido a la nueva fe, lleg un hombre viejo, envuelto en una capa oscura y con el ala del sombrero sobre los ojos” (109) [“One night an old man wrapped in a dark cloak and with the brim of the hat on his eyes arrived to the court of Olaf Tryggvason, who has been converted to the new religion”]. The narrator ’s simplistic vision of the world, constructed around his personal needs and weaknesses, is also contrasted with the glorious past of the king, which reminds the reader of the bravery and passion of the Eddic (medieval) heroes:“Muchas veces los llevé a [los Secgens] a la victoria en la dura batalla, pero en la hora del destino perdí mi reino” (Obras 3:66) [“Many times did I lead them [the Secgens] to victory in hard combat, but at the hour that fate decreed, I lost my kingdom” (478)]. Isern, who possesses “the dramatic strength” and “absolute courage” of the epic character (Ker 20), has lost everything except the disk and his self-esteem. Echoing the folkloric motifs of the wanderer seeking a night’s lodging and the classical image of the barefoot


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poet/bard, the king has been able to go over the whole of Saxony by foot, as he tells the narrator: “—No tengo hogar y duermo donde puedo. He recorrido toda Sajonia” (Obras 3:66) [“ ‘I am without a home, and I sleep wherever I can. I have wandered all across Saxony’ ” (477)]. The king is in exile because of his faith, which is different from the accepted one: “Ando por los caminos del destierro pero a ún soy el rey porque tengo el disco” (Obras 3:67) [“ ‘I wander the paths of exile, but still I am king, for I have the disk’” (478)]. Even in banishment, he continues to worship Odin. The narrator, in contrast, is Christian. As he tells the king, “Yo no venero a Odín . . . . Yo venero a Cristo ” (Obras 3:22) [“ ‘I do not worship Odin. . . . I worship Christ’” (478)]. The symbolic meal of bread and fish ( “pan y pescado”) which the narrator offers to the king also has explicit Christian connotations, as it echoes the biblical story of the loaves and the fishes: “And he [Jesus] commanded the multitude to sit down on the grass, and took the five loaves, and the two fishes . . . and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude” (Matthew 20:16). In this way, the contrast between the woodcutter and the king, and the topos of the king ’s exile, reflect the conflict between Christianity and Paganism, a recurrent theme in medieval Germanic literatures, as Borges et al. observe in Literaturas Germánicas Medievales(see, for instance, p. 117). In spite of the radical difference betweenthe characters, both fail to obtain the divine power of possession and control over the universe which is embodied in the impossible object-place, the disk. This makes the story oscillate between “inevitably ironic” (Frye 42) and moralistic fairy-tale. Already in the first paragraph of the story, which, like the disk, has a circular structure, the narrator euphemistically refers to his endless search for the disk: “y ahora es otra cosa la que busco y seguiré buscando.” (Obras 3:66) [“and now it’s something else I’m after, and always will be” (477)]. The fact that the disk is not explicitly mentioned in the first paragraph creates an aura of mystery around thisunattainable object. The king loses his medal with his life, which turns out to be as vulnerable as that of any human being, and displays the disk to be a false embodiment of the divine protector. As the narrator confesses, “Un hachazo en la nuca bastó y sobró para que vacilara y cayera” (Obras 3:67) [“One ax blow to the back of his head was all it took; he wavered and fell” (478)]. Although the narrator says that he saw “un brillo” [“the gleam” (478)] in the moment of the King falling down, and that he marked the place where the disk fell, the medal and the world of Odin which it embodies seem to disappear together with Isern and his beliefs. 26

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The Infinite Book: Fear and Longing Whereas in “El disco” the king cherishes the disk, a symbolic representation of Odin’s pagan world, as his unique treasure, and the woodcutter strives to possess the unattainable at all cost; in “El libro de arena” [“The Book of Sand”], both the bible salesman and the narrator-protagonist (who displays striking similarities with the author) are terrified by possession of the infinite/impossible book, a metaphoric representation of the universe in its totality. The place as an object/metaphor, which incorporates infinite objects, and,as a concrete geographical location, illustrates the tension between the concepts of infinity and finitude, serves as a pseudo-realistic frame for the story, and allows the reader to observe the connections between this text and previous ones such as “El Aleph,” “Las ruinas circulares,” “Un resumen de las doctrinas de Einstein” [“A summary of Einstein’s doctrines”] and “El disco.” The title of the book, “El libro de arena,” manifests a conflict, indicated already in the similarly impossible object of “the rope of sand,” a quote from George Herbert’s poem “Yoke” which serves as an epigraph to Borges ’s story. 28

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The tension emerges because though “ni el libro ni la arena tienen ni principio ni fin” (Obras 3:69) [“neither sand nor this book has a beginning or an end” (481)], the text playfully emphasizes that the book has a shape typical for books: “Era un volumen en octavo encuadernado en tela” (Obras 3:68) [“It was a clothbound octavo volume” (481)]. The narrator’s description of the magical book follows the enumeration of the mathematical axiom which opens he t story: “La línea consta de un n úmero; infinito de puntos, el plano, de un número infinito de líneas; el volumen, de un número infinito de planos; el hipervolumen, de un número infinito de volúmenes . . .” (Obras 3:68) [“The line consists of an infinite number of points; the plane, of an infinite number of lines; the volume, of an infinite number of planes; the hypervolume, of an 30

infinite number of volumes” (480)]. Similar reference to the laws of mathematics appear in Borges’s earlier essay “Un resumen de las doctrinas de Einstein ” srcinally published in Hogar on October 14, 1938: “Una línea, por breve que sea, contiene un n úmero infinito de puntos; un cuadrado . . . contiene un número infinito de líneas; un cubo . . . contiene un n úmero infinito de cuadrados; un hipecubo . . . contendrá . . . un n úmero infinito de cubos.” (Obras 4:394) [“A line as short as it is . . . contains an infinite number of lines; a cube . . . contains an infinite number of squares; a hypercube . . . will contain an infinite number of cubes ”]. Thus, by utilizing one of his favorite devices, Borges combines mathematical axioms (through an auto-quotation) with fantastic


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elements associated with the infinite book to emphasize that the form of the Book of Sand both evokes and deviates from a typical literary format. Further, the narrator ’s experience in examining the Book leaves him astonished: its physical qualities do not conform to three dimensions or the conventional characteristics associated with linearity. As the narrator ’s playful metacritique of the beginning of his story suggests: “No, decididamente no es éste, more geométrico, el mejor modo de iniciar mi relato.” (Obras 3:68) [“No—this, more geometrico, is decidedly not the best way to begin my tale ” (480)]. Any geometric description of the book titled “Holy Writ,” produced in remote India, and brought by the mysterious salesman of bibles to the protagonist’s house, will remain insufficient. The Book ’s magic structure and nature echo those of the Torah. The narrator explicitly mentions the similarity between these two works:“Las páginas, que me parecieron gastadas y de pobre tipografía, estaban impresas a dos columnas a la manera de una biblia.” (Obras 3:68–69) [“The pages, which seemed worn and badly set were printed in double columns, like a Bible ” (481)]. Indeed, the book literally subverts the notion of conventional page order, for one can never return to the page one has read, as the narrator ’s attempt to follow its pages illustrates: “Me llamó la atención que la página par llevara el í; el dorso estanúmero (digamos) 40.514 y la impar, la siguiente, 999. La volv ba numerado con ocho cifras.” (Obras 3:69) [“I was stuck by an odd fact: the even-numbered page would carry the number 40,514, let us say, while the odd-numbered page that followed it would be 999. I turned the page; the next page bore an eight-digit number.” (481)]. This characteristic of the Book of Sand might lead readers to think about the Bible. Similarly, while commenting on Job 28:13, Rabbi Eleazar declares that any reconstruction of the srcinal order of the Torah demands absolute/divine knowledge inaccessible to people: “No man knoweth its order . . . . The various sections of the Torah were not given in theircorrect order. For if they had been givenni their correct order, anyone who read them would be able to wake the dead and perform miracles. For this reason the correct order and arrangement of the Torah were hidden and are known only to the Holy One” (qtd. in Scholem 37). Moreover, the kabbalistic identification of the Torah with the universe and the “living organism ” (Scholem 44) which possesses “manifold”/“infinite meanings” (Scholem 50) can easily be extended on to the Book of Sand. The book grows before the narrator’s eyes; the pages of the book, like sand itself, seem to be in constant motion, making it impossible to count or order them. As the narrator describes, “Apoyé la mano izquierda sobre la portada y abrí con el dedo pulgar casi pegado

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al índice. Todo fue inútil: siempre se interponían varias hojas entre la portada y la mano. Era como sibrotaran del libro” (Obras 3:69; italics added) [“I took the cover in my left hand and opened the book, my thumb and forefinger almost touching. It was impossible: several pages always lay between the cover and my hand. It was as though they grew from the very book” (481)]. The infinite number of pages implies infinite meanings, the fact that the bible salesman desperately tries to rationalize: “El n úmero de páginas de este libro es exactamente infinito. Ninguna es la primera; ninguna, la última. No sé por qué están numeradas de ese modo arbitrario. Acaso para dar a entender que los t érminos de una serie infinita admiten cualquier n úmero.” (Obras 3:69). [“ ‘The number of pages in this book is literally infinite. No page is the first page; no page is the last. I don’t know why they’re numbered in this arbitrary way, but perhaps it’s to give one to understand that the terms of an infinite series can be numbered any way whatever.’ ” (482)]. However, his attempt to interpret the book’s infinite value in terms of logic does not persuade the narrator, who prefers to think about this object in terms of sitpossible sacred nature: “Sus consideraciones me irritaron. Le pregunté:—¿Usted es religioso sin duda?” (Obras 3:69) [“His musings irritated me. ‘You,’ I said, ‘are a religious man, are you not?’” (482)]. As with the Bible, it is unknown when exactly the Book of Sand was written. Whereas the narrator supposes that the book dates back to the 19 th century, the salesman insists that it is impossible to know when it was printed: “No s é. No lo he sabido nunca” (Obras 3:68) [“ ‘I don’t know . . . Never did know’ ” (481)]. Echoing the salesman’s reference to the book as “[el] libro diabólico” (Obras 3:69) [“[the] diabolic book” (482)], Gerry O’Sullivan considers the Book of Sand to be “the Bible’s sinister Other” (116). In his idealized vision, the Bible “remains the West’s exemplar of and for textual unity” (116); the Book of Sand, on the contrary, is“un objeto de pesadilla, una cosa obscena que infamaba y corrompía la realidad” (Obras 3:71) [“a nightmare thing, an obscene thing, and that it defiled and corrupted reality.” (483)]. The Bible is an inexhaustible story about the creation of the world and the early stages of its diachronic development. The Book of Sand, however, is a metaphoric representation of the universe in its syncronic totality which is impossible to capture and interpret completely, and which Borges himself considered to be “a variant of ‘The Aleph’” (Borges qtd. in Cortínez 58). Indeed, the narrator associates the scope of the book with that of the world, when he affirms that the destruction of the former would lead to the apocalypse: “Pensé en el fuego, pero temí que la combustión de un libro infinito fuera parejamente infinita y


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sofocara de humo al planeta” (Obras 3:71) [“I considered fire, but I feared that the burning of an infinite book might be similarly infinite, and suffocate the planet in smoke.” (483)]. From ancient times, books, written scrolls, or sentences inscribed on strips of paper have been used as amulets. The Book of Sand has primarily a similar protective function. Its owner accepted the existence of the book as a given magical object: “Su poseedor no sabía leer. Sospecho que en el Libro de los Libros vio un amuleto. Era de la casta más baja; la gente no podía pisar su sombra, sin contaminación.” (Obras 3:69) [“ ‘The man who owned it didn’t know how to read. I suspect he saw the Book of Books as an amulet. He was of the lowest caste; people could not so much as step on his shadow without being defiled’ ” (481)]. On the contrary, the salesman and the narrator try to defend themselves from the absorbing “the Book of Sand” which will not be closed. The possession of the “libro imposible” (Obras 3:70) [“the impossible book” (483)] evokes the fear in both of them that their lives would be dissolved as grains of sand when faced with the engrossing enigma of the world. Obtaining this magic book, the narrator loses his peaceful existence and radically changes his style of life; he becomes completely dedicated to the study of the book:“Me quedaban unos amigos; dejé de verlos. Prisionero del Libro, casi no me asomaba a la calle” (Obras 3:70) [“I had but few friends left, and those, I stopped seeing. A prisoner of the Book, I hardly left my house” (483)]. The fact that the book is written in the language of Indostan, which the narrator does not know but which he still tries to read, moves Gerardo Mario Goloboff to suggest that this story celebrates “la palabra [que] significa por su sola/improbable presencia” (262) [“the word [which] signifies by its only/ improbable presence”]. Moreover, the presence of the bookawakens in the narrator two persistent preoccupations: “el temor de que lo robaron, y después el recelo de que no fuera verdaderamente infinito” (Obras 3:70) [“. . . the fear that it would be stolen from me, and to that, the suspicion that it might not be truly infinite. ” (483)]. The doubting of the infinite evokes claustrophobia: a fear of being bounded by the limits of the universe. This fear of finitude may be also considered one of the expressions of “a theme of the preparation for death ” (Brant 73) which in Herbert J. Brant’s opinion is characteristic of Borges ’s stories in El libro de arena. To overcome their epistemological and ontological worries, boththe salesman and the narrator try to get rid of the monstrous book. To the narrator’s surprise, the salesman does not haggle over the price the narrator offers him:“Me asombró que no regateara . . . No contó los billetes, y los guardó” (Obras 3:70) [“I was

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astonished that he did not haggle . . . . He did not count the money, but merely put the bills into his pocket” (482)]. As the narrator points out, “Sólo después comprendería que había entrado en mi casa con la decisión de vender el libro” (Obras 3:70) [“Only later was I to realize that he had entered my house already determined to sell the book” (482)]. Following Chesterton’s observation that “ el mejor lugar para ocultar una hoja es un bosque” (Obras 3:71) [“the best place to hide a leaf is in the forest” (483)], the narrator himself leaves the “Aproveché un desbook in the National Library and tries to forget its location: cuido de los empleados para perder el Libro de Arena en uno de los húmedos anaqueles. Traté de no fijarme a qué altura ni a qué distancia de la puerta. Siento un poco de alivio, pero no quiero ni pasar por la calle México” (Obras 3:71) ’ distraction to hide the Book of Sand on one [“I took advantage of the librarians of the library’s damp shelves; I tried not to notice how high up, or how far from the door. I now feel a little better, but I refuse even to walk down the street the library’s on” (483)]. The character’s approach to the book reflects theambiguity of the human aspirations to embrace the infinite, to examine it in terms of logic, and at the same time to resist the idea of the limits, uniformity and exhaustibility of the world. The use of the pseudorealistic setting stands in contrast to the magical nature of the book and to other distant locations mentioned in the text. The narrator lives “en un cuarto piso de la calle Belgrano” (Obras 3:68) [“in a fifthfloor apartment on Calle Belgrano” (480)]. This, together with the facts that he worked in “la Biblioteca Nacional,” possessed Wyclif’s Bible, and expressed his affection for Robert Stevenson and David Hume, allows the reader to recognize the presence of a ‘slightly fictionalized’ Borges-author in this story. At the same time, the enigmatic stranger of Norwegian srcin, as the narrator first supposes, turns out to be from the remote “Orcadas” [“Orkneys”], a place mentioned in Scandinavian Eddas. 31

The narrator’s account of his meeting with thestranger also echoes the one between the woodcutter and the king in “El disco”: “Hará unos meses, al atardecer, oí un golpe en la puerta. Abrí y entró un desconocido. Era un hombre alto, de rasgos desdibujados” (Obras 3:68) [“One evening a few months ago, I heard a knock at my door. I opened it, and a stranger stepped in. He was a tall man, with blurred, vague features” (480)]. Likewise, the woodcutter recalls his memories: “Una tarde oí pasos trabajosos y luego un golpe. Abrí y entró un desconocido. Era un hombre alto y viejo” (Obras 3:66) [“One evening I heard heavy, dragging footsteps and then a knock. I opened the door and a stranger came in. He was a tall, elderly man” (475)]. Considering the use of repetition


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in Scandinavian medieval literature, Borges points out:“La repetición de situaciones y de palabras textuales es intencional de partede los autores y su propósito, sin duda, ha sido señalar al lector la correspondencia entre lo aparentemente nuevo y lo antiguo” (LGM 135) [“The repetition of situations and specificwords is intended by the authors as an illustration, no doubt, of correspondencies between the old and the new ”]. Repetition seems to play a similar function in Borges’s own narratives, especially in “El disco” and “El libro de arena.” In this way, a co-presence of the distinct locations and the fictional worlds in the stories subverts conventional measures of time and space and shows Borges’s oeuvre to be a continuum. The Book of Sand is metaphorical representation of the primacy of the enigmatic universe over inevitably incomplete interpretations attempted by human beings. As Borges points out in his lecture on the Kabbalah, the concept of Ein-sof (infinity), which is relevant for both the Bible and the Book of Sand, is intrinsically connected with “lo oculto” (Obras 3:272), with the hidden and with the mysterious. This makes the equally paradoxical places—the book and the world—constant objects of temptation for the human intellect.

·2· PLACE AS DISPLACEMENT IN CORT Á ZAR ’ S HOPSCOTCH

[T]he path almost always seems to lead nowhere in particular, and . . . the important point is not where it leads but that it should lead somewhere Fyo dor Dos toev sky

Borges’s approach to place as a metaphysical and metafictional construct was influential for Cortázar’s oeuvre. This chapter unravels the significance of Borges’s works in the gestation of the cities in Rayuela [Hopscotch], as well as Cortázar’s swerving from Borges’s conceptions. In Rayuela the notions of place and displacement converge to underline one of the novel ’s major themes: the protagonist’s permanent condition of exile. The blurring of the boundaries between 1

place and displacement begins in the first part, “Del lado de allá” [“From the Other Side”], becomes more prominent in the second,“Del lado de acá” [“From This Side ”], and culminates in the third section, “De otros lados ” [“From Diverse Sides”]. The binary functioning of Parisas a chronotope and a metaphor in “Del lado de allá” [“From the Other Side”] conveys Oliveira’s displacement in the city of his choice. The carnivalesque and metaphysical features of Buenos Aires in “Del lado de acá” [“From This Side”] underscore Oliveira’s anxiety and alienation in his native city to which he is forced to return. Although the actions of the first part ( “Del lado de allá” [“From the Other Side”]) occur in Paris, and those of the second ( “Del lado de acá” [“From This

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Side”]) in Buenos Aires, the third section (“De otros lados” [“From Diverse Sides”]) retroactively makes one question an apparent division established by and between the previous two, and thusemphasizes Oliveira’s homelessness as a permanent condition in the novel. Indeed,by ludically combining the two distinct urban spaces profiled in earlier chapters, and thus creating a hopscotch-like movement whereby the previous chapters alternate in an unpredictable pattern, “De otros lados” [“From Diverse Sides”] leads the reader, in the end, to question the ‘real’ place of action in the text. Following this structure, the reader is invited to “jump” from chapter to chapter, to read the novel in a partic ular order indicated by the author in “Tablero de direcciones” [“Table of instructions”] rather then by following a linear sequence of numbers. This last section, where Paris and Buenos Aires become almost interchangeable, undermines any idea of stability traditionally associated with the mention of a given place. The first two parts internalize and thematize Oliveira’s displacement by combining references to specific urban topography and the overt metafictional dimension of both Paris and Buenos Aires. I have noticed that Cort ázar’s cities have been created in a ludic dialogue with the long literary tradition of 2

nineteenth century European novelists such as Honor é de Balzac and Fyodor Dostoevsky as well as with the Argentinean Jorge Luis Borges, who appear to be Cortázar’s implicit interlocutors. Indeed, Paris in Rayuela serves a double function: like its nineteenth century precursors, traditional in the creation of the novelistic space and unlike its literary antecedents, overtly metafictional. Motifs such as the cramped room in the city, the search with no particular purpose, the path, the capital as a centerof intellectuals and a challenge of their aspirations, and the woman-city equation are familiar to the readers of Balzac ’s and Dostoevsky ’s classical works, where the city fulfills “the representational ” function of the chronotope as described by Bakhtin: “[it] makes narrative events concrete, makes them take on flesh, causes blood to flow in their veins” (250). Abundant in parallels with its nineteenth century precursors and bein g explicit ly metaphorical, Paris also is a metafictional construct in Rayuela, another version of reality created by the human imagination. Likewise, Buenos Aires is both a recognizable city and a deliberately invented world. It is both a carnivalesque and metaphysical urban space. Cortázar’s Buenos Aires is also imbued with ludic references to motifs and symbols recurrent in Borges’s works, such as human life as determined by literary scenarios, Pascal’s notion of the sphere, and the labyrinth. Indeed, the

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metaphysical-artistic Buenos Aires of Rayuela , an image created by the protagonist’s imagination overtly distanced from the empirical urban space, is probably inspired by Borges’s Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923). In Borges’s early poetry, such an approach to place possibly results from a tension between the author’s preoccupation with articulating a poetics of the local, the city he encountered after his return from Europe in 1921, and his commitments to philosophical idealism, that is, between topos and logos. In Cortázar’s novel, on the other hand, the city’s both carnivalesque and metaphysical aspects artistically convey the protagonist’s and the author’s despair in a world he (they) cannot accept, and function as a mask of anxiety. The prominence of the metafictional dimension in the representations of Paris and Buenos Aires in the first two sections of the novel emphasizes their common thematic function as places of exile, palimpsests where solitude and “un intellectual en grado similitude dominate. Indeed, the life of Horacio Oliveira, extremo” [“an intellectual to the extreme”] (Barranechea 677), in both these cities exemplifies exile, defined by Soren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger as a necessary condition for the intellectual and spiritual development of the indi3

vidual. Kierkegaard, the father of existentialism—a philosophical school studied by Cortázar—is among the first philosophers who described the feeling of displacement in one’s own home. Connecting physical and mental topography, Kierkegaard associates displacement with freedom, both artistic and personal. He states that “displacement is what returns us to our selves . . . to our true place or to our place in truth ” (qtd. in Houe 359). Developing Kierkegaard’s thoughts, Edward Said, in his lecture“Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and Marginals, ” affirms that to be out of place is to be in the right ’s represenplace for the modern intellectual. After referring to Theodor Adorno tation of the intellectual (for whom to be in a permanent exile aispart of morality), Said metaphorically describes an intellectual as“ashipwrecked person who 4

learns how to live in a certain sense with the land, noton it . . . whose sense of mar” (44). velous never fails him and who is always a traveler, a provisional guest In a similar fashion, in his lecture course entitled An Introduction to Metaphysics, Heidegger also refers to the ideaof ‘true’ being as division. For him, the creative person is one“who must risk dispersion, instability, disorder” (78). Along the same lines, Oliveira’s dwellings in both Paris and Buenos Aires exemplify the protagonist’s exile, both territorial and spiritual; his place can be described (by a heideggerian term) as an “irrecuperable dis-placement ” (Heidegger qtd. in Casey 81).

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Towards the Challenge and the Refuge: Oliveira ’s Paris and the Capital Cities in Nineteenth Century Novels In the first part of the novel, the action takes place in Paris, “the capital of the nineteenth 146),Indeed, which is both modern in city par excel” (Benjamin lence, and a century metafictional construct. the lifethe of Oliveira Pari s echoes that of Balzac’s and Dostoevsky’s characters who dwell in their respective capital cities. The description of Paris in “Del lado de allá” reminds the reader of the opening of Balzac’s Pére Goriot, which takes place in Paris’s Latin quarter, where “[a] Parisian who gets lost, . . . would see only pensions and hospitals and private schools, only misery or boredom . . . just as, descending into the Catacombs, daylight fades further into darkness with every step, andthe guide’s song turns hollow” (Balzac 6). Likewise, Oliveira depicts the Latin Quarter as a place where “había solamente suciedad y miseria, vasos con restos de cerveza, medias en un rincón” (Cortázar 19) [“there was only filth and misery, glasses with steel beer, stockings in a corner” (Cortázar 13)]. Located in the Latin Quater, Oliveira’s room also evokes images of the lodgings of Eugene Rastignac and Rodion Raskolnikov, typical settings of nineteenth century individualists as described in Balzac ’s Pére Goriot and Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, respectively. Rastignac is described as living in a small, shabby room on the third floor, just below the attic, of a rundown pension in “the ugliest quarter” (3) of Paris where “there are no houses, and the inhabitants of the big city live in superimposed boxes ” (Bachelard 26). Likewise, Raskolnikov has left his mother and sister in their provincial town to come to live in a St. Petersburg room that the narrator characterizes as“more like a cupboard (sˇkaf) than a place to live in;” it is “tucked away under the roof of the high five-storied building ” (1). As if recalling Rastignac ’s and Raskolnikov ’s student lodgings, Oliveira and his Uruguayan girl-friend La Maga live in “dos habitaciones de falsos estudiantes en Par ís” (11) [“every cranny we holed up during our pseudo-student existence in Paris” (3)] located close to “la zona de terrenos baldíos” (14) [“the vacant lots” (6)], “una de las pocas zonas de París donde el cielo vale más que la tierra” (14) [“one of the few places in Paris where sky is worth more than ground” (6)]. The rooms in the hotel where Oliveira spends time with la Maga when the y start dating, as well as his own place, carry almost the same signs of poverty as those of his literary precursors:“Olía a blando, a sopa, en la alfombra del pasillo 5

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alguien había tirado un líquido azul que dibujaba como un par de alas. La pieza tenía dos ventanas con cortinas rojas, zurcidas y llenas de retazos; una luz úhmeda se filtraba como unángel hasta la cama de alcolchado amarillo” (31) [“There was a smell of toilet soap, of soup, on the rug in the hallway someone ahd spilled a blue liquid which had taken the shape of a pair of wings. The room had two windows with red curtains, full of patc hes. A damp light spread out like an angel over to the bed with a yellow spread.” (27)]. Oliveira’s living space is also cramped and airless, particularly when he, la Maga and hersick son Rocamadur live together: “Con la cama y Rocamadur y la cólera de los vecinos ya no quedaba casi espacio para vivir” (73–74) [“With the cot and Rocamadour and the complaints of the tenants there was barely any living-space left ” (77)]. Life in a cramped room contributes to the development of dissatisfaction which leads to the protagonist’s metaphysical search analogous to that of Rastignac and Raskolnikov. Throughout the novel, Oliveira recognizes that “me costaba mucho menos pensar que ser” (26) [“it was always easier to think than to be” (13)]. He constantly asks himself,“¿ Por qué no aceptar lo que estaba ocurriendo sin pretender explicarlo?” (27) [“Why couldn’t I accept what was happening without trying to explain it” (14)]. Like his literary predecessors, Oliveira is lacking a home. According to Bachelard’s phenomenological study of the influence of place on theformation of human psychology and imagination, at home an individual naturally develops a “primary metaphysics,” a sense of well-being and integration with life (Bachelard 9). Oliveira’s room, on the contrary, does not bring harmony into the protagonist’s life. For a religious understanding, for example, his airless and cramped place is rather associated with hell than with paradise. Whereas for Dostoevsky and Balzac this religious perspective can be inspirational for the creation of their characters and their lodgings, Cortázar is not profoundly interested in the theological counterpoise between the places of the Devil and the 9

Good Lord. Nevertheless, a theological vision of the influence of the place of dwelling on the formation of the individual’s outlook can be equally illuminating for the understanding of Oliveira’s perception of the surrounding world. As Janet A. Walker points out, in the Christian West “the quality of infinity is ascribed to God and limitation in space is reserved for the devil” (290), as it is seen in the remark of the ancient Greek alchemist Olympiodorus that God “is everywhere” and “not in the smallest place like the daemon.” (qtd. in Jung 285). Carl Jung further notes that “the individual ego, separated and split off from God is likely to become daemonic as soon as it accentuates its independence of God by its egocentricity” (qtd. in Walker 292). Given this context,

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then, it is appropriate to view Raskolnikov ’s, Rastignac’s and Oliveira’s cramped rooms as places of the cultivation of “daemonic egocentricity” and of the attempt to find an alternative to the existent order. All of them are tortured by the inability to“be” (Brody 13). Just as Raskolnikov tries to definehe t nature and limits of his self, Oliveira is looking for a totality, for a center, whose synonyms in the text are “un kibbutz del deseo,” [“a kibbutz of desire”], “una isla final” [“a final island”] and “la tierra de Hurqalya” [“the land of Hurqalya”]. However, whereas Raskolnikov’s metaphysical search leads him to commit a murder, a major crime against humankind in an act of self-assertion, Oliveira’s remains on the level of meditation and does not lead to any actions: “Entonces más valía pecar por omisión que por comisión” (344) [“So it was better to sin through omission than through commission” (418)]. As with the cities of his European precursors, Cortázar’s Paris is a center, a challenge and a refuge, for aspiring intellectuals, who link the city to their hopes and dreams. The association of Paris with the center of the world appears in the discourse of Balzac’s contemporaries. For instance, Jules Michelet refers to the 19th century Paris as “the central point of the globe where all the 10

lines of magnetic force meet and combine” (qtd. in Bellos 58). Both Rastignac and Raskolnikov arrive in the capital/center, Paris and St. Petersburg, respectively, with the best intentions and aims of making their ways to the top of the society. Oliveira identifies Paris with his metaphysical search for a center: “este París donde me muevo como una hoja seca, no serí[a] visibl[e] si detrás no latiera la ansiedad axial, el reencuentro con el fuste ” (20) [“this Paris where I move about like a dry leaf, would not be visible if behind it there did not beat an anxiety for an axis, a coming together withthe center shaft” (15)]. This center is associated with an unobtained (and unobtainable) condition and with the reinvention of reality. As Cortázar explains in his conversation with Prego, Oliveira considers reality to be a human invention with which he is not satisfied, and therefore he rejects it. The center, Cortázar suggests, will open new possibilities for him to create and reinvent reality. And Cortázar continues: “Centro ser ía ese momento en que el ser humano, individual o colectivo, puede encontrarse en una situación donde está en condiciones de reinventar la realidad” (Prego 170) [“A center would be the moment when the human being, individual or collective, can find himself in a situation when he or she would be in position to reinvent reality”]. Paris is also a challenge for Oliveira. As Balzac’s Rastignac looks down from the hillside cemetery, he dreams of conquering the city.“Left alone, Rastignac walked to the highest part of the cemetery and looked down at the heart of



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Paris . . . then declared, grandly, “Now it’s just the two of us!—I’m ready” (217). In the same vein, Oliveira is looking for “derecho de ciudad” (154) [“[r]ule of the city” (180)], which, in the opinion of his antithesis and fellow immigrant Gregorovius, is “una ambición mal curada” (154) [“a half-cured ambition” (180)]. Probably jealous of Oliveira’s ability to dream, Gregorovius expresses irony with respect to the idyllic-bookish image of Horacio ’s Paris, which he identifies with the magic-oriental city he strived to conquer as a child; “la ciudad de Ofir, según ha llegado al occidente por ívas de la fábula” (117) [“the city of Ophir, according to the legends that have reached the West through storybooks” (134)]. Indeed, the romantic image of the ideal city is also connected with Paris. As the narrator points out, “En fin, había que irse, subir a la ciudad, tan cerca ahí a seis metros de altura, empezando exactamente al otro lado del pretil del Sena, detrás de las cajas RIP de latón, donde las palomas dialogaban esponjándose a la espera del primer sol blando y sin fuerza, la pálida sémola de las ocho y mediaque baja de un cielo aplastado, que no baja porque seguramente iba a lloviznar como siempre” (174) [“Finally he had to go, go up into the city, so close by there, twenty feet above, where it began exactly on 11

the other side of the Seine embankment, in back of the lead RIP boxes where the pigeons were talking among themselves and fluffing up as they waited for the first rays of the bland, unforceful sun, the pale eighto’clock pablum that floats down from a mushy sky because it certainly was going to drizzle the way it always did” (208–209)]. Gregorovius gives the following interpretation to Horacio’s aspirations to conquer a Paris created by his imagination: “tenés una idea imperial en el fondo de la cabeza. ¿Tu derecho de ciudad?” (154) [“You . . . have an imperial notion in the back of your head. Freedom of the city?” (180)]. In his opinion, Horacio “adivina que en alguna parte de Par ís, en algún día o alguna muerte o algún encuentro hay una llave, la busca como un loco” (160) [“He guesses that in some part of Paris, some day or some death 12

or some meeting will show him a key; he’s searching for it like a madman” (133)]. The key would confer“derecho de ciudad” (117, 215) [“[r]ule of the city” (180)]: understanding, presence and power. The terrestrial and idyllic dimensions of the capital, its simultaneous functions as a challenge and a refuge, are reconciled in the metaphoricimage of Paris as a woman, a device that has a long literarytradition. Symbolic representations of abstract entities (Justice, Faith, Hope, Charity, Liberty) as women have been common from the time of the classical Greeks, and the standard emblem of ’s Pére Goriot France, from the Revolution, is the figure of Marianne. In Balzac Paris is also personified; the capital city is identified with a courtesan. As one 13

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of the central characters (Vautrin) observes, “The proud aristocracies of all of Europe’s capitals may refuse to admit an infamous millionaire to their ranks, but Paris will open him her arms, rush to his parties, eat at his dinners, and shares toasts with his infamy.” (114; italics added). As if being a literalization of Cortázar’s statement that “[l]as ciudades son siempre mujeres para mi” (qtd. in Zampaglione 1) [“Cities are always women to me ”], La Maga is persistently associated with Paris, and vice versa, in Oliveira’s discourse. Describing his love relationship with La Maga, Oliveira observes: “Tendí la mano y toqué el ovillo París, su materia infinita arrollándose a sí misma” (19; italics added) [“I held out my hand and touchedthe tangled ball of yarn which is Paris, its infinite material all wrapped up around itself” (13; italics added)]. The physical gesture, the proximity of La Maga, the words “ovillo” and “arrollándose” suggest the city (Paris)-woman image. Oliveira ’s love for La Maga is both a bridge to and an embodiment of Oliveira’s distance from Paris. After he has left La Maga, Oliveira reflects that “ya es como no estuviera en París” (140) because the “mundo Maga” (18)[“the Maga world” (14)], as Julie Jones perceptively notices,“is coextensive with the‘París fabuloso’ (26) 14

[“a fabulous Paris” (21)]” to which she introduced Horacio (A Common Place, 33). Further, bridges, synecdoches for the city, are metaphorically associated with love and Oliveira ’s inability to merge with the irrational side of life embodied by La Maga. Referring to his own perception of the world and his relationships with others as the bridge over “[los] r íos metaf ísicos ” (83) [“metaphysical rivers” (89)], Oliveira’s emphasizes the gap between himself and La Maga: “Yo describo y defino y deseo esos ríos, ella los nada. Yo los busco, los encuentro, los miro desde elpuente, ella los nada” (87; italics added) [“I describe and define and desire those rivers, but she swims in them. I look for them, find them, observe them from thebridge, but she swims in them” (96)]. The woman-city equation is also true for Pola, Oliveira’s ex-girlfriend, 15

polo de París, París de Pola, la luz verdosa del neón encendiéndose y apagán“dose contra la cortina de rafia amarilla, Pola París, Pola París, la ciudad desnuda con el sexo acordado a la palpitación de la cortina, Pola Par ís, Pola París, cada vez más suya” (349) [“pole of Paris, Paris of Pola, the greenish light of a neon sign going on and off against the yellow raffia curtain, Pola Paris, Pola Paris, the naked city with its sex in tune to the palpitation of the curtain. Pola Paris, Pola Paris, every time more his ” (424)]. With her collection of stylish books and ample income, according to Ste ven Boldy, she also represents the liberal bourgeois experience of Paris (116). The clocharde Emmanuéle, a beggar from downriver, who seems to illustrate Panugre’s grotesque observation that



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“in this city women are cheaper than stone” (Rabelais qtd. Bakhtin 191), is also associated with Paris, with the city as a mud-pit, the underworld and the road. ’s Like la Maga, Pola, Paris and the game of hopscotch, she is also one of Oliveira guides to harmony, to “el kibbuz del deseo” [“a kibbutz of desire”]. Moreover, being identified with the mandala by Oliveira, Paris becomes an overtly metafictional construct. Indeed, Paris is a metaphor where the notions of self, geometry (urban space) and art converge. This city is also “el Gran Tornillo” (315) [“the Great Screw” (385)], “el mundo . . . petrificado y establecido” (19) [“[t]he world petrified and established”] (13), and “una barricada” (59) [“a barricade”] (59). These all are variations of the same metaphorical image built on the intersection of the physical, the spiritual and the metaphysical. Gregorovius explicitly refers to Paris as a metaphor. He explains to la Maga that Oliveira’s Paris, associated with freedom and self-realization, is an utopic world of illusions: “Horacio es tan sensible, se mueve con tanta dificultad en París. El cree que hace lo que quiere, que es muy libre aquí, pero se anda golpeando contra las paredes” (111–112, italics added) [“Horacio is so sensitive, it’s difficult for him to get around in Paris. He thinks that he ’s doing what 16

he wants to do, that he has a lot of liberty here, but he goes around running into barriers” (127)]. Gregorovius’s thoughts, and the motif of the stone wall in his arguments, evokes a discourse of the“people with strong nerves,” the philistines described by the protagonist, the Underground Man, in Dostoevsky ’s Notes from the Underground. As the Underground Man observes,“[the] impossible to them (the people with strong nerves) equivalent to a stone wall. What stone wall? . . . ‘Good Lord,’ they’ll scream at you . . . A stone wall, that is, is a stone wall . . . etc., etc. ” (126–127). Later in Rayuela, Horacio explicitly identifies Gregorovious with Dostoevsky’s ambivalent characters: “Sos dostoievskianamente asqueroso y simpático a la vez, una especie de lameculos metafísico” (148) [“You’re so damned Dostoevskian, repulsive and pleasant at the same time”]. Gregorovius can be contrasted with both The Underground Man and Oliveira, both of whom deliberately choos e to live in rooms-holes and are proud of their lack of action, but would not surrender before any obstacles. The Underground Man rejects “the Crystal Palace” (151) as an embodiment of philistine satisfaction. For the same reason, Oliveira cannot accept life in “[la] caja de vidrio” (92) [“the glass cage” (101)]. The “glass cage,” Cortázar’s modification of Dostoevsky ’s image, emphasizes invisibility and protection, a vacuum-tight seal against the outside world, while preserving the srcinal connotations of lifelessness and emptiness implied by the discourse of the 17

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Underground Man. Like his Russian precursor, Oliveira refuses to accept “el reino de material plástico” [“The kingdom” “made out of plastic material” (380)], “un mundo delicioso” (311) [“a tasty world”] with the water of different colors and bathrooms with telecommunication, which he associates with an Orwellian nightmare. Both Dostoevsky’s and Cortázar’s characters find themselves in a “callejón sin salida” (Ezquerro 627) [“a ravine with no exit”]. They refuse, however, to step out from the obstacles. As the Underground Man contends, “[n]o doubt I shall never be able to break through such a stone wall with my forehead, if I really do not possess the strength to do it, but I shall not reconcile myself to it just because I have to deal with a stone wall and I haven’t the strength to knock it down” (127). Oliveira, the non-conformist created by Morelli, a fictional writer whose funct ion in the novel is to serve as Cort ázar’s super ego (as convincingly argued by numerous critics), follows a similar line of thought. The writer describes his creation in a following way: 18

ás bajas y las más altas, Este hombre [El inconformista] se mueve en las frecuencias m desdeñando deliberadamente las intermedias, es decir la zona corriente de la aglomeración espiritual humana. Incapaz de liquidar la circunstancia, trata de darle la espalda; inepto para sumarse a quienes luchan por liquidarla, pues cree que esa liquidaci ón será una mera sustitución por otra igualmente parcial e intolerable, se aleja encogi éndose de hombros. (316) This man [The nonconformist] moves within the lowest and the highest of frequencies, deliberately disdaining those in between, that is to say, the current band of the human spiritual mass. Incapable of liquidating circumstances, he tries to turn his back on them; too inept to join those who struggle for their liquidation, he thinks therefore that this liquidation is probably a mere substitute for something else equally partial and intolerable, he moves off shrugging his shoulders. (386)

Paris is also an embodiment of the protagonist’s search with no particular 19

purpose. The object of Oliveira’s search is not definite. As la Maga observes, “[v]os buscás algo que no sabés lo que es” (73) [“[y]ou’re looking for something you don’t know” (76)]. Further, Oliveira’s failure to find an indefinite object of his search in Paris is even considered to be a victory. As Cort ázar points out in his conversation with Prego, “el personaje busca sobre todo los parametros de la sociedad judeo-cristiana. . . . Él está . . . condenado a eso, a una b úsqueda ” (170) [“the character is looksin encuentro prometido ni definido, ni definitivo ing for the parameters of the jewish–cristian society. He is . . . doomed to this, a search with no promised result, neither defined nor definite ”]. The endless search leaves the intellect alert.



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Oliveira’s thoughts about a search with no particular purpose, and his recurrent references to the motif of “the path” throughout the novel, may also be considered a parodic echo of the meditations of Dostoevsky’s Underground Man. Parody functions as a textual displacement that emphasizes Oliveir a’s existential one. As Linda Hutcheon observes, “the pointing to the literariness of the text may be achieved by using parody: in the background will stand another text against which the new creation is implicitly to be both measured and understood” (31). Notes from the Underground is implicit in the background of Rayuela. Indeed, both the Underground Man and Oliveira associate the endless search of human beings with the building of the paths which lead to the unknown. As the Underground Man asserts, “man is above all a creative animal, condemned consciously to strive towards a goal and to occupy himself with the art of engineering, that is, always and incessantly clear with a path for himself wherever it may lead . . . Man likes to create and to clear paths—that is undeniable” (Dostoevsky 148; italics added). Oliveira’s discourse echoes similar thoughts which he, ironically, both criticizes and follows. “¿De qué sirve saber o creer saber que cada camino es falso si no lo caminamos con un prop ósito que ya no sea el camino mismo?” (239) [“What good to know or to think we know that every road is false if we don ’t walk with an idea that is not the road itself? (291)”]. The narrator’s account of Oliveira’s meditations also reveals their paradoxical nature: “Caminar con un prop ósito que ya no fuera el camino mismo. De tanta cháchara (qué letra, la ch, madre de la chancha, el chamamé y el chijete) no le quedaba más resto que esa entrevisión. Sí era una fórmula meditable” (239; italics added) [“Walking with an idea that is no longer the road itself. From all that chatter (what a combination, ch, mother of chigger, cheese, and chili beans) the only thing left was the glimpse. Yes, it was a formula that deserved meditation” (292)]. In contrast to the reasoning of the Underground Man, Oliveira’s thoughts self-consciously thematize the philosophical questions formulated by earlier literature through the use of pseudo-lexical onomotopeic analysis, and the result provokes a comic effect.Sharing with the Underground Man an essential skepticism about the mediocre surrounding world, Oliveira, unlike his Russian literary precursor, does not see his perspective as unique. On the contrary, he is aware of the fact that his own thoughts are lacking in srcinality. Oliveira’s “meditación siempre amenazada por los idola fori” (239) [“in meditations constantly menaced by idola fori ” (291)] is a manifestation of stereotypical thinking influenced by familiar literature. In addition, Oliveira’s own life, as an illustration of theendless search he is sceptical about, makes him out to be an “inevitably ironic character” (Frye 42). Horacio-“inconformista,” 20

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[“nonconformist ”] carries striking similarities with the nineteenth century individualists created in Russian literature. As the narrator observes, Oliveira gradually “tomaba un aire de personaje de la novela rusa” (192) [“he was beginning to assume the airs of a hero in Russian novel” (230)]. Likewise, an overtly metafictional image of Paris suggestshat t Cortázar’s city has been inspired by the European literary tradition. Morelli explicitly refers to the capital city as a metaphor of writing. As the fictional writer indicates in his comments, to read the city, which is also the world, is to write it. Thus, the description of Paris oscillates between two dimensions. On the one hand, the city, emphatically corporeal and materialistic, attracting intellectuals from all over the world throughout the centuries, fulfills “the representational” function of the chronotope as described by Bakhtin. Paris breathes life into the novelistic actions. As Cortázar himself points out in his conversations with Prego, “esa descripción de París se pone . . . un poco al servicio de una acci ón novelesca” (154–155) [“this description of Paris places it, a little bit inthe function of the novelistic action ”]. On the other hand, the multiple parallels between Cort ázar ’s city and the image of Paris/capital city (e.g. 21

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St. Petersburg) developed in nineteenth century fiction and the explicit association of Paris with “metaphor” emphasize the metafictional aspect of this urban space in the novel. Cortázar’s Paris is an invented reality that unites in itself both Horacio’s metaphysical-epistemological search and the echo of the long literary tradition of the representation of the modern city in literature. It is another version of reality created by the human imagination which exemplifies Goodman’s observation that “worldmaking . . . starts from worlds already on hand, that making is a remaking” (6). This overtly metafictional functioning of Paris/urban space (as part of the author’s intentio operis) distances Cortázar’s city from its nineteenth century precursors and emphasizes Oliveira’s existential displacement in the city of his choice. 23

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Borges ’s Voice in Cort á z a r ’s Buenos Aires The artistic vision of the city as an invented reality culminates in the representation of Buenos Aires, where the actions of the second part of the novel, “Del lado de acá,” take place. On the one hand, there are topographic references to streets such as Santa Fe (183) and Carmen de Patagones (183), and buildings, for example, a cinema “Presidente Roca” (181) which can be easily recognized.



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On the other hand, being imbued with metaphysical and carnivalesque elements, the city becomes gradually dematerialized. Buenos Aires inRayuela appears to be both a verbal construct that reminds the reader of the city created by the young Borges inFervor de Buenos Aires (1923) and a carnivalesque space as defined by Bakhtin. Referring to Borges’s Buenos Aires in his conversation with Garfield, Cortázar points out: “es un Buenos Aires muy fantástico y muy inventado—, existe también ese Buenos Aires pero está lejos de ser la totalidad de la ciudad” (12) [“this is a very fantastic and invented Buenos Aires—, this Buenos Aires exists but is far from being a city in its totality”]. This interpretation of Borges’s Buenos Aires is in tune with the explicit references to the discrepancy, in Fervor, between the metaphysical city created by the poet and the “real” urban structure. The image of Buenos Aires oscillates between reality and dream in the poem “Amanecer,” where the lyrical voice observes: “Si están ajenas de sustancia las cosas/y si esta numerosa Buenos Aires/ no es más que un sueño” (26–28; italics added) [“If things are void of substance/and if this teeming Buenos Aires/is no more than a dream ” (25–27)]. Buenos Aires’s plural existence is emphasized through the word “numerosa,” which expresses 25

the city’s existence in several realms, one of which is the poet’s imagination. In the poem “Un Patio,” a distinction between the celestial and the terrestrial turns out to be blurred in an expression of the author’s admiration of the simple world which surrounds him: Patio, cielo encauzado. El patio es el declive por el cual se derrama el cielo en la casa. (Obras 1:23) Patio, heaven’s watercourse. The patio is the slope down which the sky flows into the house. (5–7)

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Further, in “Calle desconocida” [“Unknown Street”] the street, a synecdochical representation of the urban world, obtains its life through the poetic word. The real street appears to be that of the “leyenda” or “[el] verso.” As the lyrical voice suggests, Quizá esa hora de la tarde de plata diera su ternura a la calle, haciéndola tan real como un verso olvidado y recuperado. (Obras 1:20)

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Perhaps that moment of the silver evening suffused the street with a tenderness, making it as vivid as a verse forgotten and now remembered. (18–21) 27

The metapoetical nature of the street is also emphasized through the synaesthetic image of time which is, on the contrary, materialized ( “esa hora de la tarde de plata” [“that moment of the silver evening”]) and personified (“diera su ternura” [“suffused the street with a tenderness ”]) in the poem. The street and the poem share a destiny of being forgotten and brought back to life “olvi( dado y recuperado” [“forgotten and now remembered”]) by the action of time. David Larway points out that the relatively abstract qualities of Borges’s urban topography might be regarded as an attempt to “found” Buenos Aires poetically following his return to Argentina after his long absence in Europe. The representation of Buenos Aires and the question of homecoming appear to be interconnected both in Borges ’s Fervor and in Cortázar’s Rayuela, where Oliveira is deported from Paris to his native city by French officials. The lyriFervor cal voice in an idealistic visionwith of theitscity. As its íironic in his intention tomaintains escape Buenos Aires’s reality “melancol a porteecho, ñ a” (185) [“the melancholy of Buenos Aires ” (221)] and “una vida sin demasiado” (185) [“a life that did not have too much” (221)], Oliveira perceives a surrounding world as a more or less precise realization of fiction. Justifying his unwillingness, for instance, to go and get mate by himself, Oliveira refers ironically to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin when he replies to Traveler: “—¿ Pero vos estás loco, pibe? Bajar tres pisos, cruzar por entre el hielo y subir otros tres pisos, eso no se hacen ni en la cabaña del tío Tom” (199) [“ ‘Are you out of your mind? Go down three flights, cross the street through all the ice, climb up three more flights, they don’t even do that in Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (239)]. Moreover, Oliveira, influenced by his readings of Slavic narratives (some of which have been identified above), deliberately misinterprets reality. The text ironizes his upside-down vision of the surrounding world through the ludic reference to a fiction familiar to him: ‘Qué frío b árbaro hace,’ se dijo Oliveira que creía en la eficacia de la autosugestión. El sudor le chorreaba desde el pelo a los ojos era imposible sostener un clavo con la ía resbalar en los dedos torcedura hacia arriba porque el menor golpe del martillo lo hac empapados (de frío) y el clavo volvía a pellizcarlo y a amoratarle (de fr ío) los dedos. Para peor el sol empezaba a dar de lleno en la pieza (era la luna sobre las estepas cubiertas de nieve, y él silbaba para azuzar a los caballos que impulsaban su tarant ás), a las tres no quedaría un solo rincón sin nieve, se iba a helar lentamente hasta que lo ganara



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la somnolencia tan bien descrita y hasta provocada en los relatos eslavos, y su cuerpo quedara sepultado en la blancura homicida de las lívidas flores del espacio. Estaba bien eso: las lividas flores de espacio. (194–195; italics added)

‘God, it’s cold,” Oliveira said to himself, because he was a great believer in autosuggestion. Sweat was pouring over his eyes out of his hair and it was impossible to hold a nail with the hump up because the lightest blow of the hammer would make it slip out of his fingers which were all wet (from the cold) and the nail would pinch him again and he would mash his fingers (from the cold). To make things worse, the sun had begun to shine with full force into the room (it was the moon on snowing-covered steppes, and he whistled to goad the horses pulling against their harnesses), by three o ’clock he would let himself freeze until hegot to that sleepy the whole place was covered with snow, state described so well and maybe even brought about in Slavic stories, and his body would be entombed in the man-killing whiteness of the livid flowers of space. (234; italics added)

As with his Russian precursor, the Underground Man, Oliveira deliberately ignores the world in which he has been forced to live. To escape, he prefers to consider himself a part of the fictional universe, the only one in which he feels comfortable. This intention to escape the surrounding world by means of fiction is mocked by the text. As Henri Bergson points out, “[a] comic meaning is invariably obtained when an absurd idea is fitted into a well-established phrase-form ” (133). Thus, in contrast to Borges ’s mythical/metaphysical/ intimate reinvention of Buenos Aires in Fervor de Buenos Aires, Oliveira’s overtly metafictional (metapoetical) perception and reinvention of the surrounding world evokes burlesque ethos. Cortázar adds humor to Borges’s metaphysical depiction of the city. An ambiguity with respect to the“real”/ “metaphysical” Buenos Aires is maintained in both Borges’s early poetry and Cort ázar ’s novel. Whereas in Borges ’s texts this discrepancy is a result of an attempt to rediscover an intimate connection through the appeal to the universal, in Rayuela a gestation of the metaphysical city is an expression of the 28

anxiety of despair caused by the protagonist’s awareness of his alienation. The description of the protagonist’s life in Buenos Aires is also permeated ’s statewith allusions to Borges’s narratives, such as a parodic reference to Pascal ment that “[l]a naturaleza es una esfera infinita, cuyo centro est á en todas partes y la circunferencia en ninguna” (qtd. in Borges Obras 2:16) [“a fearful sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere ” (192)], the starting point for Borges’s famous argument developed in his essay “La esfera de Pascal” [“The Fearful Sphere of Pascal”]. According to Borges, the French philosopher wrote this statement when he “[s]intió el peso incesante del mundo físico, sinti ó vértigo, miedo y soledad ” (Obras 2:16) [“[h]e felt 29

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the incessant weight of the physical world, he experienced vertigo, fright and solitude” (192)] . Similarly, in Rayuela, the narrator’s reference to “un círculo que está en todas partes y su circunferencia en ninguna ” (409) [“a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere” (496)] appears in the context of the protagonist’s existential preoccupations as expressed in rhetorical questions: 30

Terrible tarea la de chapotear en un círculo cuyo centro está en todas partes y su circunferencia en ninguna, por decirlo escolásticamente. ¿Qué se busca? ¿Qué se busca? Repetirlo quince mil veces, como martillazos en la pared. ¿Qué se busca? ¿Qué es esa conciliación sin la cual la vida no pasa de una oscura tomada de pelo? (408, italics added) It’s a terrible joke, splashing around in a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere, to use the language of scholasticism. What is being searched for? What is being searched for?Repeat it fifteen thousand times, like hammer-blows on the wall. What is being searched for? What is that conciliation without which life doesn ’t go beyond being an obscure joke? (496, italics added)

Oliveira ’s meditations, however, evoke laughter as the result of the clash between the philosophical and colloquial registers. The transposing of Pascal’s ideas to the situation of the everyday routine appears to be an overt parody on Borges’s essay, where“a critical distance is implied between the background text being parodied and the new incorporating work, a distance usually signaled by irony” (Hutcheon 33). Parody emphasizes that the protagonist’s thoughts are formulated on the crossroads of various literary discourses that ludically reinforces an expression of his displacement. The dialogue with Borges’s recurrent motifs continues in Cortázar’s Buenos Aires, where encyclopedias are of importance for Oliveira and his friends Traveler and Talita. Already in the first chapter of “Del lado de acá,” [“From 31

this side”] Talita, Traveler’s wife, is introduced as “lectora de enciclopedias” [“a reader of encyclopedias” (219)] who “se interesaba por los pueblos nómades y las culturas trashumantes” (183) [“is interested in wandering peoples and cultures” (219)]. Moreover, Oliveira realizes that in order to survive in Buenos Aires, he needs an encyclopedia that, probably, contains a key to the city and at the same time encourages the reader’s imagination to travel to other places. An encyclopedia becomesfor him a virtual escapefrom the surroundingreality. This escape is a vital necessity, as Oliveira observes: “Buenos Aires. Uno vive. Manera tan rara. Se acaba por tener una enciclopedia” (198) [“Buenos Aires. You get along. Funny thing. You end up owning an encyclopedia ” (238)].



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An encyclopedia that can virtually take one to any country at any time period would give Oliveira an illusion of freedom and of belonging to the world in its totality, as a desirable alternative to claustrophobia which he experiences in Buenos Aires. Dreams of imaginary trips also visit Oliveira’s friend Traveler, who has never “traveled ”: “Dormido se le escapaban algunas veces vocablos de destierro, de desarraigo, de tr ánsitos ultramarinos ” (183) [ “When he was asleep he would sometimes come out with words that had to do with uprooting, trips abroad, troubles in customes, and inaccurate alidades ” (219)]. As his wife Talita affirms, “Yo soy el mejor de sus viajes” (183) [“I have been his best trip ” (219)]. According to Boldy, Traveler, whose name and actions contradict each other, exemplifies that “Buenos Aires . . . [is] the capital of words” (49). Thus, Cortázar’s Buenos Aires displays a multidimensional ludic presence of Borges ’s texts which emphasizes the city ’s both metaphysical and metafictional aspects.

Talita ’s Dream: Between Borgesean and Carnivalesque Worlds Metaphysical conceptions and literary motifs akin to those of Borges are used as ingredients in Cort ázar’s own literary world imbued with carnivalesque elements. Borgesean and carnivalesque worlds, for example, merge in Talita’s dream in “Del lado de acá” [“From this side”]. According to Bakhtin, the “unusual dreams” are typical for mennipean satire (Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 115), a combination of apparently incompatible and heterogeneous elements, including the philosophical, adventurous and fantastic, which form a carnivalesque genre par excellence. As in the mennipean satire, in Cortázar’s text Talita’s dream is a challenge to a finalized perception of her identity. For instance, she dreams of “un museo espantoso” [“a frightful museum” (275)], a horrifying labyrinth that carries striking similarities with Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s prisons: “La llevaban a una exposición de pintura en un inmenso palacio en ruinas, y los cuadros colgaban a alturas vertiginosas, como si alguien hubiera convertido en museo las prisiones de Piranesi” (226) [“She was being taken to an art show in an immense ruined palace, and the pictures were hung at giddy heights, as if someone had turned the pris ons of Piranesi into a museum” (274)]. Piranesi is one of Borges ’s favorite artists, and his works appear to be a source of inspiration for many of Borges’s texts. The representation of “la Ciudad de inmortales” [“the City of the Immortals”] in his story 32

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“El inmortal” [“The Immortal”] (El Aleph) is inspired by Piranesi’s Carceri. The 33

narrator-protagonist of this story describes his way to the terrifying city of immortals as an exhaustive and dangerous pass through the infinite labyrinth: “La fuerza del día hizo que yo me refugiara en una caverna; en el fondo había un pozo, en el pozo una escalera que abismaba hacia la tiniebla inferior. Bajé; por un caos de sordidos galerías llegué a una vasta cámara circular, apenas visible. Había nueve puertas en aquel sótano . . . . Fui divisando capiteles y astr álagos, frontones triangulares y óbvedas, confusas pompas del granito y del marmol. Así me fue deparado ascender de la ciega región de negros laberintos entretejidos a la resplandeciente ciudad” (Obras 1:536–537) [“The force of the sun obliged me to seek refuge in a cave; in the rear was a pit, in the pit a stairway which sank down abysmally into the darkness below. I went down; through a chaos of sordid galleries Ireached a vast circular chamber, scarcely visible. There were nine doors in the cellar . . . I began to glimpse capitals and astragals, triangular pediments and vaults, confused pageants of granite and marble. Thus I was afforded this ascension from the blind region of dark int erwoven labyrinths into the resplendent City” (110)]. Likewise, in Talita’s dream, her route is a perilous voyage through a labyrinth to terrifying pictures, “había que trepar por arcos donde apenas las entalladuras permit ían apoyar los dedos de los pies, avanzar por galerías que se interrumpían al borde de un mar embravecido, con olas como de plomo, subir por escaleras de caracol para finalmente ver siempre mal, siempre desde abajo o de costado, los cuadros ” (226) [“one had to climb up some archways where one could get footing onlyon the carvings, go through galleries that went to the edge of a stormy sea with leadlike waves, climb up spiral staircases to see finally, always poorly, always from below or from one side, the paintings” (274)]. Both Talita and the protagonist of“El inmortal” [“The Immortal”] experience disillusion when they reach their respective targets, the museum with pictures and the city of immortals, both of which display the uniformity of emptiness. As the protagonist in “El inmortal” [“The Immortal”] points out, the architecture of the palace lacks any purpose and manifests a repetition of meaningless parts,“la [impresión] de lo interminable, la de lo atroz, la de lo complejamente insensato” (Obras 1:537) [“the [impression] of the interminable, that of the atrocious, that of the complexly senseless” (110)]. Similar characteristics are possessed by the pictures in Talita’s dream, which have “la misma mancha blanquecina, el mismo co águlo de tapioca o de leche se repet ía al infinito” (226) [“the same coagulation of tapioca or milk was repeated to infinity” (226)]. Both the protagonist of“El inmortal” [“The Immortal”] and Talita refer to their visions as terrifying ones. The horrifying image of the city is



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a symbol of the protagonist’s pathological obsessive search for utopic/dystopic immortality in Borges’s text. The museum where Talita is taken in her dream displays her artistic imagination and subconscious interest in metaphysics, probably inspired by works of Piranesi aswell as of her famous compatriot, Jorge Luis Borges. Being generated in Cortázar’s Buenos Aires, created under the influence of Borges’s texts, Talita’s dream exemplifies a metaphysical dimension, which distances the city of“Del lado de acá” [“From this side”] from the version of Paris pictured in the first section (“Del lado de alla”[“From the other side”]) of the novel.

The Carnivalesque City and the Anxiety of Alienation Metaphysical and carnivalesque elements are abundant in the Buenos Aires of Rayuela, they allow the reader to consider this place to be an invented reality. As Bakhtin points out in hisProblems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics, the carnivalesque 34

life is “a life turned inside out” (122), not contemplated or performed but “its participantslive in it” (122). Talita and Traveler have lived acarnivalesque life. They utilize their experiences of working in the circus in their off-stage life, such as the episode with the plank described in chapter 41. In this scene, which strongly deviates from all the conventions of realism, Talita is persuaded by Oliveira and Traveler to crawl out onto a precarious bridge of planks which are set up across buildings to give Oliveira a small bag of mate and nails. As Gekrepten, Oliveira’s former Argentinean girlfriend, explains to the astonished neighbors: “Talita trabaja en un circo, son todos artistas—¿Hacen pruebas?—preguntó uno de los chicos—. ¿Adentro de cuál circo trabaja la cosa esa?—No era una prueba—dijo Gekrepten—. Lo que pasa es que querían darle un poco de yerba 35

a mi marido, y entonces . . . ” (215). [“ ‘Talita works in a circus. They’re all performers—’Were they rehearsing?’ asked one of the boys. ‘What circus is that girl with?’ ‘It wasn’t a rehearsal,’ Gekrepten said. ‘What happened was that they wanted to give my husband a little yerba, and so . . . ’ ” (261)]. In this eccentric scene a Buenos Aires street is transformed into a public carnival square that Bakhtin describes inProblems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics as a place which celebrates “a new mode of interrelationship between individuals” (123). Moreover, the neighbors’ negative reaction to Talita ’s maneuver with the plank proves it to be a deviation from the officially accepted norm that also is one of the main features of the carnival actions. Indeed, a subversion of 36

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hierarchical structures, as well as all the forms of etiquette, is typical for carnival. As Bakhtin observes, “[t]he laws, prohibitions, and restrictions that determine the structure and the order of ordinary, that is noncarnival, life are suspended during carnival” (Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 123). Indeed, “la señora Gutusso,” in her conversation with Gekrepten, points out that Talita’s exercise is a violation of the decent routine: “Con las piernas al aire en ese tabl ón, mire qué ejemplo para las criaturas. Usted no se habrá dado cuenta, pero desde aquí se le veía propiamente todo, le juro.” (215) [“ ‘With her legs in the air on that board, what an example for the children. You probably couldn’t see, but from down here it was quite a sight, I can assure you.’ ” (261)]. In addition to the street of Buenos Aires, there are other carnivalesque spaces par excellence in the novel, such as the circus and the insane asylum. These institutions can easily replace one another, and display the relationship of complementarity and overlap that manifests the“relativity and ambivalence of reason and madness” (Bakhtin 125) typical of the carnival. In “Del lado de acá,” [“From this side”] the idea of the center (which earlier in the novel was associated with Paris) is associated with the unattainable point in the circus and a symmetrically located one in the madhouse. As the narrator describes, “[d]eteniéndose al lado del agujero del montacargas miró el fondo negro y pensó en los Campos Flegreos, otra vez en el acceso.En el circo había sido al revés, un agujero en lo alto, la apertura comunicando con el espacio abierto, figura de consumación; ahora estaba al borde del pozo, agujero de Eleusis, la cl ínica envuelta en vapores de calor acentuaba el pasaje negativo, los vapores de solfatara, el descenso” (260; italics added) [“[s]topping by the shaft of the freight elevator, he looked into the black depths and thought again about the Phlegrean Fields, the way in. In the circus it had been just the opposite, a hole up above, the opening in communication with free space, an image of consummation; now he was at the edge of the pit, the hole of Eleusis, the clinicwrapped in sulphurous vapors, the descent” (316; italics added)]. Moreover, Talita and Traveler prefer to think about the madhouse in terms appropriate for referring to circus/theatrical performances. As the narrator observes, “[l]os dos le buscaban el lado humorístico, prometiéndose espectáculos dignos de Samuel Beckett, despreciando de labios para afuera al pobre circo” (221; italics added) [“[t]he two of them tried to find the humorous side, promising themselves spectacles worthy of Samuel Beckett, sneering at the poor circus” (268)]. The circus is a ludic world of deception whose actors (e.g. clowns) exercise the capacity of being simultaneously both self and other, and which, like carnival,“proclaims the joyful relativity of everything” (Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 125). As the narrator observes, the circus



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appears to be a deliberate ludic alternative to the existing order. “En el circo se estaba perfectamente, una estafa de lentejuelas y música rabiosa, un gato calculista que reaccionaba a la previa y secreta pulverización con valeriana de ciertos números de cartón, mientras señoras conmovidas mostraban a su prole tan elocuente ejemplo de evoluci ón darwiniana ” (218) [“Everything was perfect in the circus, a spangled fraud with wild music, a calculating cat who reacted to a cardboard numbers that had been secretly treated previously with valerian, while ladies were so moved that theymade sure that their offspring noticed such an eloquent example of Darwinian evolution” (264)]. Another alternative is the madhouse, which becomes ‘home’/‘prison’ for the three friends, as Oliveira’s letter to Gekrepten indicates: “Oliveira sacó una birome del bolsillo y contest ó la carta. Primero, hab ía tel éfono (segu ía el número); segundo, estaban muy ocupados, pero la reorganizaci ón no llevaría más de dos semanas y entonces podrían verse por lo menos los miércoles, sábados y domingos. Tercero, se le estaba acabando la yerba. ‘Escribo como si me hubieran encerrado,’ pensó echando una firma” (258) [“Oliveira took a pen out of his pocket and answered the letter. In the first place, there was a telephone (followed by the number); second, they were very busy, but the reorganization shouldn ’t take more than two weeks and then they would be able to see each other at least on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Third, he wasrunning out ofyerba. ‘I write as if I were imprisoned,’ he thought, signing the letter” (313)]. Oliveira’s life in the madhouse highlights how theborder between the sane and the mentally ill is dissolved. It remains unclear to the reader whether Oliveira actually loses his mind or not; however, his preparations for Traveler’s attack allow one to interpret his behavior as being on the threshold of insanity. His actions and thoughts correspond with what might be called“moral-psychological experimentation”; “a representation of the unusual, abnormal moral and psychic states of man —insanity of all sorts . . . split personality, unrestrained daydreaming . . . passions bordering on madness ” (Bakhtin 116) typical of menippean satire, “one of the main carriers and channels for the carnival sense of the world in literature” (Bakhtin113). Further, in Horacio’s mind, the images of healthy and mentally sick people are mixed.“A esa hora y con esa oscuridad lo ” (276) [“At mismo hubiera podido ser la Maga que Talita o cualquiera de las locas that hour and in that darkness it could have just as easily been La Maga as aTlita or any one of the madwomen” (337)]. Traveler also draws a parallel between ’s question “¿Se matan así los healthy and mentally sick people when, to Talita locos?,” he answers: “—No, vieja, pero de cuando en cuando se tiran el lance. Lo mismo que los cuerdos, si me permitís la mala comparación” (222; italics added)

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[“ ‘Is that the way lunatics do their killing?’ ‘No, my dear, but once in a while they give it a try. Just like sane people, if you will allow me the poor comparison’ ” (270)]. Thus, both the circus and the mental asylum illustrate the carnivalesque to be essentially ambivalent, which“absolutizes nothing” (Bakhtin 125) and challenge the self/other dichotomy. Striking similarities between these two places, as well as difficulties in the differentiation between“locos” [mad people, “lunatics”] and “cuerdos” [“sane people”], also appear to be powerful expressions of the common despair the characters experience in the world in which they live. The distance between people is also challenged through the abundance of doubles, “paired images, chosen for their contrast . . . or for their similarities ” (Bakhtin 126), typical of carnival thinking. For instance, Traveler, “un hombre de territorio” (283) [“the man of the territory” (347)], and homeless Oliveira explicitly identify themselves as “doppelgänger” (281, 282, 283). As Traveler points out,“—No estás solo, Horacio. Quisieras estar solo por pura vanidad, por hacerte el Maldoror porteño. ¿Hablás de un doppelgänger, no? Ya ves que alguien te sigue, que alguien es como vos aunque esté del otro lado de tus condenados piolines” (281) [“You’re not alone, Horacio. Maybe you wanted to bealone out of pure vanity, play the Buenos Aires Maldoror. You spoke about aDoppelgänger, didn’t you? Now you can see that someone isfollowing you, that someone si like you even though he’s on the other side of your damnable threads” (344)]. Oliveira also observes to Talita that“La diferencia entre Manú y yo es que somos casi iguales” (210) [“The difference between Manú and me is that we’re almost exactly the same” (254)]. Talita, who ranks herself among“las mujeres emancipadas e intelectuales” (191) [“the emancipated and intellectual women” (229)], and la Maga, who has an intuitive touch with the world which allows her to penetrate eternity,“a esas grandes terrazas sin tiempo que todos ellos buscaban dialécticamente” (29) [“those great timeless plateaus that they were all seeking through dialectics” (25)], form a similar symmetrical relationship in Oliveira’s mind. As he explains to Traveler,“—Yo sé que es Talita, pero hace un rato era la Maga. Es las dos, como nosotros” (282) [“ ‘I know she’s Talita, but a while ago she was La Maga. She’s two people, just like us’ ” (346)]. He often confuses them, playing with their images rather than with the characters themselves: “un beso a Talita, un beso de él a la Maga a Pola, ese otro juego de espejos como el juego de volver hacia la ventana y mirar a la Maga parada ah í al borde de la rayuela mientras la Cuca y Remorino y Ferraguto amontonados cerca ” (279; de la puerta estaban como esperando que Traveler saliera a la ventana italics added) [“a kiss on Talita, a kiss he gave La Maga or Pola, that other game of mirrors like the game of turning his head towards the window and looking



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at Las Maga standing there next to the hopscotch while cuca and Remorino and Ferraguto, crowding around the door, seemed to be waiting for Traveler to come to the window” (340)]. In“Del lado de allá” [“From other side”], Oliveira’s love for La Maga is both a bridge to and an embodiment of his distance from Paris. In Buenos Aires, Talita performs a similar function. There is an inrecoverable lack of internal connection, however, as there is no bridge between Oliveira and Buenos Aires:“Había que seguir, o recomenzar o terminar:todavía no habiá puente” (189; italics added) [He had to keep going, either start over again or end it: there was still no bridge as yet” (226; italics added)]. The topos of the double as literary device questions the boundaries of the fictional universe. Oliveira, for instance, explicitly refers to Dostoevsky ’s characters when he recommends Traveler: “Consultá a Dostoievski para eso de las sustituciones” (282) [“Look up that business of substitutions in Dostoyevsky” (345)]. The presence of both tragic and the comic elements, characteristic of Dostoevsky’s doubles, is also relevant to Cortázar’s characters. In contrast to Dostoevsky’s works, however, in Cortázar’s novel, doubles as a literary device obtain an overt metafictional significance. 37

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The context of Oliveira’s mentioning of the Russian writer evokes laughter, for it follows the protagonist’s meditations about himself in light of the motif of “pity,” one of the most important in Dostoevsky’s works. Oliveira considers himself a victim of “piedad” [“pity”] which prevents his union with the sky associated with “rayuela”: “Un día meto un dedo en la costumbre y es increíble cómo el dedo se hunde en la costumbre y asoma por el otro lado, parece que voy a llegar por fin a la última casilla y de golpe una mujer se ahoga, ponele, o me da un ataque, un ataque de piedad al divinobotón, porque eso de la piedad. . .” (282, italics added) [“One day I stick my finger into habit an d it’s incredible how one’s finger sinks into habit and comes out the other side, it looks as if I ’m finally going to get to the last square and suddenly a woman drowns, let’s say, or I get 39

an attack, an attack of useless pity, because that business of pity . . . ” (345)]. These meditations, which in a satiric way combine sarcastic self-critique and the unlimited influence of stereotypical thinking, provoke laughter, which in a sense both indicates and disguises the protagonist’s existential anxiety caused by an awareness of his continuously ‘displaced’ condition. In this way, exemplifying the influence ofDostoevsky’s literary universe on that created by Cortázar in Hopscotch, the presence of the double and the notion of the shift thematized in the text’s discourse offer a further challenge on the place/displacement opposition. The polysemic use of the word “territory” appears to be connected with that of the double, and indicates the presence of

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the shift, a core of carnival thinking on the lexical level. The concept of territory conventionally associated with the link between land, identity and culture (see Lavie et al. 1), and with the ideological notions of sovereignty and property, is both present, personified and ironized in Cort ázar’s text. Undermining traditionally hierarchical dualities between ‘home’ and ‘abroad,’ the center and the margin, and selfand other, the novel invites readers to reconsider their confidence in the permanent junction between a particular culture and a stable terrain, determinant for modern concepts of nations and cultures. A consistent identification of Traveler with the territory in Oliveira ’s discourse emphasizes a parallel between personal (self/other) and spatial (domestic/foreign) relationships, and challenges their perception in terms of strict dichotomies. As Oliveira explains to Traveler, “sos mi doppelganger, porque todo el tiempo estoy yendo y viniendo de tu territorio al mío, y en esos pasajes lastimosos me parece que vos sos mi forma que se queda ahí mirándome con lástima, sos los cinco mil años de hombre amontados en un metro setenta, mirando a ese payaso que quiere salirse de su casilla.” (282; italics added) [“you’re my Doppelganger, because all the time I’m coming and going from your territory to mine, if I really ever do get to mine, and in those weary passages it seems to me that you ’re my form staying there looking at me with pity, you’re the five thousand years of man piled up into six feet, looking at the clown who wants to get out of his square” (345)]. In addition, territory is a physical space of the game “rayuela,” as Horacio explains to Traveler:“Si te salieras del territorio, digamos de lacasilla una a las dos, o de la dos a la tres . . . ” (281–282) [“If you were to leave the territory, let’s say from square one to square two, or from two to three . . . ” (344)]. In this way, in the word “territory, ” the geographical, the human and the ludic appear to converge. Oliveira’s references to Argentina, its personification and demistification carry similarities to carnivalesque “bringing down to earth” (Bakhtin 123). In Oliveira’s attempt to undermine the official vision of the country is contrasted with the emphatically fleshly grotesque identification of the country with “matambre arrollado” (194) [“a tight-rolled omelet” (233)]. As the narrator points out, “aunque estuviera convencido de que a la Argentina había que agarrarla por el lado de la verguenza, buscarle el rubor escondido por un siglo de usurpaciónes de todo género como tan bien explican sus ensayistas, y para eso lo mejor era demostrarle de alguna manera que no se la podía tomar en serio como pretendía” (194) [“even though he was convinced that the only way to get a hold on Argentina was to come up on it from the



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shameful side, find the blush hidden under a century of usurpations of all kinds, as writers had pointed out so well, and therefore the best way was to show it in some way in which it didn ’t have to take itself so seriously ” (233–234)]. Identifying houses with bodies, Traveler also points to the distorting vision of reality which populates the country and the city:“—Las ventanas son los ojos de la ciudad . . . y naturalmente deforman todo lo que miran ” (203) [“Windows are the eyes of the city . . . and naturally they give the wrong shape to everything they see” (245)]. Buenos Aires is also a place that generates a carnivalesque discourse (particularly chapters 37 and 41). The incorporation of“Diálogo típico de españoles” [“A Typical Dialogue between Two Spaniards”] a pseudo-poetic text on the indecipherable language characterized by the narrator as “la jitanjáfora” (198) [“nonsense” (238)] and an improvisation with themusic from“Caballería ligera” (215) [“Light Cavalry Overture”] in chapter 41, for instance, displays theheterogeniety of the menippean discourse, which is characterized by “a wide use of the inserted genres,” “a mixing of prose and poetic ps eech” which usually produces a comic effect.“Verse portions are almost always givenwith a certain degree ofparodying” (118). Laughing at Talita in the episode with the plank, “Los chicos se pusieron en fila yempezaron a cantar, con m úsica de“Caballeria ligera” [“The boys Light Cavalry Overture”]: formed a line and began to sing to the tune of the Lo corrieron de atrás, lo corrieron de atrás, le metieron un palo en el cúúúlo. ¡Pobre señor! ¡Pobre señor! No se lo pudo sacar. (215) 40

Oh, they came from behind, oh, they came from behind, and they stuck a pole up his aaass-hole. It wouldn’t come out, it wouldn’t come out, The poor man was out of his mind. (261) The vulgarity of this song is typicalfor carnivalesque discourse, which is directed towards a shift of authority and world order. Thus, the shift becomes internalized in the very structure of the discourse narrated in Buenos Aires. Carnivalesque and metaphysical elements coexist in Cortázar’s Buenos Aires. On the one hand there are markers that refer to a particular city. The mentioning of the names of the streets as well as the references to the architectural characteristics of buildings make it difficult for a reader to confuse Buenos Aires with any other place. On the other hand, it is, in at least two

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senses, an invented reality. The city is imbued with a metaphysical air akin to Borges’s Buenos Aires in Fervor de Buenos Aires; and it is a ludic carnivalesque space. Cortázar’s Buenos Aires manifests an inevitablegap between fictional and empirical realities; it is an emphatic way to express the character ’s anxiety of alienation.

Oliveira ’s Homelessness: Displacement as “ No Placement ” “De otros lados,” [“From Diverse sides”] a deliberate re-combination of the previous chapters of the story in alternating format, emphasizes Oliveira ’s alienation and condition of exile through its very structure. This device makes the readerreconsider the apparently strict divisio n established by the first two sections and intentionally creates confusion with regard to identifying the locat ion of the action. Paris and Buenos Aires,“el lado de acá” [“from this side”] and “el lado de allá,” [“from other side”] are no longer complementary because Oliveira appears to be in exile in both cities. Indeed, in Paris, Horacio is like a witness: he is present and absent at the same time. As la Maga points out, “Vos sos como un tesán tigo, sos el que va al museo y mira los cuadr os. Quiero decir que los cuadros est ahí y vos en el museo, cerca y lejos al mismo tiempo.” (24) [“You’re like a witness. You’re the one who goes to the museum and looks at the paintings. I mean the paintings are there and you’re in the museum too, near and far away at the same time.” (20)]. According to Emmett Joseph Sharkley, Oliveira’s simultaneous longing to be immersed in the world and remain distanced from it appears to be a quintessential problem of the modern hero; it “isan expression of the modern struggle between alienation and understanding” (33). Striving to break any attachment to his own native place, Oliveira does not display any interest in La Maga’s city: “Oliveira escuchaba sin ganas, lamentando un poco no poder interesarse; Montevideo era lo mismo que Buenos Aires(26) [“Oliveira listened without interest, a little sorry thathe was not interested;” Montevideo was just like Buenos Aires” (21)]. He tries to overcome the feeling of nostalgia awakened by his sudden memories about Buenos Aires and his friends: “él necesitaba consolidar una ruptura precaria (¿qué estaría haciendo Traveler, ese gran vago, en queíos l majestuosos se habría metido desde su partida? Y la pobre boba de Gekrepten, y los cafés del centro)” (26; italics added) “[he had to finish breaking away (what was Traveler up to, that old drifter? What kind of majestichassles had he got into since he had left? And poor, silly Gekrepten, and the bars downtown) ” (21)]. Likewise, when in Buenos Aires, he prefer s not to think or to talk about Paris. As



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Traveler observes, “—‘Nunca hablas de aquello’ . . . no pod ía nombrar a la capital de Francia . . . —‘Ningún interés’—contestaba Oliveira” (192) [“ ‘You never ’ . . . he was never able to mention the capital of talk very much about all that France by name . . . —‘It doesn’t interest me,’ Oliveira would answer” (231)]. Further, Oliveira is homeless both in Paris and Buenos Aires. Whereas in Paris he lives in a small cramped room in the immigrant quarter, in Buenos Aires he dwells in a hotel,“vegetaba con la pobre y abnegada Gekrepten en una ón ‘Sobrales’ donde revistaban los Traveler” (190) pieza de hotel frente a la pensi [“He was already vegetating with poor, humble Gekrepten in a hotel room across from the Pensión Sobrales where the Travelers were on the rolls” (228)]. Oliveira’s consistent thoughts about “lo de la ida y la vuelta” (190) [“the business of coming back and going away” (228)] allows one to consider him living in the marginal traveller’s space, “the archetype of non-place” (Augé 86). Oliveira expresses awareness of his own unhomeness (homelessness). In “Del lado de allá,” [“From the Other Side”] in the conversation with the grotesque Berthe Trépat, he explains: “No puedo ofrecer mi casa por la sencilla razón de que no la tengo” (107) [“I can’t offer you my own place for the simple reason 41

that I don’t have any” (122)]. In “Del lado de acá” [ “From the Other Side”], when returning from the madhouse to his room, Oliveira sarcastically uses a clichéd-phrase about home in a broken foreign language (English) that exemplifies his challenge to the conventional identity-land connection and emphasizes his presence as an outsider/stranger in Buenos Aires: “There’s not a place like home” (313; italics added) [“ ‘There is no place like home’ ” (382)]. Thus, Oliveira ’s dwelling is accomplished not by residing but by wandering. He exemplifies one of the“mobile” persons described by Casey as a“victim of placelessness in one guise or another” (XIV). A permanent state of exile makes Oliveira an exemplar of an intellectual as described by Kierkegaard and Said. Analyzing Oliveira’s alienation in both 42

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Paris and Buenos Aires, Blas Matamoro concludes: “Si todos los puntos del espacio son igualmente ajenos, entonces resultan intercambiables” (41). [“If all points in space are equally distant, they turn out to be interchangeable ”]. Oliveira’s Argentinean friends gradually become aware of the impossibility of any reconciliation between Oliveira and Buenos Aires. Argentina turns out to be “la patria falsa” (Fuentes 64) [“a false motherland”] for the protagonist that challenges Talita and Traveler ’s belief in the necessity of a connection between an individual and the land where he was born. In this way, Oliveira embodies Cortázar’s own cosmopolitan vision of the Argentinean identity characterized by“su falta de certidumbre y de bases de tipo 44

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cultural, por salir de la mezcla” (in Bermejo 62) [“the lack of certainty and of the foundations of the cultural type in order to get out of mixture”]. Though Traveler“espiaba en Oliveira los signos del pacto ciudadano” (190) [“could spot that Oliveira was making his peace with the city” (228)], Oliveira hopelessly remains alienated in his native city. “Oliveira no podía reconciliarse hipócritamente con Buenos Aires, y . . . ahora estaba mucho m ás lejos del país que cuando andaba por Europa” (190) [“Oliveira could not make any hypocritical compromise with Buenos Aires, and . . . at that moment he was much father away from his own country than when he had been wandering about Europe.” (228)]. Oliveira’s feeling of marginality experienced both within and without his native land, as well as the relationship of interchangeability between Paris and Buenos Aires gradually established by the text, display displacement as “no placement” (Kierkegaard qtd. in Houe 359). An attempt to define a place typical of exile, characterized by “openendedness and incompleteness” (Kierkegaard qtd. in Palmer 39), appears to be also a determinant of Rayuela’s structure of the “Open” (Eco 633) work and its use of imagery. The title of the novel points to the game, which in itself is an 45

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attempt to build the bridge between the celestial and terrestrial, as the narrator explains: “En lo alto está el Cielo, abajo está la Tierra, es muy difícil llegar con la piedrita al Cielo, casi siempre se calcula mal y la piedra sale del dibujo. Poco a poco, sin embargo, se va adquiriendo la habilidad necesaria para salvar las diferentes casillas (rayuela caracol, rayuela rectangular, rayuela de fantasía poco usada) y un día se aprende a salir de la Tierra y remontar la piedrita hasta el Cielo, hasta entrar en el Cielo” (178) [“On top is Heaven, on the bottom is Earth, it ’s very hard to get the pebble up to Heaven, you almost always miscalculate and the stone goes off the drawing. But little by little you start to get the knack of how to jump over the different squares (spiral hopscotch, rectangular hopscotch, fantasy hopscotch, not played very often) and then one day 48

you learn how to leave Earth and make pebble climb up into Heaven” (214)]. The ambiguity of the novel’s ending, where Horacio either does or does not commit suicide also points to displacement as no-placement to be the text ’s narrative strategy that makes every reader come up with his/her own ‘bridge’interpretation. As Cortázar points out in his conversation with Garfield, “el hecho de dejar el libro abierto . . . es exactamente lo que yo busco con mis lectores” (30) [“the idea of leaving the book open-ended . . . is exactly what I intend for my readers”]. The task of the“lector-cómplice” would be to become “copartícipe y copadeciente de la experiencia por la que pasa el novelista, en el mismo momento y en la misma forma” (326) [“a co-participant and co-sufferer 49

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of the experience through which the novelist is passing,at the same moment and in the same form ” (397)], which implies the disappearance of the borders between the reader and the writer. Thus, Oliveira ’s exile, his non-placement accompanied by the endless search attains both thematic and metafictional importance in Rayuela. It allows the reader to recognize a modern intellectual and Cortázar to express his metapoetical ideas. In conclusion, Oliveira’s existential displacement multiplies into textual displacement, which is a displacement of other texts, associated with incompleteness and open-endedness. A strategy of textual displacement, whose most efficient mechanisms are irony and parody, is particularly prominent in representations of Paris and Buenos Aires, where the protagonist moves. The use of the motifs recurrent in the nineteenth century representations of the modern city and the lives of the individualists in it, and at the same time an explicit recognition of the imaginary nature of Paris as a metaphor, illustrates a dissipation of boundaries between empirical andfictional realms and underlines the impossibility of reconciliation between the protagonist and the city. Metaphysical Buenos Aires is both a literary construction, which evokes the city created in Borges’s early poetry, and a carnivalesque space that underlines Oliveira’s anxiety of alienation. Created at the crossroads of separate literary worlds, Paris and Buenos Aires are given new lives in the polyphonic space of Cortázar’s novel: they are Oliveira’s indispensable companions in his life-long voyage without destination.

·3· FICTI ONAL AND ‘ REAL ’ PLACES CONVERGENCES AND

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DIVERGENCES

Making ornaments Of accidents and possibilities. Vladimir Nabokov

The controversial places of utopia, dystopia and heterotopia have attractedthe attention of philosophers, artists and critics throughout the ages. This chapter contends that attempting to delineate these places in Borges’s and Cortázar’s narratives allows the reader to move deeper into the fictional worlds created by ’s voice these authors, and offers further insights regarding the location of Borges within the distinct literary universe created by Cortázar. MyMan reading of Borges delónhombre está of cansado ’s stories “Utopia ” [“”A], Weary ’s Utopia ”] and “La casa de Asteri ” [“Theque House Asterion and Cortázar’s novels 62: Modelo para armar [62: A Model Kit] and Los Premios [The Winners ], is informed by ideas developed by such scholars as Judith Schklar and Tobin Seibers. They have observed that, in the postmodern world, any distinction between utopia, dystopia and heterotopia is questionable. This chapter suggests that Borges’s and Cortázar’s narratives, where overtly imaginary and recognizable locations consistently coexist, exemplify thisvision. The blurring of the frontier between utopias and other localesin these writers’ texts turns out to be a common expression of the skepticismabout the contemporary

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world, where violence, a lack of communication and a leveling of the unique value of individuals have become the norm. Undermining the distinction between utopia and dystopia in her analyses of the use of the former, both as a political instrument and as a form of literature, Shklar points out that utopia is both “undesirable” and “dangerous” (41) for the dreams of effortless abundance, peace and well-being are inevitably doomed to failure. Comparing utopian and dystopian discourses as a literary form, Laurence Davies emphasizes that both of them “offer judgments on the present in terms of other times and places” (207). In contrast to utopia, however, she observes, dystopia does not require plain, transparent words. Giving life to language and functioning as “a site both of resistance and deceit” (212), dystopia presents a history and geography in an open-ended way. In his book The Order of Things, and in a later article “Of Other Spaces,” Foucault defines and compares utopia and heterotopia. In The Order of Things, the French philosopher draws a contrast between utopias and heterotopias in terms of the discourse they produce and theemotive reaction they evoke: Utopias afford consolation: although no real locality there is nevertheless a fantastic, untroubled region in whichthey theyhave are able tounfold; they open up cities with vast avenues, superbly planted gardens, countries where life is easy, even though the road to them is chimerical. Heterotopias are disturbing, probably because they secretly undermine language, because they make it impossible to name this and that, because they shatter or tangle common names . . .. This is why utopias permit fables and discourse: the run with the very grain of language and are part of the fundamental dimension of the fabula; heterotopias (such as those to be found so often in Borges)dessicate speech, stop words in their tracks, contest the very possibility of grammar at its source; they dissolve our myths and sterilize the lyricism of our sentences. (XVIII, italics added)

In “Of Other Spaces,” he draws a contrast, between utopias as “sites with no real place” (24) and heterotopias as “real places.” According to Foucault, heterotopias can be characterized by five principles: presence in any culture, possible change of functions according to society’s needs, a capacity to juxtapose in a single real place several (including even contradictory) sites, a break with a traditional notion of time, and the lack of free access. His paradigmatic examples of heterotopias, which he calls“archetypal heterotopias,” include the ship, the labyrinth, and the garden. Foucault distinguishes between three types of heterotopias: of crisis or deviation, such as prisons or rest homes, “in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed;” of illusion, whose function is tocreate illusory space that exposes sites where life is practiced on an even more illusory level (for example,“brothels”);

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and of compensation, which creates an order opposite to the “ill constructed” world where people live (for example, “colonies”). By introducing heterotopias par excellence, and by depicting utopias which no longer bring consolation, Borges’s and Cortazár’s texts allow for reconsideration of the distinction Foucault makes between these two places. In “Of Other Spaces,” the French philosopher himself considers the double function of the mirror to nuance the heterotopia/utopia opposition introduced in The Order of Things. A mirror is both “a utopia, since it is a placeless place” and a heterotopia for “it makes this place that I occupy at the moment when I look at myself in the glass at once absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it, and absolutely unreal, since in order to be perceived it has to pass through this virtual point which is over there” (24). Accordingly, in his book Heterotopia: Postmodern Utopia and the Body Politics, whose title evocatively defines heterotopia by means of utopia, Siebers argues that postmodernism, abundant in heterotopias, is an “utopian philosophy” (4) with its both hopeful and pessimistic sides. In contrast to the classical utopia which aspires to order and uniformity, postmodernists include in their planning diversity and chaos, which make postmodern utopia to be everything that exists: “the ideal postmodern utopia is the aleph ” (Siebers 27). Siebers defines the term “aleph” as “a real world with the difference, ” this difference being, he explains, that the surrounding world in its totality becomes more friendly and enjoyable. This difference, Siebers continues, makes heterotopia to be “the best utopia” (28). Thus, critics coincide in their approach to the concepts of utopia/dystopia/heterotopia as overlapping rather than complementary and offer different versions on how this overlap is constituted. Likewise overtly imaginary and recognizable (‘real’) locations form parallel rather then contrasting constructions in Borges ’s and Cortázar’s texts. In line with classical texts that display utopian/dystopian dominants, Borges’s “Utopía de un hombre que está cansado” (1975) and Cortázar’s 62: Modelo para armar(1968) play with and expand on utopia ’s essentially ironic and paradoxical nature, embodied in “Someone’s land” and “the City,” respectively. Borges self-consciously ’s, Jonathan Swift’s and evokes and transforms motifs prominent in Thomas More H.G. Wells’s canonical utopian texts in order to comment on political and moral crises, meditations probably inspired by Peron’s return to power in 1973. Cortázar’s “City” is an attempt to disengage from literary conventions, an attempt that allows for the drawing of a parallel between the utopic functions of place and language as an embodiment of (apparent) freedom. Cortázar’s representation of the City in62: Modelo de armar (1968) can be interpreted as

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challenging the frontiers of utopia, dystopia and heterotopia, in addressing such issues as growing violence and the lack of communication in the postmodern era. Borges’s “La casa de Asterion” (1949) and Cortázar’s Los premios (1960) employ archetypal heterotopias, such as the labyrinth and the ship respectively. Being intrinsically polysemic, these places, through their structure and their symbolic functions, display a parallelism with literary texts where uniformity and heterogeneity coexist. In Borges’s story, this parallelism allows the author to comment on the structure of myth as well as on the tragic existential and political condition of his epoch. For Cortázar, the undermining of clear distinctions between the functions of place and language is both an act of liberation from predetermined meanings and a rebellion against the dogmatic perception of language recurrent in the political and cultural discourse of the time, as well as an expression of an implicit dialogue with the artistic legacy (e.g. sea-narratives, surreal art,Schopenhauer’s aestheticphilosophy) of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, whereBorges is one of Cortázar’s interlocutors.

The ‘ Exotic ’ or/and ‘ the Familiar ’ : “ Someone ’s Land ” and the Traditions of Literary Utopia Evoking More’s, Swift’s and Wells’s classical texts, Borges’s “Utopía de un hombre que está cansado” [“A Weary Man’s Utopia”] narrates a voyage of the protagonist Eudoro Acevedo to the land, which like a mirror, exposes the faults of the world where he actually lives. The very title of the story, which echoes both More’s work and Borges’s own interpretation of Wells’ The Time Machine, undermines the association of utopia with the happy place, for it declares a vision of the tired man, a result of the existential experience of 1

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exhaustion. The epigraph from Francisco de Quevedo ’s translation of a fragment of More’s influentialwork also intentionally seems to escape the ambiguity of the title introduced by the latter and exclusively emphasizes utopia ’s fictional ontology: “Llámola Utopía, voz griega cuyo significado es no hay tal lugar.” (Obras 3:52) [“He called it‘Utopia,’ a Greek word which means‘there is no such place’ ” (460)]. Evoking the actions of his literary predecessors, the narrator/protagonist Eudoro Acevedo travels to the land of the future, where he meets “Someone,” a man without a name, who shows Eudoro one of his treasures: “un ejemplar de la Utopía de More, impreso en Basilea en el ñao 1518” (53) [“a copy of More’s 3

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Utopia, the volume printed in Basel in 1518” (462)]. “Someone’s land” has all the dreariness and uniformity of More’s Utopia. The main city of More’s “happy place,” for instance, is called Amaurot,“[f]rom the Greek, implying‘dark city’ ” “waterless” (More 35). This place which stan ds on the river Anyder, which means (More 37). As the narrator of Utopia points out, “[i]f you know one of their cities, you know them all, for they ’re exactly alike, except where geography itself makes a difference” (More 36). Likewise, on the land where passions, emotions and the concept of difference no longerexist, Someone“vestido en gris” (Obras 3:52) [“dressed in grey” (460)] and with “rostro severo y pálido” (Obras 3:53) [“stern, pale face” (461)] observes that his house cannot be distinguished from the others: “He construido esta casa, que es igual a todas las otras” (Obras 3:55; italics added) [“ ‘I have built this house, which is like all other houses’ ” (464)]. Uniformity and sameness are characteristic of the architecture both on More’s isle, which is Nowhere, and Someone’s land; they display a common lack of imagination in their inhabitants. In contrast to More’s text, where the idea of sameness might be connected with that of equality, which the imaginary traveler worships and hopes for, Borges’s story is sceptical about the benefits of 4

equality and uniformity. Moreover, the moral, ideological and social principles that govern the life of the utopians in More’s text are maintained in “Someone’s land.” The concept of “el olvido” (Obras 3:54) [“forgetfulness”], practiced in the place where people are indifferent to the flow of time, “viv[en] sub specie aeternitatis” (Obras 3:53) [ “live sub specie aeternitatis ” (461)], is inspired by More ’s book on which Borges explicitly comments in his essay “La postulación de la realidad” [“The Postulation of Reality”]: “Nuestro vivir es una serie de adaptaciones, vale decir, una educación del olvido. Es admirable que la primer noticia de Utop ía que nos dé Thomas More, sea su perpleja ignorancia de la “verdadera” longitud de uno de sus puentes” (Obras 1:218) [“For us, living is a series of adaptatations, which is to say, an education in oblivion. It is admirable that the first news of Utopia Thomas More gives us in his puzzled ignorance of the ‘true’ length of one of its bridges” (61)]. Echoing More’s proto-anarchistic slogan that “The love of money is a root of all evil” (96) and such ideas as the lack of private property and the devaluation of money, familiar to the Borges-reader, Someone points out to the narrator:“Ya no hay quien adolezca de pobreza, que habrá sido insufrible, ni de riqueza, que habr á sido la forma más incómoda de la vulgaridad. . . . Ya que no hay posesiones no hay herencias” (Obras 3:54) [“No one any longer suffers poverty, which must have been unbearable—nor suffers wealth, for that matter, which must have been the most uncomfortable form 5

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of vulgarity. . . . Since there are no possessions, there is no inheritance ” (463)]. However, in contrast to the ideas of harmony and prosperity, which are merely questioned in the classical utopia, these social principles lead to slow death in Someone’s land. As Someone observes, “No conviene fomentar el género humano . . . . Creo que ahora se discuten las ventajas y desventajas de un suicidio gradual o simultáneo de todos los hombres del mundo” (Obras 3:54) [“It is not advisable that the human race too much encouraged . . .. I believe that what is being discussed now is the advantages and disadvantages of the gradual or simultaneous suicide of every person on earth” (463)]. These meditations about a collective suicide can be considered a radical manifestation of the illness which Someone and the narrator have in common: a tiredness anddepression caused by their awareness of the universe “suddenly emptied of meaning,” where pain does not exist (Styron qtd. in Siebers 32). As David Morris observes , “a world without pain is neither possible, desirable, nor meaningful ” (32), because, in his opinion, the understanding of how pain affects and afflicts people (both themselves and others) is crucially important for remaining human. Thus, as with its literary precursor (More’s Utopia), Borges’s text under6

mines the meaning of the ideals it suggests, and exudes hopelessness. In contrast to More’s book, in Borges’s story there is no intention to educate readers or uplift them morally. His story is bent upon exposing the irremediable and intolerable evils of contemporary civilization, where people have lost the ability to empathize with others. Artistically incorporating historical facts such as the industrial mass murder developed during the Second World War “(la cámara letal ” [“the death chamber ”] (465)), and alluding to the Holocaust and Hitler, Borges’s text makes the future, present and past into a vicious circle from which there is no escape or liberation. Therefore, Someone desires his own death. “—Es el crematorio—dijo alguien . . . Mi hu ésped susurró unas palabras. Antes de entrar en el recinto se despidió con un ademán” (Obras 3:56) [“ ‘It is the crematory . . . My host whispered a few words. Before going in, he waved good-bye.’ ” (465)]. The essential unmendability of Someone’s land, where pain does not exist, and where people lost the ability to sympathize with each other, stands in a mirror relationship with the one from which Acevedo comes (Buenos Aires, Argentina), and it is compatible with the vision developed by another author of utopian/dystopian literature, Swift, in his Gulliver’s Travels. Indeed, among his readings, Someone refers to two fantastic books:“ ‘Los Viajes del Capitán Lemuel Gulliver,’ que muchos consideran ver ídicos, y la Suma Teológica” (Obras 3:53) [“the Travels of Captain Gulliver, which many people believe to

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have really taken place, and the Summa Theologica” (461)]. Swift’s dystopian world, where digressions form the norm, appears to be broadly present in Borges’s story. The first meeting of the narrator with Someone evokes a fear which reminds the reader of Gulliver’s first encounter with his new master in the Brobdingnag. As Gulliver recalls, he had found himself “[s]cared and confounded” while looking at the man“as Tall as an ordinary Spire-steeple” (Swift 65). Likewise, the narrator experiences fear when Someone “severo y pálido” opens the door: “Me abrió la puerta un hombre tan alto que casi me dio miedo” (Obras 3:52) [“The door was opened by a man so tall it almost frightened me” (460)]. The asceticism of Someone’s life reminds one of Swift’s Houyhnmns, found among the last of Gulliver’s travels characterized by Borges in his prologue to Swift’ book as “terribles” (Obras 4: 512) [“terrible”]. Displaying a common lack of morality and inability to feel any kind of passions, the Houyhnmns exemplify a devitalised and impoverished society. Swift ’s fatalism reaches its climax when Gulliver gradually starts to admire the Houyhnmns and accept their judgement about himself andhumanity. At first sceptical about the Houyhnmns’ comparison of him and the Yahoos, Gulliver rejects any parallel 7

between himself and “their [the horses’] degenerate and brutal nature.” (182). Later, realizing that a female Yahoo is attracted to him,he concludes:“[f]or now I could no longer deny, that I was a real Yahoo, in every Limb and Feature ” (233). Gradually he starts observing physical resemblances between himself and Yahoos, and later a moral one: “my horror and astonishment are not to be described, when I observed, in this abominable animal, a perfect human figure ” (183). In her perceptive essay“Swift: the Metamorphosis of Irony,” Ann Dyson observes that Gulliver’s acceptance of the Houynhnms’ view of similarities between people and Yahoos can be interpreted as a metaphor for a human condition that is incurably unhealthy, but nevertheless has to be shown and accepted as inevitable. 8

In Borges’s story, by contrast, Someone, tired and dispirited by his lifeless existence, chooses suicide as an act of liberation from his own nature and a surrounding world of indifference. His reflections are in tune with Swift ’s fatalism, expressed in a way typical of the utopian satire. According to Frye, the latter is characterized by a “growing sense that the whole world is destined to the same social fate with no place to hide” (327). In his Prologue to Gulliver’s Travels, Borges quotes William Thackerey’s words: “pensar en Swift . . . es como pensar en la declinación de un gran imperio” (Obras 4: 512) [“to think about Swift . . . is like thinking about the decline of a great empire ”]. The description of Someone’s suicide in the crematory by means of the efficient mass death

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invented in the twentieth century, which the entire population is contemplating, can be read in a similar way:“—Es crematorio . . .. Adentro est á la cámara letal. Dicen que la inventó un filántropo cuyo nombre, creo, era Adolfo Hitler. El cuidador, cuya estatura no measombró, nos abrió la verja” (Obras 3:56) [“ ‘It is the crematory . . .. The death chamber is inside. They say it was invented by a philanthropist whose name, I believe, was Adolfo Hitler. The caretaker , whose height did not take me aback, opened the gate” (465)]. Moreover, the elements of the metafictional discourse in Someone’s words (“Dicen que . . . ”) show history to be a part of “a speculative myth” (Frye 323) that is part of a fiction where skepticism dominates. As Someone observes,“Por lo demás, ni lo que ha sido ni lo que será me interesan.” (Obras 3:53) [“And in any case, neither that which has been nor that which is to be holds any interest for me” (461)]. The motif of traveling to the future, and the implicit questioning of the ’s The Time linearity and diachronic nature of ti me, display the influence of Wells Machine upon “Utopía de un hombre que está cansado.” For Wells, a man who travels to the future can come back to the present and even past. His Time Traveller brings back a souvenir from the future, two “strange” (Wells 78) 9

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flowers, that a doctor cannot identify and which the narrator describes as “shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle”: “And I have by me, for my comfort, two strange flowers—shriveled now, and brown and flat and brittle—to witness that even when mind and strength had gone, gratitude and a mutual tenderness still lived on in the heart of man” (Wells 78). These flowers, occupying the same space at two different times, are illustrations of the author ’s approach to time as a function of space. In the words of the Time Traveller, “[t]here is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it . . .. Scientific people . . . know very well that Time is only a kind of Space” (Wells 4–5). Borges reverses this subordination. For him space “isun episodio de tiempo.” This view influences his interpretation of the use of the flower in Wells’s novel. In his essay “La flor de Coleridge,” written well before “Utopía de un hombre que está cansado, ” Borges ’s narrator observes: “El protagonista de Wells . . . viaja f ísicamente al porvenir. Vuelve rendido, polvoriento y maltrecho; vuelve de una remota humanidad que se ha bifurcado en especies que se odian; . . . vuelve con las sienes encanecidas y trae del porvenir una flor marchita . . . una flor celestial o que la flor de un sue ño es la flor futura, la contradictoria flor cuyos átomos ahora ocupan otros lugares y no se combinaron aún” (Obras 2:18; italics added) [“Wells’s protagonist travels physically to the future. He returns tired, dusty and shaken from a remote humanity that has divided

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into species who hate each other . . . . He returns with his hair grown gray and brings with him a wilted flower from the future . . . a celestial flower or the flower of a dream is a flower of the future, the unlikely flower whose atoms now occupy other spaces and have not yetbeen assembled” (164)]. A similar device, a painting canvas lookingot the past as Wells ’s flowers do to the futur e, was used by Wells ’s friend Henry James inThe Sense of the Past, as Borges further notes in“La flor de Coleridge”: “En The Sense of the Past, el nexo entre lo real y lo imaginativo (entre la actualidad y el pasado) no es una flor . . . es un retrato que data del siglo XVIII” (Obras 2:18) [“In The Sense of the Pastthe nexus between the real and the imaginative (between present and past) is not a flower . . . , but a picture from the eigh” (165). teenth century that mysteriously represents the protagonist Commenting on James’s work, Borges observes,“un incomparableregressus in infinitum. . . . La causa es posterior al efecto, el motivo del viaje es una de las consecuencias del viaje” (Obras 2:18) [“an incomparable regressus in infinitum. . . . The cause follows the effect, the reason for the journey is one of the consequences of the journey” (165)]. From these comments, it can besuggested that Borges sees the future determining the present and the past and in Wells’s 11

and James’s novels, as well as being determined by it. Borges combines both images, Wells’s flower of the future and James’s canvas (which inspired a voyage to the past) in his final lines of “Utopia de un hombre que est á cansado,” where the protagonist-narrator observes: “En mi escritorio de la calle M éxico guardo la tela que alguien pintar á, dentro de miles de años, con materiales hoy dispersos en el planeta” (Obras 3:56) [“In my study on Calle México still hangs the canvas that someone will paint, thousands of years from now, with substances that are now scattered across the planet ” (72)]. This image suggests that, in line with his creative interpretation of Wells’s flowers (offered in “La flor de Coleridge”), Borges re-elaborates his own speculation that, whereas space may vary, time is a single constant where present, past and future coexist. Indeed, in contrast to both Wells’s and James’s narratives, in Borges’s paradoxical metaphysics, as it appears in“Utopía del hombre que está cansado,” different time periods overlap rather then form a succession. Someone, a 400-year-old man from the future, for example, shows the narrator books that remind him of antique writings/manuscripts: “En una de las paredes vi un anaquel. Abrí un volumen al azar; las letras eran claras e indiscifrables y trazadas a mano. Sus líneas angulares me recordaron el alfabeto rúnico, que sin embargo, s sólo se empleó para le escritura epigráfica.Pensé que los hombres del porvenir noólo eran más altos sino más diestros” (Obras 3:53; italics added) [“On one of the walls I noticed a bookshelf. I opened a volume at random; the letters were clear and inde-

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cipherable and written by hand. Their angular lines reminded me of the runic alphabet, though it had been used only for inscriptions. It occurred to me that the people of the future were not only taller, they were more skilled as well” (67; italics added)]. He offers Acevedo a painting “como recuerdo de un amigo futuro” (Obras 3:56; italics added) [“as a souvenir of a future friend ” (71; italics added)]. The visitor picks up one that “encerraba algo infinito” (Obras 3:56) [“suggested . . . something of the infinite about it ” (71)]. The eclectic setting inside his house where one room has wooden doors“las paredes de madera” and in the kitchen “todo era de metal” (Obras 3:52) [“everything was made of metal”] may be considered a synecdochal representation of the Utopian land where different epochs simultaneously coexist. Borges’s metaphysical concept of a future that embraces the past and the present, as well as the description of Eudoro ’s journey, makes the notions of utopia, dystopia and heterotopia converge. The word “utopia,” which appears in the title, refers to “Someone’s land,” which is visited in the story by the protagonist Eudoro. Someone’s indifference and cruelty, which the people from his land willingly accept (and even strive for), allow one to identify thisplace with 12

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dystopia. Finally, the uncertainty about the distance between Someone’s land and the world the narrator comes from, and striking similarities (as described by the narrator) between “real” geographic and overtly fictional places, as well as such characteristics as a break from the traditional notice of time, the lack of free access and a possible change of functions according to society ’s needs marks the locale as heterotopic in nature. Indeed, the narrator’s references to his way to the land of Utopia (before his meeting with Someone) emphasize uniformity between ‘real’ geographical and fictional places which mirror each other: “No hay dos cerros iguales, pero en cualquier lugar de la tierra la llanura es una y la misma . . . . Me pregunt é sin mucha curiosidad si estaba en Oklahoma o en Texas o en la región que los literatos llaman la pampa” (Obras 3:52) [“No two mountain peaks are alike, but anywhere on earth the plains are one and the same. . . . I asked myself without much curiosity whether I was in Oklahoma o Texas or the region that literary men call‘las pampas’ ” (65)]. Further, Eudoro’s perception of ‘real’/geographical places is configured by the books he has read. He prefers to think about the surrounding world in terms of familiar poetry, which introduces the Argentine literary motif: Como otras veces repetí despacio estas líneas, de Emilio Oribe: En medio de la pánica llanura interminable Y cerca del Brasil, (Obras 3:52). 14

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As on other occasions, I slowly murmured these lines, more or less from Emilio Orbe: Riding through the ongoing, ongoing and interminable Terrifying plains, near the frontier of Brazil . . . (65) This use of the Argentinean national literary motif, and an emphasis on the fictional nature of the topography of the world the narrator comes from, where ‘reality’ exists exclusively through the media and“[l]as imágenes y la letra ás reales que las cosas ” (Obras 3:54) [“[i]mages and the printed impresa [que son] m word [which have been] more real than things ” (68)], allow “Someone’s land” to function as a heterotopia of illusi on that is like“a space of illusion that exposes every real space, all the sites inside of which human life is partitioned, as still more illusory” (Foucault 27). Further, in contrast to More, Swift and Wells, Borges does not clearly explain how Eudoro reaches“Someone’s land.” The prior protagonists sailed or flew to their locations, but it can be assumed that Eudoro walked to his destination: “Yo iba por el camino de la llanura” (Obras 3:52) [“I was riding down a road across the plains ” (65)]. Someone’s comment on traveling to outer space and walking to the neighbour’s house as parallel actions, allows one to suggest that Eudoro probably did not have to leave Argentina in order to enter the land of the future; boundaries between familiar and overtly imaginary places turn out to be subverted. As Someone observes, “todo viaje es espacial. Ir de un planeta a otro es como ir a la granja de enfrente. Cuando usted entró en este cuarto estaba ejecutando un viaje espacial” (Obras 3:55) [“every journey is a journey through space. Going from one planet to another is much like going to the farm across the way. When you stepped into this room, you were engaging in space travel” (70)]. Given this vision of the future, Eudoro’s own past becomes “curioso.” Indeed, his account of the near past displays a grotesque and absurd society in its superficial aspirations to maintain the illusion of actuality, which is a manifestation of a dystopian emptiness of everyday life governed by ignorance: —En mi curioso ayer— contesté—, prevalecía la superstición de que entre cada tarde y cada mañana ocurren hechos que es una verguenza ignorar. El planeta estaba poblado de espectros colectivos, el Canadá, el Brasil, el Congo Suizo y el Mercado Común. Casi nadie sabía la historia previa de esos entes platonicos, pero sí los más íntimos pormenores del último congreso de pedagogos, la inminente ruptura de relaciones y los mensajes que los presidentes mandaban, elaborados por el secretario del secretario con la prudente imprecisión que era propia del g énero” (Obras 3:54; italics added).

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“In that strange yesterday from which I have come, ” I replied, “there prevailed the superstition that between one evening and the next morning, events occur that it would be shameful to have no knowledge of. The planet was peopled by spectral collectives—Canada, Brazil, the Swiss Congo, the Common Market. Almost no one knew the prior history to those Platonic Entities, yet everyone was informed of the most trivial Details of the latest conference of pedagogues or the imminent breaking off of relations between one of these entities and another and the messages that their presidents sent back and forth—composed by a secretary to the secretary, and in the prudent vagueness that the form requires. ” (68)

Thematizing the journey to the future is in linewith classical utopic texts, where this voyage is “an unconscious desire to escape the culture whose product [the traveler] is” (Leddy 85). This motif reappears in Borges’s text in a modified form because as the present and future form a single metaphysical moment, and space is a function of time, there is no need to abandon familiar places to enter nowhere, or Utopia. The notion of utopia as a “placeless place” (Foucault 24) turns out to be undermined in Borges’s story, which suggests its presence within the limits of familiar topography. In this way, “Utopia del hombre que est á cansado ” enters in an implicit dialogue with the literary tradition of utopic/dystopic writing, and offers its own contribution to the genre. Whereas in More ’s Utopia such values as equality, asceticism, and a rejection of private property are introduced as positive but remain intrinsically ambiguous, in Borges’s text there is no place for ambiguity; they are negative. Swift’s Gulliver’s Travelslinks the physical placement of the characters (e.g. Houyhnmns) with a moral one (decadence); while for Borges’s story the grotesque effect is obtained by the linkage of the apparently human appearance of the inhabitants of Someone ’s land with their total lack of emotion of any kind, which makes them capable of unlimited monstrosity. In a ludic dialogue with Wells’s influential text, Borges’s story both thematizes and inverts a time- space relationship, and develops a metaphysical notion of time where future, present and past coexist. In contrast to Wells’s text, in Borges ’s story space is but a function of time, where the past, present and future overlap. Consequently, the distance between the overtly imaginary land of the future and recognizable present-day locations is questioned. As opposed to the works of his precursors, Borges ’s text reduces the distance between ‘fictional ’ and ‘real ’ places, both of which emphatically share a dystopian dominant, terrifying in its simultaneous impossibility and familiarity.

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Challenging Conventions and Breaking Illusions: the City and the Language i n 62 : Modelo para armar In contrast to Borges’s story, which expresses the author’s awareness of canonical texts, Cortof 62: Modelo para armar [62:toAdisengage Model Kit]from appears ázar ’s writer to beutopian the embodiment the ’s conscious attempt any literary conventions and traditional perceptions of semantics that make the notions of utopia as a place and that as a language to converge. The representation of the City (at the crossroad of the apparently familiar and the distanced) in this novel, nevertheless, also allows the reader to erlate the concepts of utopia, dystopia and heterotopia. As Jason Weiss points out, “place is the underlying problem for the characters in 62. It seems that no one is really where they should be, or they are already on the way to somewhere else” (45). Evoking the traditions of utopian literature, all the characters in the novel make virtual voyages to the ‘in-between’ dreamlike poetic place, the City. The imaginary visits to the City are associated with the satisfaction of desires impossible within capital cities or a zone mentioned in the novel: “tal vez sea en la ciudad donde realmente va a ocurrir lo que aquí les parece . . . o imposible o never more ” (88; italics added) [“maybe it’s in the city where what seems . . . impossible or nevermore to them here is really going to occur” (89)]. The characters associate their hopes and dreams with this place which thus functions as a utopia. Juan, the protagonist, for example, desperately wanders in the city in order to pursue the anesthetist Helene, whom he obsessively loves; Nicole, who no longer loves a sculptor, Marrast, enters the city with the intention to commit suicide; and Austin, the former neurotic who has an affair with the young Celia, comes to the City in order to kill Helene in an act of revenge for the seduction of his lover. A sense of expansive human possibilities is usually associated with utopian locales, as with, for instance, according to Raphael Hythloday, the narrator of More’s Utopia. This ethos turns out to be destructive in the City, which both emphasizes its affinity with and points to the distance from the urban spaces described in classical utopian literature. The City’s indefinite location is everywhere and nowhere; its both fictitious and ‘real’ ontology is a vague amalgam of Paris, Buenos Aires, London, Vienna and other capitals, and of a verbal construct which emerges in the discourse of “mi paredro” (23) [“my paredros” (24)], an associated divinity, suggests Louis 15

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Marin’s semiotic approach to the utopia as a “synthesis” (415) as the most applicable to this mysterious place. Indeed, the City cannot be mapped out and appears to be an infinite labyrinth, omnipresent and slipping away at the same time: “La ciudad podía darse en París, podía dársele a Tell o a Calac en una cervecería de Oslo, a alguno de nosotros le había ocurrido pasar de la ciudad a una cama en Barcelona, a menos que fuera lo contrario” (28) [“The city might appear in Paris; it might appear for Tell or Calac in a beer hall in Oslo; it had happened to one of us to go from the city to a bed in Barcelona, unless it were the opposite.” (19)]. Both the characters’ and the readers’ knowledge about the city is elliptical. When Tell, for instance, refers to the “límite de la ciudad,” Juan responds: “Oh, el límite . . . Nadie lo conoce, sabes ” (65) [“Oh, the edge of the city . . . . Nobody knows where it is, you know” (65)]. The City’s unknown location and ázar’s utopia the use of the general term for its designation emphasizes that Cort is hardly a distinguishable place, a name that constitutes “a distance or a gap that does not allow any affirmation or negation to be asserted as truth or a falsehood” (Marin 411). Indeed, as if illustrating Marin’s approach to utopia as 21

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“interval” (404) and “in between” (411), the protagonist’s poetic description

of the city abounds in indefinite pronouns and elliptical constructions. At the same time, the recurring reference to the City as “mi ciudad” emphasizes its highly subjective and idiosyncratic nature: Entro de noche a mi ciudad, yo bajo a mi ciudad donde me esperan o me eluden, donde tengo que huir de alguna abominable cita, de lo que ya no tiene nombre, una cita con dedos, con pedazos de carne en un armario, con una ducha que no encuentro, en mi ciudad hay duchas, hay un canal que corta por el medio mi ciudad y navíos enormes sin mástiles pasan en un silencio intolerable hacia un destino que conozco pero que olvido al regresar, hacia un destino que niega mi ciudad donde nadie se embarca, donde se está para quedarse aunque los barcos pasen y desde el liso puente alguno esté mirando mi ciudad. Entro sin saber cómo en mi ciudad, a veces otras noches salgo a calles o casas y sé que no es en mi ciudad, mi ciudad la conozco por una expectativa agazapada

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algo que no es el miedo todavía pero tiene su forma y su (perro y cuando es mi ciudad sé que primero habrá el mercado con portales y con (tiendas de frutas . . . los rieles de un tranv ía... . . . un barrio como el Once en Buenos Aires . . . . . . mi ciudad es de hoteles infinitos y siempre el mismo hotel, . . . o en las deshabitadas galerías de algo que ya no es el hotel, la mansión infinita a la que llevan todos los ascensores y las puertas, todas las galerías. (32–33; italics added) [I enter my city at night, I go down to my city where they wait for me or elude me, where I have to flee from some abominable meeting, from what no longer has a name, a meeting with fingers, with pieces of flesh in a cupboard, with a showerbath that I can ’t find, there are showers in my city and enormous ships without masts pass in an unbearable silence toward a fate that I know but which I forget when I return, toward a fate that denies my city where no one embarks, where one is to remain even though the ships pass and from the smooth deck someone is looking at my city. I enter my city without knowing how, sometimes on other nights I go out to streets and houses and I know that it isn ’t my city, I know my city by a crouching expectation, something that isn’t yet fear but which has its shape and its dog and when it is my city I know that first there’ll be the market place with doorways and fruit stands,

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the shimmering rails of a streetcar that is lost in a direction where I was young but not in my city, a district like El Once in Buenos Aires . . . my city is infinite hotels and always the same hotel, ... that is no longer the hotel, the infinite mansion reached by all elevators and doors, all hallways, . . . (30 –31) Further, Juan’s references to the city, in a language consisting of separate fragments which reminds one of an echo, allow the reader toconsider this place to be a metaphoric embodiment of the utopia of language (rather then an architectural construct). Uniting in itself the notions of infinite possibility, boundlessness and subjectivity, the‘representation’ of the city is an epistemological challenge to the idea of absolute knowledge about an object and to the dogmatic perception of language as aconstruction consisting ofa-priori defined elements. The image of the City, like language itself, is neither centered nor closed. This allows it to function as a utopia of possibilities, where identity and meaning are fragile values, always in question, always on the brink of disappearance. As if in the middle of a deconstruction of the familiar when the target is not yet reached, it is impossible to read topography of a new land that may not be delineated or described in its totality. Aligning the Utopian function of language with the forces of freedom, Roland Barthes observes:“[The] salutary trickery . . . which allows us to understand speech outside the bonds of power . . . I for one call literature” (6). In his essay “Writers, Intellectuals, Teachers,” he points to attempts to escape singular meaning through the limitless expansion of the signifiers, and draws a par23

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allel between the utopian vision of freedom in history and the subjectivity of interpretation. Similarly, the City, most often referred by the characters as “mi ciudad ” (23, 28, 112), has “a shape of overlapping subjectivities ” (McHale 44) which include shared fantasies and nightmares that make its meaning elusive. Being a poetic expression of “la radicalización de lo subjetivo” (Yurkievich 472) [“the radicalization of the subjective”], the City embodies the characters’ aspirations for liberation from their dissatisfactory present by means of imagination. Wish-fulfilling/utopic functions become associated with both the City and the language that creates this mysterious urban space as “a web of sense” (Nabokov qtd. in Cortázar Ultimo Round 259) rather than

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as a determinate realm/place. An approach to language (art) as a creator of (alternative) reality echoes Borges’s metapoetical ideas explicitly mentioned by one of the Argentines in the novel. To Nicole’s comment that the name of “el superintendente ” [“the director ”] of the City is Harold Haroldson, Calac responds: “Y uno que creía que nombres así solamente en Borges, hay que convercerse que la naturaleza imita al arte” (153) [“And people think that names like that only turn up in Borges. You have to convince people that nature imitates art” (159)]. Likewise, his compatriot Polanco calls the artist Marrast as “inventor de nuevas nubes” [“an inventor of new clouds” (128)], who fills “el universo de cosas transparentes y metafísicas. . . . Y entonces te nace la rosa verde . . . , o, al rev és, no te nace ninguna rosa y todo revienta, pero en cambio, hay perfume y nadie comprende cómo puede haber ese perfume sin flor. Lo mismo que yo, que soy un inventor incomprendido, pero impert érrito” (124) [“the universe with transparent and metaphysical things . . . And then the green rose is born for you . . . or, on the contrary, no rose at all is born and everything explodes, but, on the other hand, there ’s an aroma, and no one understands how that aroma can be there without the flower. Like you, I’m an inventor who is 25

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misunderstood but undaunted ” (128)]. Development of this metapoetical theme culminates in the image of the City. It may be seen as a metaphoric representation of the utopian thought where both poetic language and fictional place display the literary imagination that as Frye perceptively observes, is “less concerned with achieving end than visualizing possibilities” (Frye 329). The associations with fear and violence that the City evokes in the mind of the characters, and the impossibility of meeting there, challenge the notion of utopia as a “happy place.” The City turns out to be a sort of dystopia, the geography of which cannot be taken in at a single glance. The main pragmatic function of the city-labyrinth, abundant in hotels and trams, appears to be that of a transitory agency. Working as an interpreter, Juan, like Cortázar himself, 27

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describes his life passed in non-places/hotels whose archetype is a hotel in the city: “Acabé por descubrir que en cualquiera de los hoteles donde me tocara vivir, me ocurría entrar con más frecuencia en el hotel de la ciudad para volver a andar interminablemente por sus habitaciones de empapelados claros, buscando a alguien que en el momento no hubiera podido nombrar ” (58) [“I ended up discovering that in any of the hotels where I happened to be staying, it got so that I would enter the hotel of the city more frequently, walking through its interminable rooms with light wallpaper again, looking for someone I couldn’t have named at the moment” (58)]. These connections, however, are just illusions because any search inthe City results in frustration: “Tell 30

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estaba segura de haber visto de lejos a Nicole y quizá a Marrast que vagaban por el barrio de los mercados, y era como si Nicole anduviera buscando (y no los encontraba, y era tristísimo) esos collares de grandes piedras azules que se vendían en las calles de Teherán” (59) [“Tell was sure of having seen Nicole and maybe Marrast from a distance as they wandered through the market district, and it was as if Nicole were searching (and she was unsuccessful and terribly sad) for those necklaces with large blue stones that were sold on the streets of Teheran” (59)]. Also, in contrast to other cities,the characters aspire to but fail to meet each other in the City: “Es una región que te encoge el alma, que te da tristeza sin razones, nada más que por estar ahí” (65) [“It’s a place that curls up in your soul, makes you sad for no reason, just being there . . . ” (66)]. The City is a lifeless place and it has connotations with the fatal and the dead. Looking at thedying boy, Hélèna thinks about the City as lacking in vitality typical of other places: “en la ciudad donde caminar tenía siempre algo de pasivo, por inevitable y decidido, por fatal . . . . Lo que pudiera ocurrirle en la ciudad nunca la había preocupado tanto como el sentimiento de cumplir itinerarios en los que su voluntad poco ten ía que ver, como si la topografía de la ciudad, el dédalo de calles cubiertas, de hoteles y tranvías, se resolvieran siempre en un solo derrotero pasivo ” (102) [“the city, where walking always had something passive about it, because it was inevitable and all decided, fated . . . . What could have happened in the city had never worried her as much as the feeling of following an itinerary where her will had little bearing, as if the topography of the city, the maze of covered streets, hotels and streetcars would always be resolved into one single, inevitable, passive course ” (104)]. Emphasizing the reflexive relationship between “París subterraneo ” [“that underground Paris”] and “la ciudad,” she concludes that to be in the hospital “[e]s casi como estar en la ciudad” (102) [“[i]t’s almost like being in the city” (104). In the hotel where Hélèna is killed, there are the same “verandas [tropicales] protegidas por cañas” (115) [“[tropical] verandas protected by bamboo” (118)] described in Juan’s poem. Thus, the City, both apocalyptic and wishfulfilling, undermines the utopia/dystopia dichotomy. On the one hand, the characters associate their hopes and dreams with this place. On the other, the actions which happen there consistently bring violence and destruction and corrupt communications between the parties. Further, in addition to functioning as both utopia and dystopia (forms conventionally associated with the fictional places), the City both reflects and incorporates ‘real’ urban spaces, which also allows one to regard it as heterotopic in nature. The blurring of the boundaries between recognizable 31

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locations and overtly invented metaphysical spaces, an occurrence familiar to the readers of Rayuela, finds its culmination in Cortázar’s subsequent creation: the City of 62: Modelo para armar. Whereas inRayuela, as pointed out in Chapter II of this book, a representation of Buenos Aires at the intersect ion of familiar geographics and metaphysical and carnivalesque discourses undescores the protagonist ’s alienation from (and in) his native land; in62: Modelo para armar, the City, which cannot be mapped, can ’ anxiety of displacement, a condition be seen as an expression of the characters which does not know geographical boundaries and cannot be resolved. Indeed, the City is at the same time one and many, for as Juan observes, “las ciudades donde vivíamos eran siempre las ciudades y la ciudad. ” (28) [“the cities where we lived were always citiesand the city” (25)]. Located everywhere and nowhere, the City exemplifies a“form of a contradictory site” typical for heterotopia (Foucault 25). It has multiple connections with theurrounding s world, and therefore in the narrator’s words:“no hay razón para extrañarla—en el sentido de darle un valor privi—conviene hablar legiado por oposición a las ciudades que nos eran habituales desde ahora porque todos nosotros est ábamos de acuerdo en que cualquier lugar o cualquier cosa podían vincularse con la ciudad” (22) [“there’s no reason to make it strange—in the sense of giving it a privileged value in contras t to the cities we were used to. . . Now it is proper to talk about it from here on because we all agreed that any place or anything could be attached to the ”city (19)]. As McHale asserts, the City is a“heterotopian zone . . . constructed and deconstructed at the same time” (44). Consequently, undermining language because it makes it impossible “to name thisand that” (Foucault 18), the heterotopic existence of the Cit y ” (22) can hardly be explained in terms of logic:“La ciudad no se explicaba, era [“The city was not explained; it was ” (19)]. The City also displays a break with traditional time, celebrating parallelism and synchrony as an alternative to linearity. In his conversation with Prego, for 32

example, Cortázar emphasizes the possibility of a simultaneous presence in “la ciudad ” and in some other geographic place: “la idea de la ciudad me vino . . . como una especie de punto de reuni ón eventual de los personajes que se encuentran en la ciudad e incluso les suceden cosas en la ciudad mientras uno de ellos está viviendo en Londres y el otro, por ejemplo, est á viviendo en Viena” (134) [“the idea of the city came to me . . . as a sort of a point of reunion for the characters who meet in the city and to whom also things happen in the city when one of them live in London, and another, for example, is living in Viena”]. In this way, the heterotopic City appeals to the psychogeography of everyday life and offers an alternative to a successive flow of time. 33

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The motif of the mirror, which questions ‘real’/’fictional’ place opposition and where the concepts of utopia and heterotopia converge, according to Foucault, is also consistently associated with the City in the novel. Juan’s observation in front of the mirror in the restaurant Polidor, the setting that opens the text, for instance, can be easily applied to the City as a whole, where the very notions of linearity and presence are suspended. He has an impression that “un espejo de espacio y un espejo de tiempo habían coincidido en un punto de insoportable y fugacísima realidad antes de dejar[le] otra vez a solas con tanta inteligencia, con tanto antes y atrás y adelante y despúes” (30, italics added) [“a mirror of space and a mirror of time had coincided at a point of unbearable and most fleeting reality before it left me alone again with so much intelligence, with so much before and after and so much in front and in back” (27)]. Juan’s experience with the mirror is considered as srcinating in the City: “y así a Juan no le parecía imposible que de alguna manera lo que acababa de ocurrirle fuese materia de la ciudad” (21) [“and so it didn’t seem impossible to Juan that what had just happened to him had been matter from the city” (19)]. The functioning of the City turns out to be that of a mirror 34

where heterotopia, utopia and dystopia converge. It accumulates ‘real’ (recognizable) places and at the same time appears to be an overtly imaginary construct. An intrinsic ambiguity in the representation of the City bears on the characters’ aspirations to escape from their culture, its dogmatic language, and the organization of the self determined by it. The City, which both inspires dreams and consistently manifests frustration, exemplifies the author’s fatalistic view of the impossibility of overcoming violence and fear, and the lack of communication characteristic of the epoch in which he lives.

Revisiting the Minotaur: Heterotopia as Place and Mode “of in Borges LaRepresentation casa de Asterion ”

’s

As in 62: Modelo para armar the representation of Cortázar’s city allows one to interrelate the functions of place and that of language, in Borges’s “La casa de Asterión” [The House of Asterion”], heterotopia is both a place where the protagonist-minotaur lives and a mode of representation, a metapoetical structure of palimpsest. Similarly to archetypical heterotopia described by Foucault, Asterion’s house is multifunctional. It is a claustrophobic place that is simultaneously a home, a labyrinth, a prison and an entire world. The protagonist’s 35

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house is a cultural product built as a defense against the vagaries of nature: “Por lo demás, algún atardecer he pisado la calle; si antes de la noche volví, lo hice por el temor que me infundieron las caras de la plebe” (82) [“Besides, one afternoon I did step into the street; if returned before night, I did so because of the fear that the faces of the common people inspired in me” (138)]. According to Cristina Grau, “la descripción de la casa-los aljibes, los patios—, remite a la arquitectura domestica bonaerense” (165) [“the description of the house, its ”]. The pools, its courtyards; all evoke the domestic architecture of Buenos Aires most characteristic feature of this house is the repetition of its parts, “cualquier lugar es otro lugar. No hay unaljibe, un patio, un abrevadero, un pesebre” (83) [“any place is another place. There is no one pool, courtyard, drinking through, masanger” (139)]. The galleries are identical and it is very easy to get lost, only “los cadáveres ayudan a distinguir una galería de las otras” (83) [“bodies help distinguish one gallery from another” (140)]. This makes Asterion ’s house a labyrinth, which is a recurrent motif in Borges ’s fiction. The labyrinth may be regarded as a claustrophobic place from which it is difficult to find an exit, and from which the protagonist hopes to be liberated: “Ojalá me lleve a un lugar 36

con menos galerías y menos puertas” (82) [“I hope he will take me to a place with fewer galleries and fewer doors” (140)]. As Barbara Gold points out, labyrinth comes from a pre- Hellenic word and means “House of Double-Axe” in Greek (49). Therefore, when the protagonist refers to “el templo de las Hachas” (82, 83) he refers to his own house. Although the protagonist insists that he is not a prisoner and emphasizes that the numerous doors of his house“están abiertas día y noche a los hombres, y también a los animales” (82) [“its doors . . . are open day and night to men and to animals as well” (138)] the architectural peculiaritiesof this house remindone of the prison. Indeed, Asterion’s place, which combines an infinite number of triangular courtyards and galleries, reminds one ofa circular prison. Waiting for his death, and trying to overcome his miserable state of solitude, the protagonist fantasizes the arrival of a second Asterion:“de tantos juegos el que prefiero es el de otro Asterion. Finjo que viene a visitarme y que yo le muestro la casa ” (82) [“But of all the games, I prefer the one about the other Asterion. I pretend that he comes to visit me and that I show him my house” (139)]. The presence of this double, however, does not bring the protagonist any relief. Furthermore, there is an explicit parallelism between the house where “son catorce, son infinitos los pesebres, abrevaderos, patios, aljibes” (82) [“the mangers, drinking troughs, courtyards, pools are fourteen (infinite) in number” (139)] and the world where“son catorce, son infinitos los mares y los templos” 37

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(83) [“the seas and temples are also fourtee n (infinite) in number ” (139)], which allows Asterión to identify his house with the world: “la casa es del tamaño del mundo; mejor dicho, es el mundo” (83) [“[t]he house is the same size as the ’s house extends world; or rather, it is the world” (139)]. Consequently, Asterion infinitely; the inside and outside are one and the same claustrophobic space for Asterion. As Gold points out, “the labyrinth seems to have a limit, but actually is infinite or cyclical” (50). The multifunctional heterotopia described in Borges’s story can be seen as a challenge to any opposition between the public and the private, considered by Foucault as “simply given” (23). Moreover, the ludic structure of the palimpsest and the hybrid nature of the protagonist may be considered metapoetical/artistic analogues to the concept of heterotopia, an eclectic locus. There are two hypotexts distinguished by the author himself and explicitly indicated in the story. The first one is the ancient Greek myth described in Apollodorus’s The Library from which the epigraph for the story is taken: “Y la reina dio a luz un hijo que se llamó Asterión” (Obras ” (138)]. 1:569) [“And the queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion The second hypotext is Watt’s painting “The Minotaur” (1896) to which, as 38

Borges confesses in the epilogue ofEl Aleph, he owes “el carácter de mi pobre protagonista” (Obras 1:629) [“the character ofmy poor protagonist”]. According to the Greek writer, the Minotaur was the unfortunate product of the mating of the sacred bull with the king ’s wife Pasiphae, a sign of shame as well as of monstrosity that has been confined in thelabyrinth built by Daedalus:“And Pasiphae gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minosshut him up and guarded him in the labyrinth” (Appolodorus 1:305). Evoking Foucault’s definition of “heterotopia of deviation” (Foucault 25), the labyrinth is build in order to isolate the terrifying Minotaur. As described in Apolodorus’s text, it reminds one of a prison, a place contrasted from those where people live. In Borges ’s text, on the contrary, 39

the relationship of equivalence between Asterion ’s house (prison, labyrinth) and the world displays the former as atragic norm from which there is noescape and liberation except death. Asterion’s house functions as heterotopia of illusion, which reveals the apparent freedom outside of it as a deception. Further, by introducing the first person narrator and mentioning only the name of Asterión (which is not common knowledge), Borges offers a rewriting of the well-known myth. Though there are some hints at the hybrid nature of Asterión, who lives in an unfurnished house and whose activities allude to his animal nature, the presence of Minotaur andthe labyrinth is disguised until the last paragraph narrated in the third person and where the name of Theseus is

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explicitly mentioned: “—¿Lo creerás, Ariadna?—dijo Teseo—. El minotauro apenas se defendi ó” (Obras 1:570; italics added) [ “ ‘Would you believe it, Ariadne?’ said Theseus. ‘The Minotaur scarcely defended himself ’ (140)]. The structure and symbolic functions of Asterion’s house as well as the disguised presence of the Minotaur, which both evoke and deviate from images elaborated in earlier versions of the myth can also be seen as the author ’s metapoetical comment on myth as a-centric narrative, which is in tune with Claude Levi-Strauss’s observations about this genre. In his last book The Raw and the Cooked, Levi-Strauss pointed out: “There is no unity or absolute source of the myth . . .. The discourse of the a-centric structure that myth itself is, cannot itself have an absolute center” (5). Heterotopia, which is capable in combining in itself several, often incompatible sites, can be described in similar terms. Whereas theabsence of the center in the myth is the absence of a subject and the absence of an author, the absence of the center in heterotopia is due to its intrinsically eclectic nature and persistent changes of functions (see Foucault 25). A combination and transformation of familiar elements of the famous myth, distinct narrative strategies, and a description of the Minotaur as a reasonable creature, whose tragic condition of solitude evokes pity rather then fear, make it possible to consider Borges’s story as analogous to that of an accumulating heterotopic locus as described by Foucault. A parallelism between the House of Asterion, the protagonist’s hybrid nature and the eclectic discursive strategy of palimpsest allows Borges’s metafictional story to offeranother characteristic of heterotopia: the absence of a center. 40

Boarding the Ship: the Unresolved Mystery of Cort á z a r ’s “ Malcolm ” Cortázar’s first published novel,Los Premios [The Winners], also suggests an elaboration of an archetypal heterotopia which in this case is the protagonist, the ship “Malcolm.” The emphatically heterogeneous characters of the novel, representatives of different social groups, embark on the“Malcolm” as the winners of the state lottery thatillustrates the ship to be heterotopia.As Foucault observes, ” (Foucault 26). The ship heterotopias are“not freely accessible like a public place is intrinsically polysemic: it is aplace of meeting of the diverse groups of people, a claustrophobic space of labyrinth, Picasso’s guitar and the infinite Argentine pampas. The variety of contradictory associations suggest the“Malcolm” to be 41

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both synthesis and fragment that challenges the idea of the absolute determination of being/object as defined by certain physical characteristics. This mode of representation of the ship as an intrinsically paradoxical site is recurrent in sea-narratives familiar to Cortázar and to his characters. Persio, who beforehand knows about the coming events,“que tiene todas las cartas en la mano” (Cortázar in Prego 122) [“who has all cards in his hands”] and functions as Cortázar’s super-ego in the novel, tell his young friend Jorgethat he has never traveled on a ship but has read “las novelas de Conrad y de P ío Baroja” (43). Indeed, like “Malcolm,” the ship in Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus is associated both with the total unity and with permanent incompleteness: “The passage had begun, and the ship, a fragment detached from the earth, went on lonely and swift likea small planet” (Conrad 21). In addition, the same paradox of representation haunts the “Neversink” in Herman Melville’s White-Jacket; or The World in a Man-of-War: “For a ship is a bit of terra firma cut off from the main; it is a state in itself ” (24; italics added). The ambivalence of “a floating piece of space, a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea” makes the ship “the greatest reserve of imagination” (Foucault 27). Indeed, mystery dominates the “Malcolm,” which is a constant object of curiosity for its passengers. For the non-convincing reason that an unusual strain of typhus has broken out among the sailors, the passengers find themselves quarantined in claustrophobic isolation, cut off from the crew and from the radio room that is their only connection with Buenos Aires. Annoyed by being denied access to the stern, some of the men, Gabriel Medrano, a dentist, Carlos López, a school teacher, and a representative of a lower class, Atilio Presutti, nicknamed Pelusa, unsuccessfully try to penetrate themysteriously forbidden area. Meanwhile the gay man Raúl Costa attempts to seduce the young Felipe Trejo, and friendship/attraction grows between Medrano and Claudia 43

Freire; and between Carlos López and Paula Lavalle. Bringing disillusion to the characters who expected an engaging voyage all over the world, the ship does not go anywhere and finally anchors off shore at Quilmes, a very hort s distance away from Buenos Aires. As Foucault in his article “Of Other Spaces” points out, the ship does not allow “dreams [to] dry up” (27). Similarly, in Cortázar’s novel, inspiring Persio’s metaphysical meditations, the “Malcolm” itself obtains a life of poetic image. The ship becomes a trope metaphorically identified with Picasso ’s guitar, a picture owned by Guillaume Appolinaire: “Extrañamente la gran guitarra ha callado en la altura, el Malcolm se mueve sobre un mar de goma, bajo un aire de tiza ” 44

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(357) [“Strangely, the enormous guitar has fallen silent up above, and the Malcolm sails over a sea of rubber, under an atmosphere of chalk” (313)]. Like a cubist painting, it is associated with the multiplicity of fragmented perspectives in a spatial arrangement similar to the labyrinthine interactions of the passengers or the compartments of the ship: “Las jaulas de los monos, los leones rondando los puntes, la pampa tirada boca arriba, el crecer vertiginoso de los cohihues, irrumpe y cuaja ahora en los muñecos que ya han ajustado sus caretas y su s pelucas, las figuras de la danza que repiten en un barco cualquiera las líneas y los círculos del hombre de la guitarra de Picasso (que fue de Apollinaire)” (357) [“The monkey cages, the lions haunting the decks, the pampas stretched out face up, the vertiginous growth of South American pines, all explode and come back together again now in the dolls which have already adjusted their masks and wigs, the figures of the dance which repeat on any ship the lines and circles of Picasso’s man with the guitar (which belonged to Apollinaire)” (313–314)]. At the same time the ship is identified with the pampas, a wide and absorbing land whose limits are left beyond the human perception and where a person is doomed to solitude. Persio’s perception of the ship is similar:“Los sentidos dejan poco a poco de ser parte deél para extraerlo y volcarlo en la llanura negra; ahora ya no ve ni oye ni huele ni toca, está salido, partido, desatado, enderezándose como un árbol abarca la pluridad que es el caos resolvi éndose, el cristal que cuaja y se ordena, la noche primordial en el tiempo americano” (112) [“Little by little, his senses grow disembodied, and he is hoisted and turned over on the black plains; he no longer sees nor hears nor smells nor touches, he is gone, departed, let loose standing straight as a tree encompassing plurality in one single enormous pain, which is chaos resolving itself, the shattered crystal fusing in an orderly pattern, the primeval night in American time ” (280)]. This vision evokes the character ’s pessimistic thoughts about the American identity formed on this mythical and chaotic land: “Qué debía quedar de todo eso, solamente una tapera en la pampa, un pulpero socarr ón, un gaucho perseguido y pobre diablo, un generalito en el poder? . . . ¿es esto lo sudamericano? . . . Menos que maniqueos, menos que hedónicos vividores,¿representamos en la tierra el lado espectral del devenir, su larva sard ónica agazapada al borde de la ruta, el antitiempo del alma y el cuerpo, la facilidad barata, el no te metás si no es para avivarte?” (115) [“And what remains of all these? Only an abandoned hut in the pampas, a cunning tapster, a poor devil of a pursued gaucho, a pipsqueak of a general in power? . . . is this South America? . . . Less than Manicheans, less than rotten hedonists, are we the earthly representatives of the spectral side of becoming, its sarcastic larva crouching at the side of the road, the anti-time of both body and soul, the cheap facility, the

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don’t—get-involved-if-there-isn’t-something-in–it-for-you.” (281)]. Thus, the ship and the Argentines appear to be consistently connected with Persio ’s meditations. Ironically, they even seem to be inspired by one of the favourite books of his compatriot Jorge Luis Borges: Arthur Schopenhauer’s The World as Will and Representation. A reference for this work appears in the metapoetical opening of the monologue which follows the descript ion of the first day of the trip. Thus, the narrator expresses his admiration for this text by the German philosopher and implicitly, by using parallel constructions, suggests tha t Persio’s creative play of imagination follows Schopenhauer’s thoughts: “Así como es maravilloso que el contenido de un tintero pueda haberse convertido en El mundo como voluntad y representación... así la meditación tinta secreta y uña sutil percutiendo el tenso pergamino de la noche, acaba por invadir y desentrañar la materia opaca que rodea su hueco de sedientos bordes” (224) [“Just as it’s marvellous that the contents of an inkwell may be converted into The World as Will and Representation . . . it is not less marvellous that meditation, secret ink, and subtle fingernail tapping against the tense parchment of night ends up by invading and penetrating the 45

opaque material which surrounds the thirsty rims of the hollow” (195)]. Deviating from Schopenhauer’s approach to a superior nature of human being as a creator of reality, Persio draws a parallel between things (the ship) and humans (the passengers), which culminates in the personification of the ship as raping the sea: “una inmensa vaca gelatinosa y verdeciñe la nave que la viola empecinada en una lucha sin término entre la verga de hierro y la viscosa vulva que se estremece a cada espumarajo” (225–226) [“an immense, gelatinous green cow girding the ship which violates it persistently, in an endless battle between the iron penis and the viscous vulva, which shudders at every towering of spume” (196)]. The travelers, to the contrary, are viewed as a single almost mechanical body “un solo cuerpo” (42), which prevents any differentiation between the 46

individuals. The association of the winners with the chess pieces and the possible correspondence between Atilio Presutti and “el guitarrero pintado por Picasso” (53) [“Picasso’s guitarist” (40)] subvert the very idea of individual identity. The borders between humans and objects (things) appear to be also dissolved in Persio’s expression of his admiration for Dali’s surrealistic vision of a person as a construction which should be deciphered: “ ‘Ese mozo Dalí sabe lo que hace . . . cuando pinta un cuerpo lleno de cajones. A m í me parece que muchas cosas tienen manija’ ” (29) [“ ‘That chap Dali knows what he’s doing . . . when he paints a body full of drawers . It seems to me many things have han dles’ .” (19)]. The reading of the artistic text requires in his opinion similar hermeneutic 47

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procedures, as he explains to Claudia: “Fíjese por ejemplo en las imágenes poéticas. Si uno las mira desde fuera, no ve más que sentido abierto, aunque a veces sea muy hermético. ¿Usted se queda satisfecha con el sentido abierto? No señor. Hay que tirar de la manija, caerse dentro del caj ón. Tirar es apropiarse, apropincuarse, propasarse” (29) [“ ‘For example, poetic images. If one sees them from the outside, only the outer and obvious meaning can be grasped, even if it’s sometimes well concealed. Are you satisfied with the exterior, the obvious meaning? No, you’re not. You have to pull the handle and fall into the drawer. To pull is to appropriate, to approach, and even to go too far” (19)]. In this way, ship, human being (body) and text aspire to the unity beyond plurality and appear to be heterotopias which emerge as a result of the desir e to transcend the social, the individual, and the particular while simultaneously representing it. Both exemplifying and modifying Foucault’s concept of heterotopias, Cort ázar ’s novel undermines the radical distinction between place/object (machine), place/human being and place/text. Being products of the same culture, characterized by Foucault as an“epoch of simultaneity,” they celebrate a paradoxical symbiosis of fragment and monad, of homogeneity and heterogeneity, of sameness and difference. To conclude, the functioning of fictional and‘real’ places in Borges’s and Cortázar’s texts makes one question the relevance of the perception of place in terms of conventional dichotomies, as well as allowing for the comparison and contrast of the authors’ metapoetical views. Both authors’ texts blur the boundaries between overtly imaginary and recognizable sites. Borges chooses exotic locations (Someone’s land, the House of Asterion) for his stories, sites that become both terrifyingly familiar and impossible as the narratives develop. In both stories the only possible method of liberation from them is death. Cort ázar ’s texts, on the other hand, incorporate apparently recognizable locations such as the City and the ship, which the characters ’ capacities and limitations transform into extraordinary locales. Keeping with the traditions of literary utopia, both Someone ’s land (“Utopia del hombre que está cansado”) and the City (62: Modelo para armar) appear as a consequence of the characters’ dissatisfaction with the reality in which they live. The imaginary trips to these horrifying locations, however, do not bring any relief to the travelers, showing that attempts to distinguish between utopian and dystopian thinking are ultimately bound to fail. Further, the mirror relationship between Someone’s land and Eudoro’s world, as well as between the overtly imaginary City and such familiar capitals as London, Paris, Buenos Aires and Vienna challenges the notion of utopia as “nowhere,”

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and undermines the conventional fictional/‘real’ places opposition that makes one perceive a familiar world as continuously displaced. Someone’s land and the City can be contrasted, however, in terms of their metapoetical functions in the narrative worlds where they emerge. Borges’s description of the Utopian land explicitly expresses its awareness of multiple connections with earlier utopian/dystopian literary works, as indicated in the text, by More and Swift. The image of the City, on the other hand, appears to be an artistic embodiment of the author’s conscious attempt to disengage from any literary conventions and to declare an absolute freedom from epistemological determinacy and semantic causality that makes the notions of utopia as locus and that of language to converge in this place. Borges’s “La casa de Asterión” and Cortázar’s Los premios depict archetypal heterotopias as claustrophobic places where uniformity and heterogeneity paradoxically coexist and undermine private/public and object(thing)/human being dichotomies. In both narratives, heterotopia appears to be a polysemic concept associated with locus, body and text. In Borge s’s story, ironic parallelism between the protagonist’s house, the eclectic nature of the Minotaur and the narrative strategy of palimpsest allow one to suggest an a-centric structure as characteristic for heterotopia and comment on myth as an a-centric narrative. In Cortázar’s text a plurality of meaning about the “Malcolm,” created under the influence of the nineteenth and twentieth century sea-narratives, surrealist art and Schopenhauer’s philosophy demonstrates both the accumulating and modifying capacity of heterotopia in an artistic perception of place. Whether explicit (62: Modelo para armar) or implicit (Los premios), the presence of Borges in Cortázar’s texts can be considered a vivid illustration of the latter’s own comment that “ningún buen escritor se ponga a escribir para matar a sus precursors” (in Prego 148) [“no good writer writes in order to kill his/her precursors”].

·4· DISPLACEMENT , DREAMS AND ARCHIVE IN BORGES ’ S ESSAYS

Our disputes are purely verbal. I askwhat is‘nature,’ ‘pleasure,’ ‘circle,’ ‘substitution’. The question is one of words, and is answered in the same way . Michel Montaigne

Borges ’s essays together with his short stories, brought the author international fame. In the writer ’s own words, his style does not change when he composes essays: “Me pregunto si hay alguna diferencia entre el estilo de la narrativa y el estilo del ensayo. En mi caso, no lo hay ” (176) [“I ask myself whether there is any difference between the narrative style and that of the essay. In my case, there is none”]. My interpretation of the functioning ofarchitectural structures and the notion of place as physical locality in“El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”] and “La muralla y los libros” [“The Wall and the Books”] from Otras Inquisiciones aims to show that these texts are both indispensable for an understanding of the author’s metapoetical ideas, and illuminating for an investigation of the complexities of some apparently familiar concepts such as dream-work, history, and artistic expression. Borges’s exploration of the cross-cultural and cross-temporal dreams of the palace “Xanadu” in “El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”] allows one to place this essay in an implicit dialogue with Freud ’s original concept of 1

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displacement. Freudand Borges similarlyview human imagination as operating through dream-symbols, and their writings manifest displacement as an essential mechanism of both dream-creation and its interpretation. In contrast to Freud, however, who considered the interpretation of dream-work to clarify the understanding of human psyche, Borges appears to be attracted by the enigmatic nature of dreams, which is resistant to any definitive analysis. In light of Derrida ’s concept of “repression ” and “archive, ” inspired by his reading of Freud’s writings, we will further examine the parallelism between the construction of the wall and the burning of books in Borges’s essay to compare the functions of displacement as amechanism of dream-work, and as an instrument of political control. Finally, a comparative reading of Borges’s “La muralla y los libros” with Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China” will suggest a relationship between the circular nature of history and a perception of an aesthetic phenomenon where form acquires a determinant significance. Derrida’s vision of history as archive is informed by Freud’s concepts of displacement and repression. Freud introduces theconcept of displacement and “de-centering” in his investigation of dreaming. Insisting on the mutual dependence between displacement and imagination, he considers the latter to be “nothing less than the essential portion of the dream-work” (The Interpretation 121). The displacement/imagination relationship implies “de-centering, ” for “the dream is, as it were, differently centered from the dream-thoughts— its content has different elements as its central point” (The Interpretation 305). Considering dreams as a manifestation of the“suppressed material,” Freud suggests that displacement also involves repression, which takes place when the fulfillment of wishes provokes a “transformation of effect” (604): it no longer has an effect of pleasure as in original thought but rather has one of unpleasure. In his interdisciplinary approach developed in Moses and Monotheistic Religion, Freud also introduces a parallelism between repression as a mental mechanism and repression in a historical sense. The life of the individual as the history of humans, according to the father of psychoanalysis, is characterized by the reappearance of the displaced or repressed. Derrida’s concept of history as an archive is informed by Freud’s notions of displacement and repression. Significantly, at his conference held at theFreud archives in England, Derrida characterizes “repression ” (Archive Fever 64) as archivization. For Derrida, displacement is an intrinsic characteristic of the archive, which is essentially fragmentary. He suggests that one recalls and archives the very thing one represses, and that it is impossible to erase “unconscious” and “virtual” archives. 3

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Dreaming with Freud: Displacement, Art and Magic in “ El sue ñ o de Coleridge ” Interpreting Borges’s “El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”] in light of Freud concept oftodisplacement allows for a comparison between the ’s srcinal two authors ’ approaches the making and interpretation of dreams. As introduced in Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams, the act of displacement appears to be an essential mechanism of dreaming and an organizing principle of the narrator’s discourse which allows it, like a dream itself, to acquire a spatial dimension. Freud asserts that “the analysis . . . of dreams . . . exhibits the same processes of displacement and condensation as [the dream-work] ” (The Interpretation 597). Both Freud and Borges explicitly identify an imaginative writer as “one who dreams in broad daylight” (“The Relation” 50) and “a man who is continually dreaming” (Eighty 164). Though known as mainly skeptical about psychoanalysis, Borges, in his conversation with Mar ía Esther Vázquez, points out that“es muy importante como estímulo para la imaginación literaria” (qtd. in Balderstón et al 139) [“it is very important as a stimulus for the literary imagination”]. The creative and ‘distorting’ functioning of displacement, a movement that makes dream possible, transfers dream-thought to manifest content and governs its interpretation in “El sueño de Coleridge,” and allows one to relate Freud’s conceptions to Borges’s exploration of dreammaking in this text. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s creation of “Kubla Khan” is one of many examples of displacement as an act that both produces and transfers dream-thought into different art forms. Traditionally considered by scholars as “a supreme example of purely imaginative composition ” (Alexander XII), the lyric fragment “Kubla Khan” “fue soñado por el poeta inglés Samuel Taylor Coleridge, en uno de los días del verano de 1797” (Obras 2:20) [“was dreamed by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge on a summer day in 1797” (369)]. As the narrator observes, the act of creation appears in response to the poet ’s previous readings, which are both disseminated and transformed, displaced, in his dream: 4

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Coleridge escribe que . . . el sue ño lo venció momentos después de la lectura de un pasaje de Purchas, que refiere la edificación de un palacio por Kublai Khan, el emperador cuya fama occidental labró Marco Polo. En el sueño de Coleridge, el texto casualmente leído procedió a germinar y a multiplicarse; el hombre que dormía intuyó una áneamente, de palabras que las manifestaban; alcabo serie de imágenes visuales y, simult

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de unas horas, se despert ó, con la certidumbre de haber compuesto, o recibido, un poema de unos trescientos versos. (Obras 2:20, italics added) Coleridge writes that . . . sleep overcame him a few moments after reading a passage in Purchas that describes the constructionof a palace by Kublai Khan, the emperorwhose fame in the West was the workof Marco Polo. InColeridge’s dream, the text he had coincidentally read sprouted and grew; the sleeping man intuited a series ofvisual images, and, simply, the words thatexpressed them. After a fewhours he awoke,certain that he had composed, or received, a poem of some three hundred lines. (369, italics added)

This description of the creative process, as a combination of both invention and reception, evokes Paul Ricoeur ’s philosophical interpretation of Freud’s approach to the two beginnings of meaning contained in language essential for a formation of a dream-symbol, “a language richly endowed with the enigmas that men have invented and received in order to express their fears and hopes ” (496; italics added). Further, Freud observes that all people dream with the same dream-symbols (fantasies), which are recognizable in spite of their different modes of expression. In a similar fashion, in Borges ’s essay, both Kubla Khan and Coleridge dream up the Mongolian palace “Xanadu,” which the former erected in the 13th century, and the latter created in his dream-poem in the eighteenth century: “Un emperador mongol, en el siglo XIII, sueña un palacio y lo edifica conforme a la visión; en el siglo XVIII, un poeta inglés que no pudo saber que esa fábrica se derivó de un sueño, sueña un poema sobre el palacio” (Obras 2:21–22) [“A Mongolian emperor, in the thirteenth century, dreams a palace and builds it according to his vision; in the eighteenth century, an English poet, who could not have known that this construction was derived from a dream, dreams a poem about the place ” (371)]. Moreover, as the narrator admits, Coleridge ’s poem is not the last creation of the magnificent palace “Xanadu”: “Si no marra el esquema, alguien, en una noche de la que nos apartan los siglos, soñará el mismo sueño y no sospechará que otros lo soñaron y le dará la forma de un mármol o de una música” (Obras 2:22; italics added) [“If this plan does not fail, someone, on a night centuries removed from us, will dream the same dream, and not suspect that others have dreamed it, and he will give it a form of marble or of music” (372, italics added)]. Thus, the act of displacement turns out to be an essential element of the creative process, which involves repetition and a play of differences (“le dará la forma de un m ármol o de una música” [“he will give it a form of marble or of music”]), either in dream or day-dream that paradoxically both emphasizes and de-centers the notion of meaning, and calls attention to the artistic form.


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In Jacques Lacan’s terms, displacement appears to be linked to“the idea of veering off of signification” (159). Indeed, the narrator insists that the poem’s translation is unnecessary for the main beauty of this poem is music, and it is precisely a form that conveys emotions, and allows the narrator to characterize Coleridge’s creation as “el más alto ejemplo de la música de inglés” (Obras 2:20) [“the supreme example of music in the English language” (369)]. In this way, displacement, as a basic mechanism of dream-work, turns out to be one of the major tools of human imagination, which makes (re)-creation possible and allows it to acquire various forms. Further, both Freud and Borges explain the transition from dream-thought to manifest content as an act of displacement that involves creation of a narrative/artistic form by means of distortion. According to Freud, “[t]he direction taken by the displacement usually results in a colorless and abstract expression in the dream-thought being exchanged for a pictorial and concrete one” (The Interpretation339). “El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”] also manifests distortion as an inevitable element in the transition from dreamthought to manifest content, as displacement turns out to be an intrinsic con9

stituent of creation. As the narrator observes, Kubla Khan’s and Coleridge’s dreams are transformed into the artistic forms whose structures are essentially incomplete, either as a result of physical displacement, in the case of the palace, or of the work of memory as it happened with the poem: “En 1691, el Padre Gerbillon, de la Compañía de Jesús, comprobó que del palacio de Kublai Khan sólo quedaban ruinas; del poema nos consta que apenas se rescataroncincuenta versos” (Obras 2:22) [“In 1691, Father Gerbillon of the Society of Jesus confirmed that ruins were all that was left of Kublai Khan’s palace; of the poem, we know that barely fifty lines were salvaged” (372)]. This parallelism points to the mirror relationship between the interior and exterior worlds which are articulated through thevery similar mechanism of displacement that 10

challenges the conventional boundary between inside and outside, as well as between factually existing locations and those that are openly imaginary. Displacement also appears to be an organizing principle of the narrator ’s discourse, which moves through the“associative paths” in order to suggest possible explanations of the‘curious coincidence’ of Kubla Khan’s and Coleridge’s dreams separated by time and space. Ken Freiden ’s characterization of the narrator-psychoanalyst in The Interpretation of Dreams as “interpreter and seducer” (131) is likewise applicable to the narrator of Borges’s essay. The continuous displacement of his suggested interpretations makes his discoursequire ac a spatial dimension and evoke a movement of association, an allusiveness that

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both increases the readers’ temptation to receive a final explanation as well as unsettles any assurance of getting it. Further, the narrator’s hypotheses, neither of which, he urges, is a final explanation of the coincidence between Kubla Khan’s and Coleridge’s dreams, can be considered a ludic critique of Freud’s assertion that after the analysis, the dream appears to be very logical,“based on relations and connections.” (57). Thus, being aware of and rejecting any type of“verosímil” explanation, the narrator prefers “las hipótesis que trascienden lo racional” (Obras 2:22) [“the hypotheses that transcend reason ” (371)]. He first suggests an explanation of the phenomenon in terms of Hinduism, a religion which is based on the transmigration of souls: “cabe suponer que el alma del emperador, destruido el palacio, penetró en el alma de Coleridge, para queéste lo reconstruyera en palabras, más duraderas que los mármoles y metales” (Obras 2:22; italics added) [“after the palace was destroyed, the soul of theEmperor penetrated Coleridge’s soul in order that the poet could rebuild it in words, which are more lasting than metal and marble” (372)]. The second hypothesis according to which the world is somebody’s dream has its roots in Buddhism, a religion from the land of Kubla Khan 11

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from the sixteenth century, attractive to Hume and Schopenhauer and his successors, among whom is Borges himself:“El primer sueño agregó a la realidad un palacio; el segundo, que se produjo cinco siglos después, un poema . . . sugerido por el palacio; la similitud de los sueños deja entrever un plan; el período enorme revela un ejecutor sobrehumano. Indagar el propósito de ese inmortal o de ese longevo sería, tal vez, no menos atrevido que inútil, pero es lícito sospechar que no lo ha logrado” (Obras 2:22) [“The first dream added a palace to reality; the second, which occurred five centuries later, a poem . . . suggested by the palace; the similarity of the dreams hints of a plan; the enormous length of time involved reveals a superhuman executor. To speculate on the intentions of that immortal or long-lived being would be as foolish as it is fruitless, but it 14

is legitimate to suspect that he has not yet achieve d his goal.” (372)]. The third explanation is fantastic; it echoes the platonism favored by Coleridge:“[a]caso un arquetipo no revelado aún a los hombres, un objeto eterno (para usar la nomenclature de Whitehead), esté ingresando paulatinamente en el mundo; su primera manifestación fue el palacio; la segunda el poema. Quien los hubiera comparado habriá visto que eran esencialmente iguales” (Obras 2:22; italics added) [“Perhaps an archetype not yet revealed to mankind, an eternal object (to use Whitehead’s term), is gradually entering the world; its first manifestation was the palace; its second, the poem. Whoever compares them will see that they are essentially the same” (372)]. These hypotheses, abundant in indefinite 15


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pronouns, adverbs and verbs, expose only several of the numerous ways to approach a work of human imagination, which, like dream itself, is a“rebus” (Lacan 156). Moreover, the narrator interprets Kubla Khan’s and Coleridge’s creations as elements of “la serie de los sueños” [ “the series of dreams”], repetitive and enigmatic. Whereas for Freud dreams bring clarity, and their interpretation is “the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind” (The Interpretation 608), for Borges dreams increase doubts. According to Borges, dreams are another manifestation of thework of enigmatic human imagination, as the narrator expresses in an apparently contradictory sentence: “Quizá la serie de los sueños no tenga fin, quiz á la clave est é en el último” (Obras 2:22) [“Perhaps this series of dreams has no end, or perhaps the last one will be the key” (372)]. The first part of the sentence points to infinity, the second indicated a possibility of closure. In this way, “El sueño de Coleridge” allows one to compare and contrast Freud’s and Borges’s approaches to dream-work, its result and its interpretation. In line with Freud’s approach to interpretation of dreams, Borges suggests that the human imagination is guided by displacement and operates with recurrent dream symbols/archetypes. Both Borges and Freud see the discourse of the dream and its interpretation as using similar narrative str ategies that involve displacement. As in The Interpretation of Dreams, in “El sueño de Coleridge,” any creative attempt to interpret Kubla Khan’s and Coleridge’s creations is an act of displacement that leads to the creation of a day-dream-space similar to the ’s conceptions, one interpretation aims to decipher. Borges diverges from Freud however, by questioning any logical explanation to dreams and dream-making as too simple, and favors magical ones. Whereas Freud was essentially interested in the semantics of dreams, which in his opinion, can be reduced to a few clear patterns, including the psycho-sexual development, the Argentine writer approaches dream as a syntactic phenomenon that can acquire infinite and unpredictable forms and makes a plurality of interpretative versions possible.

The Repression of Archive and the Archivizati on of Repression in “ La muralla y los libros ” Freud’s notion of displacement introduced in The Interpretation of Dreams is further developed in his theory of repression. In the essay “Repression,” this

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phenomenon is described as operating through the mechanism of displacement, consisting of “turning something away, and keeping it at a distance, from the consciousness” (147). Derrida, an avid reader of Freud, both uses and displaces Freud’s concepts of displacement and repression for his own elaboration of the notion of history as an archive. As the French philosopher observes, “with the single but decisive conception of a topic of the psychic apparatus (and thus of repression or of suppression, according to the places of inscription, both inside and outside), Freud made possible the idea of an archive” (Archive 91). Derrida distinguishes fragmentation as an essential characteristic of archive, and he views repression and manifestation of the repressed as one and the same thing. “La muralla y los libros” [“The Wall and the Books”] can be viewed as an artistic illustration of Derrida’s notion of archive, repression as archivization, and a manifestation of the affinity between the notions of “reinscription” and différance, essential for a formation of the contradictory views of history shared by the Argentine author and the French philosopher. I will also show that a comparative reading of Borges’s text and Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China” in a metafictional mode allows one to observe Kafka ’s artistic influence on 16

Borges’s perception of the work of art, which can be read along the lines of Derrida’s concept of “textual displacement.” The word “archive,” Derrida suggests, evokes both “the commencement” and “the commandment” (Archive 1). And he continues, “[t]his name apparently coordinates two principles in one: the principle according to nature and history, there where things commence —physical, historical, or ontological principle—but also the principle according to the law, there where men and gods command,there where authority, social order are exercised,in this place from which order is given—nomological principle. . . . We have there two orders of order: sequential and jussive” (Archive 1). The chronological order is one of the essential questions the archive confronts:“The question of the archive remains 17

the same: What comes first? Even better: Who comes first? And second? ” (Archive 36). As Derrida suggests, “[t]here is no political power without control of the archive, if not of memory” (Archive 4), and this control involves displacement, “repression” and “suppression,” the modes of archivization. As described in Borges’s essay, the Emperor’s actions display two aspects of archive distinguished by Derrida, “the commencement” and “the commandment,” and allow one to relate the notions of repression and archivization. Indeed, the Emperor aspires to control the archive by destroying the books and erecting the Great Wall. The ideas of both destruction and construction spring from an attempt to subvert an existent historical and natural order, that is, to


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reconstruct history,to obtain immortality and to create an alt ernative world foreign to death. Exercising a mechanism of repression thatinvolves displacement of events, treating them as “not happened” (Freud, “Inhibition, symptoms and Anxiety” 20: 77), the Emperor strives to place himself at the beginning of his people’s ancient history: “Tres mil años de cronología tenían los chinos . . . cuando Shih Huang Ti ordenó que la historia empezara conél . . . la muralla en el espacio y el incendio en el tiempo fueron barreras m ágicas destinadas a detener la muerte” (Obras 2:11) [“The Chinese had three thousand years of chronology . . . when Shih Huang Ti ordered that history begin with him. . . . the wall in space and the fire in time were magic barriers designed to halt death ” (186–187)]. Indeed,“el Emperador y sus magos creyeron que la inmortalidad es intrínseca y que la corrupción no puede entrar en un orbe cerrado” (Obras 2:12) [“the Emperor and his sorcerers believed that inmortality is intrinsic and that decay cannot enter a closed orb” (187)]. Trying to erase his ancestors from his “ordenó que sus heredores nation’s memory, he establishes his own chronology: se llamaran Segundo Emperador, Tercer Emperador, Cuarto Emperador, y así hasta lo infinito” (Obras 2:12) [“he ordered that his heirs be called Second Emperor, 18

Third Emperor, Fourth Emperor, and so on to infinity (187) ”]. Taking on himself the function of God, the Chinese emperor“dió su nombre verdadero a las cosas” (Obras 2:12) [“gave things their true name” (187)] in an attempt to modify the existent signifier-signified connection. To attain his goal, the Emperor uses repression as an instrument of political control, which, according to the scholars, (as the narrator emphasizes), reaches an outrageous level of cruelty: “Herbert Allen Giles cuenta que quienes ocultaron libros fueron marcados con un hierro candente y condenados a construir, hasta el día de su muerte, la desaforada muralla” (Obras 2:12) [“Herbert Allen Giles tells that those who hid books were branded with the red-hot iron andsentenced to labor until the day of their death on the construction of the outrageous wall” (188)]. 19

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Characterized by the narrator as “la propuesta mágica” (Obras 2:12), the realization of the Emperor’s project, the destruction of the archive, turns out to be an illusion, a kind of semantic mirage. It manifests displacement as motivated by a production ofdifférance, which is not a presence but a desire for presence: “Without the possibility of différance, the desire of presence as such would not find its breathing-space. . . . this desire carries in itself the destiny of its nonsatisfaction” (Speech 143). Indeed, though it involves dissemination and transformation, displacement does not produce a radical change and rather appears to be a “reinscription” of new chains of old terms. The title of the essay already introduces the wall and the books as complementary notions.

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Paradoxically, they also become synonymous in the Emperor’s circular vision of history, as imagined by the narrator: “alguna vez habrá un hombre que sienta como yo, y ése destruirá mi muralla, como yo he destruido los libros, y ése borrará mi memoria y será mi sombra y mi espejo y no lo sabrá” (Obras 2:12) [“but someday there will be a man who feels as I do and he will efface my memory and be my shadow and my mirror and not know it” (188)]. The Emperor’s actions of displacement exemplify construction and deconstruction as belonging to “the order of the same” (Speech 129): “Acaso el incendio de las bibliotecas y la edificación de la muralla son operaciones que de un modo secreto se anulan” (Obras 2:12) [“Perhaps the burning of the libraries and the erection of the wall are operations which in some secret way cancel each other” (188)]. Thus, displacement, which does not mean a simple repetition and does not guarantee a leap into novelty, manifests the play of differences, associated with différance, that is, with “the sameness which is not identical” (Speech 130). The Emperor’s actions and meditations also evoke Derrida ’s approach to history as a contradictory concept. Although Derrida aims to deconstruct the metaphysical concept of history, with its implications such as “a certain type 21

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of traditionality, a certain concept of continuity, of truth” (Positions 57) through the act of displacement, he pointsout that in order to come up with a new concept, one cannot disregard a “logic of repetition and the trace” (Positions 57) intrinsic also in a metaphysical concept of history. The notions of trace and repetition reappear in Derrida’s concept of archive, when he observes that “[t]here is no archive without a place of consignation, without a technique of repetition, and without a certain exteriority. No archive without outside” (11). As Derrida also notices, “[i]f repetition is thus inscribed at the heart of the future to come, one must also import there, in the same stroke, the death drive, the violence of forgetting,superrepression (suppression and repression)” (79). He views repression as an archivization and suggests that repressing the archive and archiving the repression is one and the same thing. In Borges’s essay, the Emperor’s acts of repression can be seen as archivizing his own personal trauma: the banishment of his libertine mother.The narrator suggests the parallel between his family story of“infamia” and the destruction of the accusatory canonical books by the son. Further, as the narrator points out, the Emperor’s actions have been previously repeated in history: “Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso borrar los libros canónigos porque estos lo acusaban; Shih Huang Ti, tal vez, quiso abolir todo el pasado para abolir un solo recuerdo: la infamia de su madre. (No de otra suerte un rey, en Judea, hizo matar a todos losñni os para matar a uno). . . . Acaso Shih Huang Ti amuralló el imperio porque sabía que éste 23

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era deleznable y destruyó los libros por entender que eran libros sagrados, o sea libros que enseñan lo que enseña el universo o la conciencia de cada hombre ” (Obras 2:11–12) [“Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, wanted to obliterate the canonical books because they accused him; Shih Huang Ti, perhaps, tried to abolish the entire past in order to abolish one single memory: his mother ’s infamy. (Not in an unlike manner did a king of Judea have all male children killed in order to kill one.) . . . Perhaps Shih Huang Ti walled in his empire because he knew that it was perishable and destroyed the books because he understood that they were sacred books, in other words, books that teach what the entire universe or the mind of every man teaches” (188–189)]. Thus, the repression exercised by the emperor turns out to be an act of archivization, evoking the past as much as it attempts to destroy it. As Derrida observes, “[o]ne recalls and archives the very thing one represses” (Archive 80). Moreover, the Emperor’s actions can be seen as traces of those performed by his ancestors, the difference is only in scale: “Históricamente, no hay misterio en las dos medidas. . . . Quemar libros y erigir fortificaciones es tarea común de los príncipes; lo único singular en Shih Huang Ti fue la escala en que obró” (Obras 2:11) [“Historically speaking, there is no mystery in the two measures. . . . Burning books and erecting fortifications is a common task of princes; the only thing singular in Shih Huang Ti was the scale on which he operated” (186)]. Thus, the Emperor’s actions evoke the history he wants to destroy, suggesting a relationship between epression, r repetition and the archive, and can be described along the lines of Derrida ’s speculation about Freud’s vision of the future: “As Freud might say (this would be his thesis), there is no future without the specter of the oedipal violence that inscribes the suppression into the archontic institution of the archive, in the position, the autoposition or the hetero-position of the one and of the Unique” (81). Further, there is a parallelism between Derrida’s ambivalent concept of history, where chronology is both recognized and displaced, and Borges ’s perception of history, where the notion of continuity and a questioning of chronology coexist. The narrator in“Deutsches Requiem,” for instance, asserts that “La historia de los pueblos registra una continuidad secreta” (Obras 1:577) [“the history of nations records a secret continuity” (233)]. In “El pudor de la historia” [“The Modesty of History”] on the other hand, any idea of chronology appears to be deconstructed: “Tácito no percibió la Crucifixión, aunque la registra su libro” (Obras 2:132) [“Tacitus did not perceive the crucifixion, although his book recorded it” (246)]. In a likewise paradoxical fashion, whereas the Emperor tries to abolish the past, destroying the books and 25

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closing himself in a palace-labyrinth where there were “tantas habitaciones como hay días en el año” (Obras 2:11) “as many rooms as there are days in the year” (187); he metaphorically reconstructs it in building a wall: “Acaso la muralla fue una metáfora, acaso Shih Huang Ti condenó a quienes adoraban el pasado a una obra tan vasta como el pasado, tan torpe y tan inútil” (Obras 2:12) [“Perhaps the wall was a metaphor, perhaps Shih Huang Ti sentenced those who worshiped the past to a task as immense, as gross and as useless as the past itself ” (188)]. Thus, the Emperor’s actions of displacement illustrate both dissemination and transformation, synonymous with “reinscription” and différance as determinant elements which both display and create a circular nature of history, seen as a single block which supersedes chronology. 27

Shaping the Wor d: Displacement and Dialogical Discourse in Borges ’s “ La muralla y los libros ” and Kafka ’s “ The Great Wall of China ” Like history, writing is impossible without displacement, substitution and repression. In his essay“Freud and the Scene of Writing, ” Derrida describes writing as involving displacement and repression:“Writing is unthinkable without repression” (113). He observes that Freud himself establishes a connection between the notion of displacement as a mechanism of dream-work and writing as an act of displacement: “No doubt Freud conceives of the dream’s displacements as a . . . form of writing ” (88). Both being inspired by and swerving from Freud’s approach to displacement, Derrida elaborates his own notion of “textual displacement” in relation to writing. In Positions, Derrida opposes the notion of textual displacement to that of polysemy and criticizes a semantic vision of the meaning as totality, and a meaning-truth connection. In “La muralla y los libros,” displacement, replacement and repression are thematized and internalized in the dialogical structure of discourse through literal and symbolic references to the Great Wall. A comparative intertextual reading of Borges’s “La muralla y los libros” and Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China,” a parabola translated by Borges, permits the reader to relate the concepts of writing, displacement, and the dialogue and consider Kafka ’s text as one of the possible sources of inspiration for Borges’s essay. The deconstructionist notion of textual displacement as dissemination associated with“generative” (Positions 56) multiplicity is both present and ironized in these narratives, 28


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where construction, both as creation and interpretation, mainly generates breaches in the structure. In Kafka’s text, the building of the Chinese Wall can be interpreted as a metaphor of textual displacement that thematizes the notion of a semantic gap on various levels and celebrates the importance of the artistic form. The Wall’s “piecemeal construction,” intentionally incomplete evokes association with a parabola, whose meaning is paradoxical and elusive. A movement of continuous displacement, characteristic for the process of building, can be considered a metaphoric illustration of the intentto avoid reconciliation and to undermine the conventional notion of meaning as signifier-signified connection:“It was done in this way: gangs of some twenty workers were formed who had toaccomplish a length, say, of five hundred yards of wall, while a similar gang built another stretch of the same length to meet the first. But after the junction had been made the construction of the wall was not carried on from the point . . . where this thousand yards ended; instead the two groups of workers ” (148). were transferred to begin building again in quite different neighborhoods A similar lack of communication appears betweenthe Emperor and his people, 29

as described by “the parable,” when the messenger is sent to the only“humble object.” Like the very process of building, his movement would be described by Borges as Zeno’s paradox: “he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end ofthem; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained” (167). As a text, the wall can be interpreted in light of the deconstructionist approach to writing as an intrinsically incomplete process, which generates multiple possibilities ofmeanings. Consequently, every interpretation of the written work leaves a gap. The narrator’s account of the building of the Great Wall is not an exception, as he explicitly points out at the end of the story, for his account of the events is not final:“I shall not pro” (173). ceed any further at this stage with my enquiry into these questions The Chinese Wall is also ametaphor for the artistic work in Borges’s essay. After suggesting several hypotheses aimed atevoking further meditations about the Emperor’s actions, the narrator of “La muralla y los libros” moves to a parallel discussion, that of the perception of the aesthetic phenomenon that escapes any approximation and embodies “esta inminencia de una revelación, que no se produce” (Obras 2:13) [“this imminence of a revelation which does not occur” (188)]. Like a realization of the Emperor’s utopic/dystopic project of abolishing the past and obtaining immortality, any interpretation of a work of art is doomed to displacement and transformation and inevitably leaves the gap between a totality of repressed possibilities and a chosen one. This gap turns

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out to be an intrinsic characteristic of meaning. Displacement becomes to be a movement that designates nothing and does nothave semantic constants and where form acquires a determinant significance. In this way, the Chinese wall, as a work of architecture which Borges describes as“música conjelada” (Borges and Bioyo Casares 75) [“congealed music”], recalls Borges’s idea about the importance of form in art, as it is developed in the last paragraph of the essay: “Generalizando el caso anterior, podríamos inferir que todas las formas tienen su virtud en s í mismas y no en un “contenido ” conjetural ” (Obras 2:12) [“Generalizing from the preceding case, we could infer that all forms have virtue in themselves and not in any conjectural ‘content.’ ” (188)]. Thus, ’s anticipating Derrida’s ideas, the functioning of textual displacement in Kafka and Borges’s texts subverts the conventional approach to meaning as a final totality and reasserts the importance of form in art. Displaying perception less radical than that offered by Derrida, textual displacement in these narratives does not point to the exhaustion of meaning, but rather celebrates its decentralization through displacement, substitution, and repression, which opens space for the story to be told. 30

The notion of displacement as a narrative strategy in Borges’s and Kafka’s texts is also related with their dialogical quality. In Kafka’s text, the dialogue between different narrative genres results from a combination of the ludic intention to write a historical survey and to transmit the imaginary personal experience. Characterizing his “enquiry” as a “purely historical” (159) account of the building of the Great Wall of China, the first-person narrator is both a witness and a participant in this event: “I was lucky in as much as the building of the wall was just beginning when, at twenty, I had passed the last examination of the lowest grade school” (151). Further, the story, “born in a dialogue as a living rejoinder within it” (Bakhtin 277), ironically refers to other texts that motivated and guided the project of building. This also suggests that 31

the Wall, as well as of the process of its creation, belongs to the realm of fiction. The concept of danger, for instance, against which the Chinese Wall was supposed to protect, is derived from books: “No northern people can menace us there. We read of them in the books of the ancients” (160; italics added). Thus, as any discourse, the building of the Great Wall cannot fail to be oriented toward “the already uttered” and “the already known,” the “common opinion” (Bakhtin 279). The mention of dangerwhich appears in ancient texts acquires a new life, by means of dissemination and displacement, in the following narrative that emphasizes the notion of fiction as both a continuum and fragment.


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The very process of building is guided by the text written by one scholar who “drew a comparison in the most exhaustive way” (155) between the Great Wall of China and the Tower of Babel, which emphasizes that no work is created in isolation from already existent texts. Whereas, as told in Genesis 11, the building project failed, the city was abandoned and the people scattered when their language became subverted; the Great Wall alone would provide for the first time in the history of mankind “a secure foundation of a new Tower of Babel” (156). Ironically, the edifice may be completed, as a scholar predicts, only when it becomes a new Tower of Babel, the biblical myth where displacement is embodied in a symbol traditionally associated with a wild enterprise that brings disaster and disorder. Along the same lines, Bakhtin uses an image of the Tower of Babel in his reference to the multiple linguistic and extra-linguistic influences that inevitably contribute to the creation of any literary work/utterance: “Along with the internal contradictions inside the objects itself, the prose writer witnesses the unfolding of social heteroglossia surrounding the object; the Tower-of-Babel mixing of languages that goes on around any object; the dialectics of the object are interwoven with the social dialogue surrounding it” (278). Evoking Bakhtin’s observation, the wall in Kafka’s text manifests the “vast work” of fiction to be both continuity and a fragment, where the notions of displacement and dialogue converge. Whereas for Kafka, displacement as a narrative strategy is a way to build an intrinsic connection between intellectual quest, existential experience and an illustration of the dynamic presence of language in human consciousness and acts, in Borges’s essay displacement and dialogue interrelate in the expression of the author’s aesthetic and philosophical concerns. Indeed, the narrator ’s meditations in “La muralla y los libros” appear in response to the existent text: “Leí, días pasados, que el hombre que ordenó la edificación de la casi infinita muralla china fue aquel Primer Emperador, Shin Huang Ti, que asimismo dispuso que se quemaron todos los libros anteriores a él. Que las dos vastas operaciones—las quinientas a seiscientas leguas de piedra opuestas a los b árbaros, la rigurosa abolición de la historia, es decir del pasado—procedieran de una persona y fueran de algún modo sus atributos, inexplicablemente me satisfizo y, a la vez, me inquietó. Indagar las razones de esa emoción es el fin de esta nota” (Obras 2:11; italics added) [“I read, some days past, that the man who ordered theerection of the almost infinite wall of China was the first Emperor, Shih Huang Ti, who also decreed that all books prior to him be burned. That these two vast operations-the five to six hundred leagues of stoneopposing the barbarians, the rigorous abolition of history, that is of the past—should srcinate in one person

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and be in some way his attributes inexplicably satisfied and, at the same time, disturbed me. To investigate the reasons for that emotion is the purpose of this note.” (186)]. Furthermore, his ludic analysis of the myth, he explicitly refers to the wall as “la segunda cara del mito” (Obras 2:11) [“the second part of the myth ” (187)], he has read about manifests displacement as a movement born from the dialogue that includes both the dissemination, and the transformation of other texts. His thoughts also can be seen as an artistic illustration of the concept of “understanding,” which, according to Bakhtin, is a dialogical activity. As this critic observes, “Understanding and response are dialectically merged and mutually condition each other; one is impossible without the other” (282). In this way, Borges’s essay inspired by Kafka’s parable, allows us to suggest a possible compatibility between a modified deconstructionist concept of displacement, associated with dissemination and transformation and the concept of a dialogical discourse, where meaning is not exhaustive, but infinitely incomplete. In Borges’s “El sueño de Coleridge” and “La muralla y los libros,” both the architectural structures and the notion of place as a physical locality serve as points of departure for an artistic exploration of the aesthetic work, history and dreams as interrelated realms. These three phenomena operate by the common mechanism of displacement through disseminating and transforming movements, which are also required for their interpretation. In “El sueño de Coleridge,” displacement as a mechanism of dream-work both evokes and deviates from Freud’s srcinal concept. In Borges ’s essay, as in Freud’s psychoanalysis, displacement has both distorting and creative functions, and it is used as the narrative strategy in the attempted exploration of dreamwork. In contrast to Freud, who viewed the interpretation of the displacement as a means of clarifying and furthering the understanding of dream-work and the operation of the human psyche, Borges ’s essay implicitly suggests that dreams exemplify complexity, rather then offer clarifications, and can acquire infinite and unpredictable forms. Dreams transcend the limits of the rational, and therefore their mechanisms can be explained only in terms of magic. Whereas “El sueño de Coleridge” allows one to compare and contrast Borges’s and Freud’s vision of dreams, “La muralla y los libros” makes it possible to relate the views expressed in the essay with Derrida ’s notions of “repression,” “archive,” and “textual displacement,” which are informed by his creative reading of Freud. The building of the Great Wall of China as an apparent alternative to burnt books reflects the notion of displacement as dissemination and transformation


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as compatible with re-inscription/repetition and trace. Both of the Emperor’s actions are inspired by his personal trauma; archiving the repression turns out to be the same thing as repressing the archive. A suggested vision of a circular nature of history as a single block that supersedes chronology can be seen as a parallel to Derrida’s paradoxical vision of history as an a-temporal continuity. Like history, writing is impossible without displacement/substitution/ repression. Borges’s “La muralla y los libros,” created under the artistic influence of Kafka’s “The Great Wall of China,” also can be seen as an artistic response to Derrida’s concept of textual displacement. Exposing a vision lessradical than the one offered by Derrida, who considers writing to be an act of displacement that displays meaning as a no longer essential category (at least for deconstruction), Borges’s essay suggests that the notion of meaning appears to be incessantly deferred (de-centered), for it is neither possible to grasp its totality nor to exhaust it, and the form of an aesthetic phenomenon obtains a determinant significance. A suggested reading of Borges’s and Kafka’s works in a metafictional mode displays unbridgeable gaps, generated by the very structure of the Great Wall and various attempts to explain it, as a powerful motivation for and an inevitable result of the creative processes of writing and reading that bring them immortality.

·5· DISPLACEMENT AND THE DIVIDED SELF IN CORT Á ZAR ’ S STORIES

Queda la posibilidad de que todo sea una alucinación de la culpa. [The possibility is left open that everything is a guilt-inspired hallucination].

Jor ge Lu is Bo rge s

An exploration of the dynamics of place and displacement in narrative worlds created by Borges permits one to delineate his aesthetic and philosophical concerns, which, as he admits, have been of interest for him since childhood. In Cortázar’s texts, as this chapter will show, the questioning of place/displacement dichotomy carries strong existential and psychological connotations. In his short stories, physical displacement can be read as a trope for psychological division. Cortázar’s texts, which thematize dislocation, display integrity as a never achieved condition and adopt open-endedness as a narrative strategy, can be interpreted as artistic manifestations of a parallelism between the notions of self, space and writing. In the storiesanalyzed herein, displacement is conveyed in three different, yet ultimately related, ways. In “Lejana” [“The Distances”] this condition is overt, for the protagonist is aware of her own multiple existences, and her diary entries exemplify her search for physical displacement as a way of resolving her psychological division. In “La puerta condenada” [“The Sealed Door”], self-division is concealed. It is revealed, apparently by chance, through the character’s physical displacement, a business trip that brings him 1

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to a room with a particular setting. Finally, in “Cartas de mamá” [“Letters from Mother”], the division is semi-concealed in the protagonists’ existing displacement, an attempted exile from the burden of memories and feelings of guilt that turns out to be self-deceptive. In all these texts, interrelated physical displacement and psychological division can be seen as an expression of the protagonists’ existential dilemma arising from their dissatisfaction with the world in which they live, or with their own acts. My reading of Cortázar’s texts is informed by psychoanalytical, phenomenological, postmodern anthropological, and feminist theories, all of which maintain a vision of space and subjectivity as interrelated realms. The psychoanalytical notion of displacement, which is associated with de-centering, gives spatial dimensions to both dreams and their interpretation. This view of displacement subverts any fixed notions of subjectivity, spatiality and reality, and is essential, according to Freud and his followers, for an understanding of the human self. Considering psychoanalysis “a spatial discipline,” Steve Pile suggests that such reactions as “shock,” “fear” or “fury,” when provoked by the displacement of border s, are about the senses of self and space. The notion of displac ement, where self and space con3

verge, is determinant for Lacan ’s “mirror stage,” which implies thetransformation of a child into an image and makes him/her assume that identity. This device shows a split, a divided self to be at the core of every human being. The reflection provides images of an‘exterior’ world that is doubled, situated in a space between the visible and invisible (see 124 Pile). Acknowledging his interest in psychoanalyázar points out:“Yo verifico en mi sis, in a conversation with Evelyn Picone, Cort ” (71) [“I verify in myself the mismo la verdad de muchas afirmaciones de Freud truth of many Freud’s statements”]. A perception of places in terms of the self’s experiences is also an intrinsic characteristic of Bachelard’s phenomenological poetics of space, which was familiar to Cortázar. For this French philosopher (as well as for one of his 4

followers, Henri Lefebvre (1974)), for example, the house have the “the city and qualities of a memory, of a persistent dream ” (Bachelard 214–215). In a similar fashion, Casey asserts that“[b]uilt places are extensions of our bodies ” (120) and he associates displacement with“nostalgia” (37). Reconsidering the self-place connection essential for traditional anthropology, postmodern anthropology draws a parallel between the“fragmentation of identity” (Lavie et al 10), which obliterates the self/other opposition and questions approaches to space in terms of existent dichotomies (e.g. center/margin), and that of divided territory. The postmodern approach displaces the hierarchical division of the world into the self and the other, which uncovers a radical uncertainty about identity.

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Being influenced by both psychoanalytical and phenomenological approaches, Patricia Waugh, one of the most prominent scholars in feminist criticism, considers displacement as the subject-space-writing relationship associated with the lack of place for the feminine discourse “marginalized by the dominant [masculine] culture” (Waugh 3). In her analysis of women’s writing, for example, she suggests a loss of self-integrity to be a result of displacement synonymous to marginalization. In both the phenomenological and the psychoanalytical approaches to the space-self relationship, and in the realms of postmodern anthropology and feminist criticism influenced by them, displacement and self-d ivision become syno nymous terms, and the subject/ object antithesis is undermined. Displacement as a rhetorical mechanism also obtains a metapoetical significance in Cortázar’s theory of the short story. Offering his understanding of the short story/novel opposition in the programmatic essay “Algunos aspectos del cuento [“Some aspects of the Short Story],” Cortázar observes: “la novela y el cuento se dejan comparar anal ógicamente con el cine y la fotografía” (Obra 2:371) [“the novel and the short story can be compared analogically with 5

the film and the photograph” (246)]. The Argentine writer suggests that this genre functions as a metonymy, a“photography” that is a fragment of reality which opens a more ample one: “una apertura que proyecta la inteligencia y la sensibilidad hacia algo que va mucho m ás allá de la anécdota visual o literaria contenidas en la foto” (372) [“an explosion which fully opens a much more ample reality, like a dynamic vision which spiritually transcends the space reached by the camera” (246)]. Cortázar’s metapoetical vision of displacement at the core of the creative process is applied in his own stories. My analysi s of the polysemic functions of the bridge in “Lejana” (Bestiario), the door in “La puerta condenada” (Final del fuego), and Buenos-Aires-Paris in“Cartas de mamá” (Las armas secretas), aims to exemplify territorial displacement, the fragmented self and 6

writing as interrelated concepts within Cortázar’s fictional universe.

Crossing the Bridge: Psychological Division and the Writing of Discontent In Cortázar’s “excessively geometrical ” story (Peavler 37, Curutchet 37) “Lejana,” the polysemic bridge is an architectural and a linguistic construction and a ’s divided self. In her rebellion against the hypocrisy metaphor for the protagonist and superficial values which surround her life of a‘society girl’ in Buenos Aires, “Lejana ” obsessively looks for her o ther self, w hich she as sociates with a 7

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Hungarian beggar with whom she dreams of reconciling on a bridge over the Danube river in Budapest. This place symbolizes the common duality of both the city and the protagonist. The bridge connects the two parts of the Hungarian capital, Buda“aristocrática y rica” [“aristocratic and rich”] and Pest “industrial y obrera” [“industrial and working”] (Lavaud 75). A similar apparently antithetical relationship ismaintained within a divided self: Alina Reyes/ Budapest beggar. The symbolic nature of both the city’s name and that of the protagonist (Alina “la reina” [“a queen”] (429)/beggar), both of which harbor oppositions, makes geographical and subjective dimensions converge. In addition, Alina’s references to her self in spatial terms as “la lejana” (the one who is far away) point to the affinity between the notions of self and territory (e.g. urban space). An essential overlap between real, imaginary and symbolic spatialities obtains meaning through the operation of the map of human mind. Thus, the bridge as an architectural construction, inseparable from its metaphorical functioning as the protagonist’s divided self in Cortázar’s text, disrupts any fixed or static notions of subjectivity and spatiality. As “a place-of-conflict” (Heidegger 79) which “gathers to itself in its own 8

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way earth and sky” (Heidegger 153), the bridge evokes Freud ’s definition of displacement, first in the protagonist’s dream and than in the day-dream of Cortázar’s fiction. It is a place of transition Alina strives to reach in her dreamthoughts, which make prominent the process of self-division. Experiencing alienation and distress from her fashionable life in Buenos Aires, sheobsessively thinks about a meeting with the poor and physically abused Budapest woman on the bridge: “Idea que vuelve como vuelve Budapest, creer en la mendiga de Budapest donde habrá tanto puente y nieve que rezuma” (431) [“An idea that recurs just as Budapest always recurs, to believe in the beggar in Budapest where they’ll have lots of bridges and percolating snow” (21)]. In an act of psychic displacement, accompanied by de-centeredness and shifting associations, 11

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Alina insistently identifies herself with “la lejana” in her day-dream which primarily brings her to the bridge: “Me digo: ‘Ahora estoy cruzando un puente helado, ahora la nieve me entra por los zapatos rotos’” ( 430) [“I say to myself, ‘Now I’m crossing a bridge, it’s all frozen, now the snow’s coming in through my shoes’ (19)”]. “lo sigo por Further, she subordinates her life to the realization of her dream: gusto, por saber adónde va, para enterarme si Luis Mariá me lleva a Budapest, si nos casamos y le pido que me lleve a Budapest. Más f ácil salir a buscar ese puente, salir en busca mía y encontrarme como ahora, porque ya he andado la mitad del puente entre gritos y aplausos . . . como si esto tuviera sentido entre

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la nieve arriscada que me empuja con el viento por la espalda, manos de toalla de esponja llevándome por la cintura hacia el medio del puente” (434) [“I long for this and follow it by choice, by knowing where it ’s going, to find out if Luis María is going to take me to Budapest. Easier to go out and look for that bridge, to go out on my own search and find myself, as now because now I’ve walked to the middle of the bridge amid shouts and applause . . . as if that had any meaning amid the whipping snow which pushes against my back with the wind-force, hands like a thick towel around my waist drawing me to the center of the bridge” (23)]. Alina’s preoccupation with the other woman, which evidences the presence of de-centering and displacement in Freud’s terms, increases to the point that, when married, she insists on a honeymoon in Budapest, despite the fact that it is winter there: “Alina Reyes de Aráoz y su esposo llegaron a Budapest el 6 de abril y se alojaron en el Ritz. . . . Lleg ó al puente y lo cruzó hasta el centro, andando ahora con trabajo porque la nieve se oponía y del Danubio crece un viento de abajo, dif ícil, que engancha y hostiga” (437). [“Alina Reyes de Aráoz and her husband arrived in Budapest April sixth, and tool accommodations at the Ritz. . . . She came to the bridge and crossed it as far as the middle, walking now with some difficulty because the snow hindered her and from the Danube a wind comes up from below, a difficult wind which hooks and lashes (26)”]. The protagonist ’s psychic displacement is materialized in the strange meeting, when in the exact middle of the bridge connecting the two halves of the Hungarian capital, Alina encounters and embraces the body of the beggar: “En el centro del puente desolado la harapienta mujer del pelo negro y lacio esperaba con algo fijo y ávido . . . Alina estuvo junto a ella . . . y las dos se abrazaron rígidas y calladas en el puente, con el río golpeando en los pilares” (437) [“At the center of the desolate bridge the ragged woman with black straight hair waited with something fixed and anxious .. ., and the two, stiff and 13

silent, embraced one another on the bridge wit h the crumbling river hammering against the abutments” (27)]. Though Alina’s dream turns out to be strict reality in the fictional world created by Cort ázar, the effect it produces deviates from Alina’s expectations (generated by her dream). Indeed, the transmigration of souls in the middle of the bridge, as a result of “la fusión total” (437), frightens Alina rather than bringing her relief. Alina’s displacement turns out to be ‘physical’ rather then psychological. Indeed, it remains unclear at the end of the story whether her divided self has achieved full integrity or not. As Andrew Parker observes, the capacity to be displaced is “a condition which renders impossible any notion of stable 14

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self-identity” (137). In this way, as an architectural construction and a place of meeting of Alina with her self, the bridge emphasizes fragmentation rather than unity; it is associated with a never realized desire for reconciliation. Alina’s displacement exemplifies a vision of the body/soul relationship as dynamic. This manifests a dialogical relationship between Cortázar’s text and the psycho-analytical approach to the connection between the human psyche and the body as indispensable, yet not static. Alina’s linguistic games can also be metaphorically identified with a construction of the imaginary bridge as a part of the search for her inner self. Both the creation and subversion of Alina-a‘society’ girl and Alina-beggar are the verbal/fictional ‘bridges’ that manifest displacement as imaginary removal. Indeed, the games with words, a creation of anagrams and palindromes, make Alina believe that she can find her way to the“other”: “Alina Reyes, es la reina y . . . Tan hermoso, éste, porque abre un camino, porque no concluye. Porque la reina y . . . No, horrible. Horrible porque abre camino a ésta que no es la reina, y que otra vez odio de noche. Aésa que es Alina Reyes pero no la reina de anagrama; que será cualquier cosa, mendiga en Budapest . . . cualquier lado lejos y no 17

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reina” (429) [“Alina Reyes, es la reina y . . . That one ’s so nice because it opens a path, because it does not close. Because the queen and. . . . No, horrible. Horrible because it opens a path to this one who is not the queen and whom I hate again atnight. To her who is Alina Reyesbut not the queen of theanagram; let her be anything, a Budapest beggar . . ., any place that’s far away and not the queen” (18)]. Indeed, the extra letter“y” reveals she has a simultaneous other existence—part of Alina, but distinct from the person she knows herself to be. The “y” intrigues Alina because it opensa limitless passageway, indicating anexpansion of self: “Tan hermoso,éste porque abre un camino, porque no concluye. Porque la reina y . . . ” (429) [“That one’s so nice because it opens a path, because it does not close. Because the queen and . . . la reina y .... ” (18)]. The linguis21

tic displacement and its consequences, as a manifestation of the protagonist ’s divided self, illustrate MargaritaFazzolari’s observation that “El desplazamiento de la personalidad, tan frecuente en los cuentos de Cortázar, expresa el paso del yo al todo y del todo a otro yo distinto y perturbador” (195) [“A displacement of personality that so frequently takes place in Cortázar’s stories, expresses a step which takes ‘I’ to everything and from everything to a different and disturbing ‘I’ ”]. An overtly metafictional ontology of Alina as both queen and beggar, as Alina’s linguistic games reveal, increases theuncertainty in distinction between the protagonist’s ‘authentic’ (‘true’) self and a false one. Consequently, the distance between selves, as well as between the cities they are from (Buenos Aires 22

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and Budapest), turns out to be reduced. Though the fantastic twist, the desired exchange of identities takes place, Buenos Aires and Budapest, as well as Alina“la reina” (429) and Alina-beggar, remain foreign lands for the protagonist. Alina’s diary exemplifies the poetics of displacement, as an‘unshakable’ bridge between Alina and her‘true’ divided self. Her way to obtain fulfillment lies through literary self-expression. The protagonist’s discourse turns out to be determining, rather than reflecting or portraying, the character ’s psychic reality: her inner split. Indeed, functioning as a“self-narrative” (Steedman 28), Alina’s writings address what is impossible to represent—the marginal and/or repressed. Writing a diary becomes a way to get possession of her ‘self,’ the missing part of her life. This diary could beconsidered an instance of an attempt “to discover . . . a sense of unified selfhood,” (Waugh 6) which, as feminists would argue, women as well as oppressed and marginalized groups have lost (see Stanley, pp. 41–60). Indeed, both the Alina who lives in spiritual exile in Buenos Aires and the beggar who consistently suffers from humiliation can be included in these categories. Alina, for instance, confesses:“Estoy sola entre esas gentes sin sentido” (431) [“I am alone among all these people without sensitivity” (19)]. 23

Likewise, in her imagination, the Budapest beggar is alone and unprotected: “A veces sé que tiene frío, que sufre, que le pegan.” (429) [“At times I know ” (18)]. While early references that she’s cold, that she suffers, that they beat her to the ill-treated woman allow one todistinguish between her and Alina Reyes, in Alina’s further meditations their identities become inerchangeable:“Puedo solamente odiarla tanto, aborrecer las manos que la tiran al suelo y tambi én a ella, a ella todavía más porque le pegan, porque soy yo y le pegan” (429) [“I can only hate her so much, detest the hands that throw her to the ground and her as well, her even more because they beat her, because I am I and they beat her” (19)]. As Eliane Lavaud observes, in these writings“la frontera entre lo vivido y lo imaginario se hace cada vez m ás frágil, más sutil” (69) [“the boundary 24

between the lived and the imagined every time becomes more fragile, more subtle”]. Finally, the ambiguous use of pronouns makes it impossible to distinguish between the two sides of Alina’s self: “La pasaba a aquella, a mí tan lejos . . . Porque a m í, a la lejana, no la quieren” (430) [“It was happening to that one, to me far off . . . Because in the distances they do not love me-her ”] (19). This mixture of first and third person pronouns both reveals the notion of self to be subversive and makes one associate presence with displacement. Involving dissemination and transformation and producing aturbulence of signifiers, writing appears to be the only home for Alina’s displaced self. Her diary, which both thematizes displacement and adopts it as a narrative strategy

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exemplifies a poetics of displacement. It is the most efficient way to express a lack and/or desire for presence thatbuilds and undermines the bridge of Alina’s self and questions the very notion of identity. Alina’s diary, as a literary expression of the protagonist’s divided self, functions as a metapoetical bridge, a text-within-the text, where spatial and subjective dimensions interact in the common movement of displacement. In this way, the literal, metaphorical and metapoetical functions of a bridge in“Lejana” allows one to discover a parallel between the city, self and writing, all of which possess a spatial dimension interrelated with a subjective one. Both echoing and modifying its conventional functions in literature, the bridge, as a construction of displacement, turns out to be a unifying image of the different levels of Cort ázar’s story. This text embodies and undermines the very concept of division (split/gap/lack) and celebrates a subversion of borders, either physical, psychic, linguistic or metapoetical/ textual.

Beyond the Door: Rediscovering the Multiple Self The door in “La puerta condenada,” inspired by Cortázar’s own experience of tiredness and solitude in a hotel room during a visit to Montevideo (Garfield 104), stands for the metaphor of the unknown about the human self and for the symbol of the self ’s lost integrity. This functioning of the door and the presence of the childhood motif also allow one to consider Cortázar’s text as influenced by H. G. Wells’s classic “The Door in the Wall.” Displacement as imaginary removal, and thetopos of divided identity associated with symbolism of the door as a part of the setting of the protagonist’s room, determines the development of the story, which celebrates open-endedness and incompleteness. As Bachelard observes, “the door is an entire cosmos 25

of Half-open” (231) that implies mystery and temptation; itis one of the primal images that stand at “the very srcin of a daydream that accumulates desires ” (222). The mention of“half-open” also indicates that the myster y can be revealed and the temptation satisfied, for at certain moments the door may be opened, “wide-opened” (Bachelard 222). Referring to the“doors of hesitation” (223), the French philosopher points to the essential ontological and epistemological indeterminacy associated with this image. The door also evokes the idea of “half-open” in Cortázar’s story. Indeed, functioning as “a border” or “an edge” (Stavans 87), the door separates the protagonist, the salesman Petrone who is staying in the Montevideo hotel

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“Cervantes,” from the room next door, where, he is informed, lives a single woman. In spite of this information, Petrone is annoyed for two consecutive nights by the crying of a baby: “No se engañaba, el llanto venía de la pieza de al lado. El sonido se o ía a través de la puerta condenada, se localizaba en ese sector de la habitación al que correspondía los pies de la cama” (112) [“There was no deception; the cry came from there, from the room next to his. A sound came through the sealed door to the sector of his room that corresponded to his bed’s legs”]. The presence of the locked door in his claustrophobic room, which in the author’s own words “parecía una celda, la celda de una cárcel” (108) [“looked like a cell, a cell in a prison”], awakens Petrone’s imagination and allows him to hear this cry, the srcin of which remains mysterious till the end of the narrative: “De no estar allí la puerta condenada, el llanto no hubiera vencido las fuertes espaldas de la pared, nadie hubiera sabido que en la pieza de al lado estaba llorando un niño” (277) [“If the shut off door were not there, nobody would know about the child —this cry would not overcome thick walls ”]. Cort ázar comments on the influence of the sealed door on the creation of the strange atmosphere in the other room: “De golpe, la noción de 26

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por qué estaba condenada la puerta . . . le creaba a la otra habitaci ón un ambiente extraño” (107) [“Suddenly, the idea of why the door was sealed . . .; it was creating a weird aura behind it in another room”]. The presence of the closed door and the childhood motif generated by the mechanism of displacement in Cortázar’s story reminds one of H. G. Wells’s “The Door in the Wall” and suggests new dimensions of the classic metaphor that both situate the Argentine author within a continuum of the world literature and underline his individual talent. Inboth texts the door marks an alternative, “the world of difference,” between “the busy life of a schoolboy and the infinite leisure of a child” (Wells 149) in Wells’s text or between the life of the salesman and the child-self in Cortázar’s story. Petrone’s longing for the baby’s 28

cry the last day he stays in the hotel illustrates Jos é Ortega’s observation that in “La puerta condenada,” the door-metaphor is “el vehículo que sirve para apuntar hacia . . . otra realidad, es la puerta (metaforizada ya en e l t ítulo) que abre el anodino mundo de Petrone a una desconocida y enriquecedora dimensión de la realidad” (187) [“the guide towards . . . another reality, it is a door (already metaphorized in the title) which opens Petrone’s innocuous world to an unfamiliar and enriching dimension of reality ”]. Indeed, after having been disturbed by the baby’s cry for two nights, Petrone misses it and can be relieved only by imagining that he hears it the night aft er the woman’s departure: “Extrañaba el llanto del niño, y cuando mucho más tarde lo oyó, d ébil pero 29

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inconfundible a través de la puerta condenada, por encima del miedo, por encima de la fuga en plena noche supo que estaba bien y que la mujer no había mentido, no se había mentido, no se había mentido al arrular al niño, al querer que el ni ño se callara para que ellos pudieran dormirse ” (282–283; italics added) [“He was missing the cry, and when much later, he heard a weak unmistakable sound behind the sealed door, he realized-through fear, through desire to run away at night—that he was fine and that the woman did not lie, that she was right in lulling a child to calm down, so that they would be able to sleep”]. For Petrone, as well as for Lionel Wallace in Wells’s story, “the guise of wall and door offered . . . an outlet, a secret and peculiar escape into another and altogether more beautiful world” (Wells 157). Whereas in Wells’s story, the door is a sort of time machine through which a voyage to the land of inspiration and imagination becomes possible through “a real wall to immortal realities” (142), in Cortázar’s text the door both opens the possibility of harmony and emphasizes the character ’s existential displacement, his irrecoverable distance from it. In the“Door in the Wall,” the door is explicitly connected with a metaphorical recovery of the lost paradise associated with childhood, a garden and a dream with the existence of a higher consciousness or level of being. This gives a sense of timelessness, wholeness and immediacy of experience (though incessantly deferred by Lionel’s death). In “La puerta condenada,” on the other hand, increasing the protagonist ’s awareness of his own alienation and his spiritual exile from his self, thepresence of the door and the baby ’s cry underline the loss of self-integrity, an epistemological and ontological fragmentation, which the protagonist both possibly witnesses and displays himself. Significantly, having been hidden by the large wardrobe, the door in Cortázar ’s story can be completely incorporated into the room ’s setting only through the act of imaginary displacement, introduced through an erotic motif that links space and subjectivity. Echoing Freud ’s placement of the door “among the commonest sexual symbols” (397), in Cortázar’s story it is metaphorically identified with a woman:“las habitaciones tenían alguna puerta condenada . . . casi siempre con un ropero, una mesa o un perchero delante, que como en este caso les daba una cierta ambiguedad, un avergonzado deseo éndose las de disimular su existencia como una mujer que cree taparse poni manos en el vientre o los senos” (276) [“the rooms had a sealed door, sometimes openly visible, but almost always screened with a wardrobe, table or coat stand that, as in this case, gave it a certain ambiguity, a bashful desire to mask its existence, as a woman who hopes to hide herbelly and her breasts with herhands”]. The wardrobe that covers the door has a mirror, in which the protagonist looks 30

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before he goes to sleep. Functioning as“a trap and a site of alienation ” (Pile 160), which according to Lacan implies“a moment of misrecognition” (Lacan 160), the presence of the mirror in the room indicates a possibility of the self-division, “an irrecoverable split” (Freud qtd. in Pile 161) or“gap” (Lacan qtd. in Pile 161) that the protagonist both witnesses and displays himself. Thus, evoking both the psychoanalytical and phenomenological approaches to the poetics of space, according to which houses and rooms “are in us as much as we are in them” (Bachelard XXXIII), the setting of Petrone’s room implicitly introduces atopos of divided identity, one of the thematic focuses of the story. ’s The presence of the locked door and its location evokes the protagonist imagination, which exercises displacement, illustrates the lack of self-integrity and points to an epistemological gap in knowledge about the human self. The discovery of the door, for example, leads Petrone, for the first time, to draw an imaginary parallel between himself and his neighbor: “Petrone imaginó que del otro lado habría tambien un ropero y que la se ñora de la habitación pensaría lo mismo de la puerta” (276) [“Petrone imagined that on the other side, there was also a wardrobe, and that the woman in the contiguous room would have 31

similar thoughts about the door”]. The imaginary symmetry between two rooms and their inhabitants culminates when Petrone mimics the crying he hears (or imagines that he hears) from the next door at night: “se pegó a ella (la puerta) . . . y acercando la boca a las tablas de pino empezó a imitar en falsete, imperceptiblemente, un quejido como el que venía de otro lado . . . ” (280) [“he leaned against the door . . ., and bringing his mouth close to the pine slots, he started imitating imperceptibly, in falsetto, the moan, which was coming from the other room ”]. The facts that the crying from the other room stops when the protagonist imitates it, the woman’s departure from the hotel the next morning, and the repetition of the same sound coming from the empty room next night all allow critics to consider this textas the variation of the traditional fantastic fear-ghost for stories. According to Ana Hernández del Castillo, the atmosphere of the hotel suggests in itself the idea of “suppression” and anticipates the presence of the mother and child whom the protagonist hears behind the blocked door ” (51–52). Petrone’s own interpretation of the nature of the crying he hears the first night points to the split of his neighbour’s self and suggests that she loses a part of her self in his act of transcendence-imitation, and that this could be a reason for a woman’s sudden departure. Indeed, the protagonist blames the noise on the woman, who in hysterics, in his opinion, imitates the weeping of a baby and then tries to calm the nonexistent baby down: “La mujer estaba 32

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imitando el llanto de su hijo frustrado, consolando el aire entre sus manos vacías” (280) [“The woman was imitating the crying of her frustrated child, trying to calm down the air between her empty arms ”]. The true nature of the sound of the crying baby remains, however, unknown. Petrone’s second night’s illusion may be considered a psychological reaction to the unsatisfied temptation “to open up the ultimate depths of being ” (Bachelard 222), which remained closed behind “la puerta condenada” [“the sealed door”]. ’s departure he still hears the baby ’s The fact that the night after his neighbor crying in the empty room illustrates displacement as a basic mechanism of the imaginary and points to the protagonist’s own self-division and ontological anxiety. According to Julia Kristeva, the imaginary refers to“the representation of strategies of identification, introjection and projection, which mobilizes the image of the body, the ego and the other, and which makes use of primary processes (displacement and condensation)” (289; italics added). Indeed, progressing beyond the personal “real” world, Petrone adds imaginary fragments to his vision that exemplifies“the imaginary” to be “generated by transference” (Kristeva 285), displacement of pedestrian boundaries imposed by his role as a salesperson. The act of imaginary displacement through which Petrone reinvents/rediscovers himself allows Roger Carmosino to emphasize the similarities between an imaginary child and the protagonist himself:“La descripción imaginaria del niño que hace el protagonista . . . da caracter ísticas que adivinamos en el mismo. . . . Es obvio que al d ía siguiente no podrá cumplir con la rutina del hombre de negocios, pues ya nunca será el mismo. Ha tenido que admitir toda una zona del ser que antes desconocía o rechazaba” (144) [“The imaginary description of the child which the protagonist gives . . . suggests characteristics which we can guess are in himself . . . It is obvious that the next day he would not be able to follow the routine of the businessman, he will never be the same. He will need to admit a whole new zone in himself of which he was either unaware or which he had earlier rejected”]. Cortázar’s own comment in “Del sentimiento de lo fantástico” [“On the sense of the fantastic”] that “Los únicos que creen . . . en los fantasmas son los fantasmas mismos” (La vuelta 1:75) [“The only beings who believe in phantoms . . . are phantoms themselves ”] also points to the common ontology of the protagonist and the baby, both created by the same mechanism of the imaginary. The text, however, remains open-ended. That makes it possible to expand Sosnowski ’s observation that “el llanto era de una dimensi ón ajena a la ‘cognoscible’ ” (31) [“a cry was foreign to any‘knowable’ dimension”]. The door makes the text enter this“half-open” world, and leaves the nature of the baby’s

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cry closed to any final interpretation, a manifestation of the intrinsicepistemological uncertainty about the human self, which remains an unexplored continent. In this way, the symbolism of the door in “La puerta condenada, ” inspired by phenomenological and psychoanalytical theories as well as by earlier fiction, allows one to relate spatial, epistemological and existential dimensions of displacement: displacement as imaginary removal makes the door as “half-open” as the human self.

Divided Lives, Overlapping Spaces, and the Impossibility of Self-Deception Displacement is also linked with self-division in “Cartas de mam á.” Exemplifying a functioning of the urban space as chronotope, a representation of the Paris/Buenos Aires opposition in “Cartas de mamá” emphasizes the territorial and spiritual displacement of the protagonists Luis and his wife Laura. Neither of these cities is their home where internal integrity and harmony can be obtained, for the couple continuously suffers from tormenting memories 34

about Nico, Luis’s dead brother and Laura’s former boyfriend, a situation aggravated by the letters they receive from Luis’s mother in Buenos Aires. Paris and Buenos Aires are both united andeparated s in the lives of Luis and Laura, both of whom display a conflict between a presentational self and the problematic ‘real’ one. Having stolen Laura from his brother precisely at the time of the latter’s fatal illness of tuberculosis, and having married her immediately after Nico’s death, Luis leaves for Paris in ord er to free himself from the feelings foguilt he and his wife experience. A representation of Paris as an embodiment of an artificial order and a false sense of well-being emphasizes their condition of exile in this city, and illustrates the protagonists’ belief in their escape to be a selfdeception. Indeed, the visible comfort and apparent forgetfulness obtained in Paris creates an illusion of“libertad condicional [ a conditional freedom ” (213) ”], which, as the narrator ironically observes, makes their“ life“sorprendentemente fácil, el trabajo pasable, el departamento bonito, las películas excelentes” (219) [“surprisingly easy, a manageable job, a nice apartment, excellent movies ”]. Their distance from Buenos Aires does not cure them, for the memories never completely abandon Luis’s imagination and his apparently shadowless routine: “Ahora era casi capaz de olvidarse de todo eso. Iba a la agencia, dibujaba afiches, volvía a comer, bebía la taza de café que Laura le alcanzaba sonriendo. Iban mucho al cine, mucho a los bosques, conocián cada vez mejor París” (219; italics added) [“Now he was almost ready to forget about all this. He was going to 35

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the agency, was drawing posters, was coming back to eat, was drinking a cup of coffee which Laura served him with smile. They were going often to the cin ema, ”]. Likewise, to the forests, were becoming more and more familiar with Paris. Laura is not free from thoughts about Nico, who frequently visits her in a form of a nightmare. As the narrator observes,“Soñaba mucho, pero la pesadilla era distinta, Luis la reconocía entre muchos otros movimientos de su cuerpo, palabras confusas o breves gritos de animal que se ahoga” (228) [“She dreamt often, but nightmares could be recognized immediately. Luis recognized them among many other movements of her body, confused words and the short screams of asuffocated animal”]. Thus, the characters ’ well-being in France is an artifact that internalizes the syntax of displacement. The life of Luis and Laura in Paris is explicitly compared to that of the displaced word, a word in brackets bothseparated and connected with the main phrase: “No quedaba más que una parva libertad condicional, la irrisión de vivir a la manera de una palabra entre par éntesis, divorciada de la frase principal de la que sin embargo es casi siempre sostén y explicación” (214) [“No more was left than an appearance of freedom, a mirage of life, like a word in brackets, divorced from the main clause, for which, nevertheless, it almost always provides support and explanation.”]. This reference is a metaphorical way of establishing a hierarchy between Paris and Buenos Aires, with Buenos Aires as a dominant. Indeed, the abundance of toponymic references to Buenos Aires indicates its presence in the protagonists’ life in Paris, a description of which, on the contrary, is reduced to the mentioning of “la rue de Richelieu” (214) and the train station where the dead Nico is supposed to arrive. Thus, in spite of the fact that the action takes place there, Paris remains a vague, distanced construct which functions as a chronotope, where the present appears to be reduced to the blank, to displacement. This representation of Paris stresses the protagonist’s alienation in this city and illustrates the futility of attempts to repress memories and to obtain life free from the constraints of the past. Buenos Aires enters a fictional world of Cort ázar ’s text through the epistolary bridge of a mother’s letters, and the characters’ reaction to them and ’s observation about the supeto their own memories. As if illustrating Bachelard riority of the house of childhood,“most firmly fixed in our memories” (30), this urban space has been always vividly present in the protagonists’ life although they avoid mentioning it: “No es que a Luis no le gustara acordarse de Buenos Aires. Más bien se trataba de evadir nombres (las personas, evadidas hacía ya tanto tiempo, pero los nombres, los verdaderos fantasmas que son los nombres, esa duración pertinaz)” (214; italics added) “[It was not that Luis did not like to recall

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Buenos Aires. It was more an intent to avoid names (people, avoided already for such a long time, but names, the true ghosts of enduring persistence)”]. The mentioning of the recognizable places of Buenos Air es functions as a metonymy, a rhetorical mechanism of displacement that brings the familiar urban space into the protagonists’ lives and indicates the hidden nostalgia they experience: “Rivadavia al seis mil quinientos, el caser ón de Flores, mamá, el café de San Martín y Corrientes donde lo esperaban a veces los amigos, donde el mazagrán tenía un leve gusto a aceite de ricino” (213) [“Rivadavia, number sixty five hundred, a mansion in Flores, mamá, a café on San Martín and Corrientes where sometimes his friends waited for him, where sweet coffee had a slight taste of castor oil”]. Escape from this city of the protagonists’ childhood turns out to be impossible: “San Martín, Rivadavia, pero esos nombres eran también imágenes de calles y de cosas” (213) [“San Martín, Rivadavia, but these names were also images of streets and things”]. The constant presence of Buenos Aires in Luis’s and Laura’s Parisian life exemplifies incompleteness and dislocation, subverts the measure of distance in time and space in the representation of chronotopes, and emphasizes the protagonists’ condition of exile. Likewise, the ambiguous reaction evoked in Luis and Laura by his mother’s letters from Buenos Aires illustrates the characters’ split identities and nostalgia from which they suffer. Being “siempre una alteración del tiempo, un ” (213) [“always an interpequeño escándolo inofensivo dentro del orden de cosas ”], these writruption in time, a little inoffensive scandal in the order of things ings both point to and undermine the distance between Parisand Buenos Aires: “Cada vez que la portera le entregaba un sobre, a Luis le bastaba reconocer la minúscula cara familiar de José San Martín para comprender que otra vez más habría de franquear el puente” (213–214; italics added) [“Each time when the superintendent handed him an envelope, it was sufficient for Luis to have just a look at the stamp with the familiar portrait ofos Jé de San Martín to realize that 36

once again he would have to cross thebridge”]. The mentioning of the bridge, associated with the passageway from one dimension to another (Paris/Buenos Aires, present/past) will later reappear in Cortázar’s Rayuela, as if exemplifying Morelli’s metapoetical observation that one book is“puente vivo” for the other. Whereas in this story it evokes the burden of memory, the feeling of guilt that connects the present and the past, Paris and Buenos Aires; in the novel, the bridge no longer has any emphatically ethical connotation, but rather obtains a prominent metaphysical dimension in Oliveira’s discourse. In both narratives,Rayuela and “La carta de mamá,” the image of the bridge is associated with communication and alienation. La Maga refers to bridges when

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she talks about Oliveira’s inability to love: the bridge between the present and the past which the mothers ’ letters construct transforms Laura into an “ajena”/“foreigner” to Luis, who is tormented by his feelings of guilt for his dead brother. Believing that they make his present life to loose its ground, Luis prefers immediately to respond to and displace these writings, as if to close the door to the world of his childhood, which he wants to forget. This does not, however, succeed, and his intention, as well as his life in Paris (and Paris itself for him) functions as a mask he deliberately puts on himself in order to conceal (from himself and others) his attachment to the city of his memories and the anxieties that they cause. Indeed, in the narrator’s discourse, the distinction between Luis’s letters, his life and the streets of Paris turns out to be subverted in the common action of “scratching out” that emphasizes their common artificiality: “Cada nueva carta insinuaba por un rato (porque después él las borraba en el acto mismo de contestarlas cari ñosamente) que su libertad duramente conquistada, esa nueva vida . . . cesaba de justificarse, perd ía pie, se borraba como el fondo de las calles mientras el autobus corría por la rue de Richelieu.” (213–214; italics added) [“Every new letter reminded him for a moment (precisely for a moment, because afterwards he scratched them out by the very act of a gentle response) that his freedom, conquered in such a tough way, that this new life, cut off by pitiless scissors from the tangled ball which others called his life, was no longer justified. It was losing sense,its grounds were erasing as asphaltunder the wheels of a bus which was moving alongla rue de Richelieu.”]. Though the letters return Luis to the painful past as “un duro rebote de pelota” (213) [“a hard bounce of a ball”], his life without them is unbearable:“No las detestaba; si le hubieran faltado habría sentido caer sobre él la libertad como un peso insoportable. Las cartas de mamá le traían un tácito perdón... tendían el puente por donde era posible seguir pasando” (219; italics added) [“He did not hate them; if he had not received them, he would feel his freedom falling on him like an unbearable weight. Mamá’s letters were bringing him a salient forgiveness . . . they were throwing a bridge acrosswhich it was possible to continue walking”]. Likewise, Laura is always waiting for the letters and rereads them many times: “Las cartas de mamá interesaban siempre a Laura, . . . las releía” (216) [“She was always interested in letters from mama . . . reread them ”]. In this way, the characters’ emotional response to the letters they receive emphasize their existential displacement in both Paris and Buenos Aires; the latter, which they deliberately left, dominates their life abroad. A representation of Paris and Buenos Aires, which questions the presence/ absence dichotomy (and subverts both geographical and temporal distances), 37

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forms a parallel to the relationship between the protagonists and the dead Nico. Both the displacement of the past/Buenos Aires as well as the scratching out of Nico’s name, whose arrival the mother’s last letter announces, turn out to be illusions. The nervousness that Luis and Laura experience when his mother suddenly starts mentioning Nico in her letters, as if he were alive, emphasizes the characters’ inner split and manifests their life in Paris as a more apparent then real liberation. Indeed, though tempted to consider the mother’s mentioning of their late brother Nico’s arrival as a mistake, a misspelling to their cousin’s name “Víctor,” neither Luis nor Laura, from whom at first he decided to conceal the letter, cannot get rid of their thoughts about his brother and the pain they evoke. As if displaying that his life is dependent on ’s the twists and turns of languagerather than on logic and rationality, his mother mentioning of Nico makes Luis feel that there is not enough room in the apartment for two, and converts Laura into an “ajena”/foreign person: “Laura estaba en París, pero cada carta de mamá la defínía como ajena” (219) [“Laura was in Paris, but each letter from mamá, defined her as a stranger”]. The idea of a linguistic displacement as an escape from the emotional torture of Nico’s 38

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presence is explicitly thematized: “En la agencia . . . reley ó la carta, . . . sin nada extraordinario fuera del párrafo donde se había equivocado de nombre. Pensó si no podría borrar la palabra, reemplazar Nico por Víctor, sencillamente reemplazar el error por la verdad, y volver con la carta a Laura para que Laura la leyera” (216) [“At the advertising bureau . . . he reread the letter, . . . without noticing anything extraordinary except for the paragraph where she had mixed up a name. He even thought that it could be possibleto erase the word, to change Nico to Víctor, simply substitute the truth for a mistake, and to come back home with the letter for Laura to read”]. All attempts to scratch out Nico, however, both from the letter and from the characters’ memories, turn out to be doomed to failure, for as Luis asserts with pain: “ ‘Si se pudiera romper y tirar el pasado como el borrador de una carta o de un libro. Pero ahí queda siempre, manchando la copia en limpio, y yo creo que eso es el verdadero futuro’ ” (214) [“ ‘If it would be possible to break and throw away the past like a draft of a letter or a book. But it stays forever, contaminates the clean copy, and I believe, it is a true future’ ”.]. Indeed, in spite of avoiding any mentioning of Nico, whose name has become “[u]n lento territorio prohibido” (217) [ “a forbidden territory”], his presence is a constant in Luis’ mind. This exemplifies Freud ’s observation about silence being an efficient way of preserving active memory. As Bachelard also observes, more telling in many ways than the dialogue itself, silence allows“an entire past come to dwell

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in a new house” (5). The silence that surrounds his name in Paris has an oxymoronic effect of bringing Nico into presence: “Lo raro era que Laura no lo nombrara nunca, y que por eso también él lo nombrara, que Nico no fuera ni siquiera el difunto, ni siquiera el cuñado muerto, el hijo de mamá . . . Laura seguía sin nombrarlo, y él se plegaba a su silencio por cobard ía, sabiendo que en el fondo ese silencio lo agraviaba por lo que tenía de reproche, de arrepentimiento, de algo que empezaba a parecerse a la traición” (221). [“The strange thing was that Laura never mentioned him, and therefore he also never did. Nico was not even a deceased, not even a dead brother-in-law, a mamá’s son. . . . Laura continued not to mention him, and he, Luis, from cowardice, joined her in this silence, knowing that in the depth of his soul this silence offended him because it had to do with a reproach, with repentance, with something that was starting to appear similar to a betrayal ”]. As Susana Jakfalvi observes, “[e]s tan inútil vivir negando la presencia fantasmal de Nico, el Otro, que la vida de Luis y Laura se desarrolla en función de esa ausencia, que está presente en todos sus actos, en todas sus intenciones” (38) [“It is so useless to live negating the ghostly presence of Nico, of the Other,that Luis’s and Laura’s 40

lives evolve around his absence, an absence that is present in all their acts and intentions”]. Thus, although Luis tries to apply his rules of symmetry and chessplaying in order to dismiss Nico, his attempt can only be a pretended success: “Nico iba a desembarcar en Francia, en Par ís, en una casa donde se fingía exquisitamente haberlo olvidado, pobrecito” (225) [“he [Nico] would arrive in France, in Paris, at the house where everybody skillfully pretended to forget about him, poor thing”]. The futility of their attempts to displace the dead Nico ’s presence culminates in his arrival, at least as perceived by the protagonists. It is often interpreted by the critics as a fantastic element in the story. As Rodríguez-Luis observes, “[a]t that moment the hesitation that is the fantastic’s most charac41

teristic feature appears and takes hold of the narrative” (80). I suggest that Laura’s and Luis’s preparations for Nico’s arrival is a culminating expression of the inner division that the protagonists experience, caused by the impossibility of exile from the feelings of guilt which cannot be displaced, in spite of the attempt to change the territory. Moreover, the protagonists’ expectations of the meeting with Nico, and their discussion of the impressions from it without mentioning Nico’s name, subverts any distinction between Nico, Luis and Laura: their aspirations to escape their memories leave theprotagonists doomed to a ‘ghost’ life that of “a memory trace[s]” which carry “sign of something missing” (Garber 129). Indeed, their presence in Paris is pointing toward the 42

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absence, their lives turn out to be empty sets, brackets containing an absence. Ironically, it is Nico’s arrival that breathes life into the couple ’s ghost-like existence: “Quizá no todo estaba perdido, quizá la nueva vida llegara a ser realmente otra cosa que esesimulacro de sonrisas y de cine francés” (229) [“Perhaps not everything was lost, perhaps the new life would indeed become something else other then this mirage of phantom smiles and French cinema”]. The expressions of the feeli ngs of guilt reach their cli max when both Luis and Laura, independently, come to meet Nico at the train station and try to identify him among the people who just have arrived in Paris. As Luis observes, “Uno sobre todo se parecía a Nico. . . . Y Laura deb ía haber pensado lo mismo” (223) [“One . . . indeed looked like Nico. . . . And Laura was probably thinking the same thing”]. The conversation between the protagonists afterthey have come back from the train station, makes explicit their conscious incorporation of Nico ’s presence in their lives: “—¿ A vos no te parece que está mucho más flaco?—dijo. —Un poco— Laura hizo un gesto. Un brillo paralelo le bajaba por las mejillas. dijo—. Uno va cambiando” (237) [“—Do you think that he has become much thinner? —he asked. Laura made a gesture. Two shiny streams of tears were 43

running down her cheeks.—A little bit,—she said.—One is changing . . . ”]. This act is the culminating expression of the protagonists’ anxiety, a manifestation that their lives are exercises in self-deception, no less illusory then Nico. The borders between the worlds of the dead and the living turn out to be subverted in this dialogue, where subjectivity edits and rules experience. Moreover, after the meeting with ‘dead’ Nico, Luis seems to copy his brother’s possible actions: “Subió despacio (en realidad siempre subía despacio para no fatigarse los pulmones y no toser) ” (235) [“He slowly climbed up the stairs (the truth is that he always was going up slowly, not to exhaust his lungs, and not to cough)”]. A mention of Luis’ possible ill-health establishes an uncanny parallel with his brother that allows the story to remain enigmatically 44

open-ended. Typically for Cortázar’s short stories, as Osvaldo López Chuhurra observes, “[l]a dualidad difícilmente se resuelve en la unidad; se cerraría en un vértice . . . Julio Cort ázar no acostumbrado casi nunca colocar punto final” (215) [“the duality is hardly ever resolved in unity; it closes in a vertex . . . Julio Cortázar almost never places the final point”]. In this way, a representation of the geographical Paris/Buenos Aires opposition and the parallels it evokes and challenges, such as presence/absence and dead/alive dichotomies, turn out to be illuminating manifestations of the protagonists ’ divided identities, which exercise an imaginary spatial displacement as both an expression and a consequence of the ethical problem.

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Territorial displacement is consistently associated with psychological division in Cortázar’s stories. The overt functioning of displacement as a dream-mechanism in “Lejana” illustrates Pile’s observation that “Freud’s ideas help to unpack and to specify the relationships between the individual, the social and the spatial ” (108). Indeed, Cort ázar ’s view of subjectivity and spatiality as interrelated and unfixed realms reveal the influence of psychoanalytical writings on his oeuvra. Psychoanalytical and phenomenological approaches to displacement converge in “La puerta condenada,” where the idea of “half-open” and imaginary removal guide the protagonist, probably inspired by H. G. Wells ’ “Door in the Wall.” The phenomenological concept of place-body-self continuity allows the author to build a crossroad between different cities, times and states of being in “Cartas de mamá.” The implicit dialogue between Cort ázar ’s stories and Bachelard ’s phenomenology allows one to suggest that texts by the Argentine author both use and deviate from conceptions proposed by the French philosopher and his followers. Though symbolic functions of the door and the bridge reappear in 45

Cortázar’s stories, his texts subvert any idea of fixed subjectivity and therefore any stable relationship between a place and an individual. Territorial displacement, a trope that emphasizes the characters’ divided identity, is a recurring motif in the texts analyzed, where the protagonists, strangers to their own selves, endlessly search forfulfillment and self-definition. This search has ethical connotations springing either out of dissatisfaction from the luxurious but empty life in“Lejana,” from tiredness and solitude of the salesman’s life in “La puerta condenada,” and from the inability to avoid the feelings of guilt in “Cartas de mamá.” In all the texts, displacement and the idea of reconciliation turn out to be associated with physical places as starting points for the imaginary/physical removal such as a bridge in “Lejana,” a door in “La puerta condenada” and Paris in “Cartas de mamá.” Using the images of places of transition that have a long literary tradition, Cort ázar’s texts make them acquire a ‘new’ dimension: they emphasize the protagonists’ distance from themselves, their spiritual and/or territorial exile. Indeed, the dream of integrity and harmony, which Alina Reyes (“Lejana”), Petrone (“La puerta condenada”) and Luis and Laura (“Cartas de mamá”) have in common, paradoxically leads to an opposite effect: by creating an imaginary version of themselves, ‘others’ or their world, the characters only reinforce their feelings of displacement. Further, the functioning of the bridge, both as an architectural construction that connects two contrasting parts of the city, and as metaphor of the protagonist’s

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divided identity in “Lejana,” for example, as well as the projection of the Paris/Buenos Aires opposition on the Luis and Laura/Nico relationship in “Cartas de mamá,” allows one to see a parallelism between the city (bridge) and the self (body) that subverts a conventional inside/outside opposition. Moreover, in none of these stories it is possible to decide which one is the protagonist’s ‘true’ self. This illustrates their affinity with postmodern anthropological expression of both epistemological and ontological uncertainty about human identity. The meeting of Alina with her imaginary self on the bridge, which separates two parts of the city as contrasting as the society Buenos Aires girl and the poor Budapest woman, rather emphasizes their piritual, s corporeal and territorial gaps than brings about theirreconciliation. Likewise, Petrone’s life as a salesman becomes paralyzed by the discovery of the child-presence both outside and in himself that, supposedly, would make him leave the hotel. An apparent happy life in Paris, invaded by the Buenos Aires of his mother ’s letters and the protagonists’ silent memories, only emphasizes Luis ’s and Laura’s “ghost”-like existence, which finally makes them almost indistinguishable from dead Nico. Illustrating the importance of the internal spatial dimension in Cortázar’s writings, these stories, taken fromdifferent books, indicate a consistency of the movement away from the very dichotomies that theyappear to establish within themselves, such as presence/absence, voice/silence, dead/alive, child/adult, rich/ beggar, etc. Atthe same time, territorial and/or spir itual displacement, as a manifestation of place-self-writing relationship, characteristically turns out to bean expression of an existential dilemma inCortázar’s short stories.

CONCLUSION

With false hope of a firm foundation gone, with the world displaced by worlds that are but versions, we face the questions how worlds are made, tested, and known. Nelson Goodman

Narrative worlds created by Borges and Cortázar, challenge from different, yet ultimately related, perspectives, all attempts to define place and identity, by means of dichotomies such as here and there, self and other, and home and exile. While the works of both authors address a multiplicity of cultures, languages and territories, their approaches to ‘place’ are not identical. Borges’s elaboration of “place” suggests imagined settings for mystical experiences and impossible objects. In his texts, place can be read as a trope that stands for the human aspiration to bridge the gap between the finite and the infinite. In contrast, for Cortázar, place is a locality for dwelling and thinking, a starting point for existential experiences with ethical connotations. In Borges’s narratives, place is an infinite source of searching, dissemination and transformation which evokes continuous displacement. A mysterious Aleph (“El Aleph”), which can be interpreted as a manifestation of theinfinite capacity of revelation to acquire new forms, in fact exposes everything and nothing. Similarly, the circular ruins (“Las ruinas circulares”), a sacred place chosen by the magician, leaves unresolved the mystery about the nature of the human self. Impossible objects such as a book of sand (“El libro de arena”) that supposedly incorporates the universe in its entirety, and a disk (“El disco”) which stands for 1

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a totality of the pagan world, are lost at the end of their respective stories. Moreover, displacement, as both a mechanism of dream and a characteristic of their manifestation such as the ruined palace“Xanadu” or its poetic equivalent, the lyric fragment “Kubla Khan” (“El sueño de Coleridge”), indicates a mirror relationship between inside (mental) and outside (empirical) worlds as well as between factually existing locations and openly imaginary. The equivalence between the palace and the poetic image“(El sueño de Coleridge”), the wall and the books points to their common onthology: fiction. Thus, for Borges, place turns out to be displaced into a“meta” concept. Beyond the physical and tangible, it is an object of dream, thought and interpretation rather than a material locality. By bringing to bear on various philosophical, anthropological and literary discourses, I have mapped out the dynamic of place and displacement in these two authors’ narratives, and I have been able to locate several“sities” of Borges’s writings within Cortázar’s fictional universe. Borges’s approach to place as a metaphysical and metafictional construct was influential for Cortázar, particularly as evidenced in the image of Buenos Aires created in Rayuela. I have demonstrated the significance of Borges’s Fervor de Buenos Aires in the gestation of “metaphysical-artistic” Buenos Aires in Rayuela, as well as Cortázar’s swerving from Borges’s conceptions. In his early poetry, Borges fashions an overtly“metaphysical” Buenos Aires whose representation is informed by a fusion of local color and his commitment to philosophical idealism. In Rayuela Cortázar takes metaphysical conceptions akin to those of Borges as an ingredient of his own literary world imbued with carnivalesque elements. In Cortázar’s novel both carnivalesque and metaphysical aspects of the city exemplify the author’s despair in the world he cannot accept and function as a mask of anxiety. Cort ázar’s ludic references to motifs and symbols recurrent in Borges’s works (such as human life determined by literary scenarios, Pascal’s notion of the sphere, word-games, the labyrinth,and so on) also emphasize dialogic relationships between these writers works that both display Borges’s influence on Cortázar’s narratives, and allow a reader to appreciate these writers’ unique contributions to literature. Further, both Borges’s and Cortázar’s texts blur boundaries between overtly imaginary and recognizable locations. Inspired by such canonical texts as Appolodorus’s Library, More’s Utopia, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and Wells’ The Time Machine, Borges chooses exotic locations as in “Utopia del hombre que está cansado” or in “La casa de Asterión” which are gradually transformed to the terrifyingly familiar ones. Cortázar’s narratives incorporate apparently recognizable

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objects, such as the City in62: Modelo para armaror the ship inLos Premios. The capacities and limitations of the characters, however, gradually mutate these surroundings into extraordinary locations that share dystopian dominant. This vision of utopia/dystopia as no longer“nowhere” and of familiar places as increasingly displaced can be seen as an artistic manifestation of the authors’ common experience of displacement and emotional exile. In Borges’s narratives physical displacement is a point of departure for his elaboration of his vision of space as a function of time where present, past, and future coexist; in Cortázar’s texts physical displacement can be read astrope for psychological self-division; it undermines the inside/outside opposition and introRayuela and “Cartas duces an ethical dimension. Both Paris and Buenos Aires, in de mamá,” are associated with the territorial and emotional exile of the protagonists. The Budapest bridge is the place for the manifestation of Alina Reyes ’s inner self-division which is never overcome “Lejana ( ”). And the door in“La puerta condenada” makes it possible for Petrone to witness the splitting of the inner world of his neighbor, and to manifest his own self-division. Moreover, being aware of their displacement, Cortázar’s characters search for their own ‘place,’ 2

which is an unreachable, idealized location associated with inner harmony and the recovery of their lost integrity. Oliveira, for example, is desperately looking for a center, a mysterious place/object he can hardly defineRayuela); ( Alina dreams about the bridge where she will be able to meet her double “(Lejana”); Juan idealizes “la ciudad,” which in his imagination is a happy alternative to real cities such as London, Paris and Vienna62: ( Modelo para armar); the passengers consider the ship Malcolm (Los premios) a place for rest from the everyday problems they face in Buenos Aires; and Luis and Laura from“Cartas de mamá” desperately strive to escape a feelingof guilt. Place and displacement are consistently connected with the existential/moral search for integrity, truth,“lo abierto” (Cortázar 61) that makes the ethical quests prominent in his works. Both Borges’s and Cortázar’s narratives can be productively read in an implicit dialogue with philosophical and anthropological approaches to place. A suggested study of Borges’s “El Aleph,” “Las ruinas circulares,” “El disco” and “El libro de arena,” for example, allows one to discover a new dimension in the influence of the kabbalistic thought on Borges’s writing, as well as in his insightful interpretation of the Kabbalah, one of the sources of inspiration for his literary themes. Evoking a vision of place offered by Jewish mystics, these stories allow the reader to distinguish one of the patterns prominent in Borges ’s narratives: his depiction of place as an artistic elaboration of revelation that

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lacks in single unequivocal meaning and displays infinite capacity for taking new forms. An analysis of Borges’s “La casa de Asterion” in light of Foucault’s notion of heterotopia made it possible to suggest a structure lacking in a center to be characteristic for such a place, a feature that does not appear in Foucault’s own analysis. The use of Freud’s srcinal concept of displacement as a heuristic tool for literary analysis of“El sueño de Coleridge” makes it possible to compare and contrast the expressed vision of dreams with that offered by the father of psychoanalysis. Whereas for Freud, the interpretation of displacement as a mechanism of dreams is a tool for understanding the work of the human psychic apparatus, Borges’s essay presents dreams and their mechanisms as enigmatic, and resistant to any definitive analysis. Informed by his readings of Freud, Derrida’s notion of repression as archive turns out to be compatible with a mirror-relationship between the actions of displacement as a mental mechanism and as an instrument of political control in “La muralla y los libros.” In his notion of archive, the French philosopher maintains the parallel between mental and historical realms, srcinally introduced by Freud. Borges’s essay can be seen as an extension of this connection, for it implicitly suggests that the mechanism of dream work has its analogy in a circular nature of history, whose processes are re-inscription/repetition and trace, as well as in the perception of the aesthetic phenomenon whose interpretations can never be complete and exhaustive. In Cortázar’s texts, the notion of place as displacement responds to existentialist ideas that Borges, who “understands that personality that we praise so much to be nothing” (Borges qtd. in Monegal 1925, 90), strongly disliked. The existentialist notion of exile/displacement as an experience of the return to a person’s true self is both present in and challenged by Cortázar’s narratives. Exile, defined by Kierkegaard and Said as an experience of “incompleteness” 3

and “open-endedness,” for instance, is thematized in Rayuela and “Cartas de mama.” Said’s concept of the intellectual as traveler, a provisional guest, consistently appears in Cortázar’s narratives, and it is most evidently embodied in such characters as Persio (Los premios), Oliveira (Rayuela) and Juan (62: Modelo para armar). According to existentialists, exile brings about reconciliation between a person and his/her ‘true’ self. Cortázar’s narratives, however, leave the very notion of ‘true’ self open-ended, most prominently in such stories as “Lejana,” “La puerta condenada,” and “Cartas de mama.” In these texts, the notion of place as displacement isalso introduced by means of subject/object parallelism, in which both elements display divisions and a desire for integrity which is never attained. Identity obtains a spatial focus in Cort ázar’s narratives,

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and a geographical dislocation manifests the human self as a “map” with “multiple entryways” (Deleuze et al 12 qtd. in Pile et al 34). The questioning of a strict opposition between place and displacement in Borges’s and Cortázar’s most representative texts, it can be further argued, hasa significant bearing on the canon of twentieth cent ury Latin American literature. Cartographies of dislocation are found in the works of such writers as Severo Sarduy, Diamela Eltit,Ricardo Piglia and Juan José Saer whose works address the political and social conflicts of their time. Sarduy’s Cobra, Eltit’s Lumpérica, Piglia’s Respiración artificial, and Saer’s Nadie, nada, nunca are just a few examples of texts that consistently subvert the place/displacement dichotomy on mutually connected linguistic, thematic and/or structural levels of literary discourse, and thus turn out to be marked by Borges’s and Cortázar’s narratives. At the same time, through finding connections between different literary traditions, philosophical and anthropological discourses, the present study shows that their literary works are among the most vivid manifestations of the strong relations between Argentinian letters and world culture. A further exemplification of this relationship can be found in Cort ázar’s poem ‘The smiler 4

with the knife under the cloak,’ a playful tribute to “the scandalous outsider,” “el primer Borges ” [“the first Borges ”] (La vuelta 1:56). As Cort ázar later recalled, it was inspired by one of Borges’s lectures, which evoked in Cortázar “una ternura idiota” [“an idiotic tenderness”], particularly when the maestro demonstrated a parallelism between a line from Geoffrey Chaucer“The smylere with the knyf under his cloke” and “la metáfora criolla de ‘venirse con el cuchillo abajo’ el poncho’ ” (La vuelta 1:67) [“a creole metaphor ‘to come with the knife under the poncho’ ”]. Drawing on this example of continuity and ázar overlap between different narrative worlds within the literary universe, Cort refers to Borges as the“smiler,” and creates an image which evokes associations with both the Argentine Gaucho and Chaucer’s Knight: 5

‘The smiler with the knife under the cloak’ Justo en mitad de la ensaimada se plantó y dijo: Babilonia. Muy pocos entendieron que quería decir el Río de la Plata. Cuando se dieron cuenta ya era tarde, quién ataja a ese potro que galopa de Patmos a Gotinga a media rienda. Se empezó a hablar de vikings en el café Tortoni,

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y eso curó a unos cuantos de Juan Pedro Calou y enfermó a los más flojos de runa y David Hume A todo esto él leía novelas policiales. (La vuelta 1:69; italics added) [‘The smiler with the knife under the cloak’ Right in the middle of puff-pastry He stood still and said: Babylon A very few understood That he wanted to say: Río de la Plata. When they realized it, it was already too late Who would put bridle On this colt which gallops From Patmos to Goringa. He started talking about Vikings In the café Tortoni, And that cured some folks from Juan Pedro Calou And made sick the most weak ones from runes and David Hume Meanwhile, he was reading detective novels.] This poem, a ludic acknowledgement of“mucho bien que nos ha hecho su obra” (La vuelta 1:67) [“a lot of good things which his work has done to us”], was never sent to Borges. It was published in 1956 in New Delhi described by Cortázar in a very Borgesean way as “el India, of all places” (La vuelta I: 67). “Babilonia” is “Río de la Plata” in this ludic assertion of integrity between Argentinian letters and the world culture, both of which consistently benefit from an approach to place viewed as a dynamic displacement, as an analysis of Borges’s and Cortázar’s texts, offered in this book, demonstrates. No doubt is left that these writers created narrative worlds, foreign to any territorial or cultural limitations, that celebrate fluidity and eclectism while remaining fixed and pure expressions of their authors’ individual talents.

TRANSLATIONS

“ The Sealed Door ” Petrone liked the hotel“Cervantes” for the same reasons for which others would dislike it. It was gloomy, quiet, and almost deserted. A chance companion on the ship recommended it to him, saying that it was located in the center of Montevideo. Petrone took a singlewith a bathroom on the second floor, which overlooked the reception hall. By looking at the key-stand at the entrance, he realized that the hotel was almost empty. A big copper numeral was attached to each key, a friendly method used by the management to impede guests from carrying it in their pockets. The elevator stopped in front of the reception area, where there was a counter with daily newspapers and a list ofphone numbers; just a few steps from his room. The hot, almost boiling, running water compensated for the lack of sun and fresh air. A small window overlooked the roof of the neighboring cinema; a dove sometimes walked there. The bathroom had a bigger window, which sadly faced a wall, along with an almost useless small piece of sky. The furniture was good, there were many drawers, shelves, and, especially rare, even many hangers. The manager, turned out to be a tall, thin and completely bald man. He was wearing glasses with gold frames, and spoke in a loud and clear voice, typical for Uruguayans. He told Petrone that the second floor was very quiet, and that in the only occupied room, next to his, was staying a single lady, who was working somewhere and usually returned to the hotel at nightfall. Petrone ran into her the following day in the elevator. He recognized her by the number of

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the key, which she was holding in her hand, as if it were a huge gold coin. The concierge took their keys to hang on the stand, and started talking with the woman about some letters. Petrone had time to notice that she was still young, insignificant, and badly dressed, as all local women. According to his calculations, the contract with the mosaic manufacturers would take approximately a week. In the afternoon, Petrone hung up his clothing in the wardrobe, arranged his papers on the table, and after having taken a bath, went out for a walk in the town-center, until it was time to go to the office. Negotiations lasted till the end of the day, softened by coffee in“Pocitos” and dinner in the house of the main partner. It was after 1 a.m. when they dropped him at the hotel. He was very tired and fell asleep immediately. When he got up, it was almost 9 a.m., and during those first minutes, when the night dreams had not left him yet, he thought that in the middle of the night he had been disturbed by a baby’s cry. Before going out, he chatted with the concierge, who was speaking with a German accent. While he was getting information about bus routes and names of streets, his distracted glance was wondering through the hall, at the end of which was his room and that of the lady. Between the doors, there was a pedestal with a pitiful copy of the Venus de Milo. Another door, in the lateral wall, led to an alcove littered with arm-chairs and newspapers, as everywhere. When the concierge and Petrone stopped talking, the silence of the hotel seemed to coagulate, falling like dust over the furniture and onto the floor tiles. The elevator was rumbling unbearably, with a noise like that of rustling pages of newspaper or the scratch of matches. Meetings finished that evening, and Petrone took a walk h t rough the street 18 de Julio before having dinner in one of the caf és on la plaza Independencia. Everything was going well, and probably he could return to Buenos Aires earlier then he had thought. He bought an Argentine newspaper, a pack of black cigarettes, and slowly walked towards the hotel. He already had seen the two films that were playing in the movie theatre next door, and he really did not want to go any place else. The manager greeted him as he passed, and asked whether he needed another set of linen. They chatted and smoked for a little while, and then said good-night to each other. Before lying down, Petrone arranged his papers thathe had used during the day, and scanned the newspaper without much interest. The silence of the hotel was almost overwhelming, broken only for a moment by an occasionally passing tram on Soriano street, to be followed by even more silent intervals. Calmly, but not without impatience, he threw the newspaper into a trashcan, and

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undressed, while looking distracted in the mirror of the wardrobe. It was an old one that blocked the door to another room. Petrone was surprised that he had not noticed the door during his first inspection. At first, he had thought that the building was designed to be a hotel, but then he realized that it was one of those modest places that had been installed in old apartments or former family offices. Indeed, in almost all thehotels where he stayed (and hehad traveled a lot), the rooms had a sealed door, sometimes openly visible, but almost always screened with a wardrobe, table or coat stand that, as in this case, gave it a certain ambiguity, a bashful desire to mask its existence, as a woman who hopes to hide her belly and her breasts with her hands. In any event, the door was there, jutting out from behind the wardrobe. Once people had entered in and went out from it, slammed it, closed it, gave it life which still was present in its wood, so different from that of the walls. Petrone imagined that on the other side, there was also a wardrobe, and that the woman in the contiguous room would have similar thoughts about the door. He was not very tired, but fell asleep with pleasure. He was sleeping for three or four hours when suddenly a feeling of discomfort woke him up, as if something had happened, something disturbing and annoying. He turned the lamp on, saw that it was half past two in the morning, and turned it off again. At that moment he heard a baby’s cry from the room next to his. At first, he did not realize what it was. He then almost felt satisfied for a moment, for it meant that there had been indeed, a baby’s cry which had not let him rest, the night before. With everything explained, it was easier to go to sleep again. But then he thought about something else and slowly sat up on the bed, listening, without turning on the light. There was no deception; the cry came from there, from the room next to his. A sound came through the sealed door to the sector of his room that corresponded to his bed’s legs. But it was not possible that there was a baby in the room next to his; the manager had clearly told him that the lady was staying alone, and that she was spending almost all day at work. That night she was probably taking care of a relative’s or friend’s child—Petrone thought for a moment. But what about yes terday night? Now he was sure that healready had heard a cry, because it was a sound, which washard to take for something else. It was rather a series of irregular, very weak moans, of plaintive sobs followed by whimpering, all this was inconsistent and minimal, as if a child were very sick. He had to be a creature of several months —newborns scream louder, with sudden clucks and shortness of breath. For some reason, Pertrone imagined that it was a boy, weak and sick, with a shriveled face and quiet movements.This was moaning at night, crying timidly, without calling too

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much attention. If the shut off door were notthere, nobody would know about the child—this cry would not overcome thick walls. In the morning Petrone thought about it for a little bit, while having breakfast and smoking. T o sleep badly was not convenient for his daily job. He had woken up twice in the middle of the night; both times because of the cry. The second time was worse because in addition to the cry, he had heard a voice of a woman who was trying to calm the child down. The voice was very low, but its anxious tone gave it a theatrical quality, a whisper which crossed the door with such a force, as if she were shouting. The child stopped for a moment, and then an inconsolable anguish replaced the short moan. And again the woman was whispering incomprehensible words, maternal magic to pacify her child, tortured by his body and his s oul, by his life or by the fear of death. “Everything is sweet, but the manager fooled me, ” thought Petrone, stepping out of his room. He was annoyed by lies and did not conceal it. The manager, nevertheless, was surprised. boy?floor. You In probably confused with something. There no have little boys— onAthis the room next tohim yours, a single lady stays, as Iare alre ady told you. Petrone hesitated before responding. Either the manager was stupidly lying, or the hotel’s acoustics were playing an idiotic joke. The manager was looking a bit askance at him, as if he were also annoyed by the situation. “He probably thinks that I am too shy and that I am looking for a pretext to demand a transfer to another room”—thought Petrone. It was difficult, and even senseless, to insist, when everything was denied. He shook his shoulders and asked for a periodical. —I was probably dreaming—he said, annoyed by having to say this, or any other thing. The cabaret was boring him to death, and his two hosts were not particularly enthusiastic about refreshments, so he easily pleaded fatigue, and left for his hotel. They decided to sign the contracts the next afternoon; in essence, he finished the business part of his trip. It was so quiet in the reception that Petrone found himself going on tiptoe. There was an afternoon newspaper for him near the bed, and also a letter from Buenos Aires. He immediately recognized his wife ’s handwriting. Before going to bed, he looked for a while at the wardrobe and the jutted out part of the door. Probably if he had put his two suitcases on the top of the

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wardrobe, thus blocking the door, there would be less noise from the contiguous room. As always, at this time, there was silence. The hotel fell asleep, both people and things were sleeping. But to ill-humored Petrone, everything seemed to be the opposite. It appeared to him that everything was awake, eagerly awake in the middle of the silence. His unexpressed anxiety possibly was transferring to the house, its people, lying awake, hidden in their rooms. What a pile of nonsense, indeed. Petrone was almost not surprised, when ababy’s cry woke him at 3 o’clock in the morning. Sitting up in his bed, he was asking himself whether it would be better to call for a nightwatchman to have a witness that itwas impossible to sleep in this room. A child wascrying very softly. His cry was imperceptible, but Petrone knew that it was there, that it would not stop, and that it would increase again. Ten or twenty of the slowest seconds passed,then something grunted briefly, and a hardly perceivable squeak lasted sweetly till it broke into a shrilling cry. Having lit a cigarette, he asked himself whether he should knock on the wall politely, so that the woman would calm down her child. And suddenly he realized that he didn’t believe either in her or in her child —he didn’t believe, no matter how strange it might seem, that the manager had lied to him. Then he heard woman’s voice, exhorting a child softly and persistently, drowning his crying. She was lulling a child to sleep, calming him down, and Petrone imagined her sitting on a bed, or rocking a cradle, or holding a baby in her arms. But no matter how much he tried, he could not imagine the child, as if the affirmation of the manager was stronger than the reality to which he was listening. Little by little, while time passed and weak moans grew quieter or louder between woman’s whispers of consolation, Petrone started suspecting that this was a farce, a stupid and monstrous game without explanation. He remembered old tales about childless women who secretly played with dolls, an invented maternity much worse than petting dogs, cats or nephews. The woman was imitating the crying of her frustrated child, trying to calm down the air between her empty arms, maybe with her face wet from tears, because the crying which she imitated was probably her realexpression, her grotesque pain in thesolitude of a hotel room, protected by indifference and by the dawn. Having turned on the light, unable to fall asleep again, Petrone asked himself what to do. His mood had completely deteriorated; it was congested by this atmosphere, where suddenly everything became tricky, empty, false: a silence, a crying, a lullaby, the only reality of this hour between night and day that was deceiving him with an unbearable lie. To knock on the wall seemed too little for him. He did not wake up completely, though it was impossible to sleep.

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Without realizing it, he found himself slowly moving wardrobe until he uncovered the dusty and dirty door. Barefoot, in pajamas, he leaned against the door like a centipede, and bringing his mouth close to the pine slots, he startedimitating imperceptibly, in falsetto, themoan, which was coming from the otherroom. He raised his voice, groaned, sobbed. On the other side, everything became a silence which would last the whole night; butthe moment before that Petrone had heard the shuffling of woman r across the oom, r the launch of a short ’s slippers, her unning and dry scream, the beginning of a storm, instantlybroken, like a tight rope. When he passed by the front desk, it was after 10 a.m. Between dreams, before eight in the morning, he had heard the voices of an employee and the woman. Somebody was walking in the next room, moving things. He sawtrunk a and two big suitcases near the elevator. The manager was looking perplexed. —How did you sleep last night?—he asked in a professional tone, barely concealing his indifference. Petrone shook his shoulders. He did not want to insist onanything, when there was only one night left. —Anyway, now it will be quieter,—said the manager, looking at the suitcases. The lady is leaving us at noon. He waited for a comment, and Petrone cheered him up with a responding look. —She was staying here for a while, and now suddenly is leaving. With women, you never know. —No,—said Petrone,—You never know with them. In the street he felt nauseous, but it was not physical. Swallowing a bitter coffee, he was thinking and thinking about the same thing, forgetting about his errands, indifferent to the splendid sun. It was his fault that the woman had to leave, mad from terror, from shame or from anger.She was staying here for a while . . . She was probably sick, but inoffensive. It was not her, but him, who had to go from “Cervantes.” He had to talk to her, to apologize, to ask her to stay, and promise to keep the secret. But having taken a couple of steps in the direction of the hotel, he stopped in the middle of the road. He was afraid of erring, of the woman’s unsuspected reactions. It was already time for a meeting with his two business partners, and he did not want them to wait for him. Well, let her be annoyed. It was nothing more than hysteria, she would find another hotel to take care of her imaginary son. But that night, he again did not feel well, and the silence of the room seemed to him even more dense. When he entered the hotel , he could not resist

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looking at the key-stand, and realized that the key for his neighbor’s room was already taken. He exchanged some words with the employee, who was yawning, while waiting for a moment to go home, and entered his room with little hope of sleep. He had the afternoon newspapers, and a new detective novel. He entertained himself with packing his suitcases and arranging his papers. It was warm, and he opened wide the little window. The made-up bed seemed to be uncomfortable and too firm. Finally, he had all the silence necessary for sleep, and he could not. Tossing in the bed, he felt defeated by this silence regained in a tricky way, which was returning to him completely and vindictively. Ironically, he thought that he was missing the child’s cry, that this perfect quietness would not be sufficient for him to fall asleep and even less for getting up. He was missing the cry, and when much later, he heard a weak unmistakable sound behind the sealed door, he realized—through fear, through desire to run away at night—that he was fine and that the woman did not lie, that she was right in lulling a child to calm down, so that they would be able to sleep.

“ Letters from Mother

”

It could very well be called a conditional freedom. Each time when the superintendent handed him an envelope, it was sufficient for Luis to have just a look at the stamp with the familiar portrait of José de San Martín to realize that once again he would have to cross the bridge. San Mart ín, Rivadavia, but these names were also images of streetsand things; Rivadavia, number sixty five hundred, a mansion in Flores, mamá, a café on San Martín and Corrientes where sometimes his friends waited for him, where sweet coffee had a slight taste of castor oil. With the envelope in his hands, having thanked her, Merci bien, madame Durand, he went out to the street, but he was already not the same as he had been on the previous day, or on any other day . Each letter from his mamá (even before that recent, that ridiculous, absurd error) was immediately changing Luis’s life, by bringing him back to the past like a hard bounce of a ball. Even before that, about what he had just read, and what now he would reread in the bus, half-mad, half-perplexed, without being persuaded . . . mamá’s letters were always an interruption in time, a little inoffensive scandal in the order of things which Luis had managed to plan, obtain and cherish, when he had gotten Laura and Paris. Every new letter reminded him for a moment (precisel y for a moment, because afterwards he scratched them out by the very act of a gentle response) that his freedom, conquered in such a tough way, that this new life, cut off by

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pitiless scissors from the tangled ball which others called his life, was no longer justified. It was losing sense, its grounds were erasing as asphalt under the wheels of a bus which was moving along la rue de Richelieu. No more was left than an appearance of freedom, a mirage of life, like a word in brackets, divorced from the main clause, for which, nevertheless, it almost always provides support and explanation. And an annoyance, and a desire to respond immediately, as if to close the door again. That morning was one of those many mornings when a letter from mam á had arrived. He talked very little about the past with Laura, and almost never about the mansion in Flores. It was not that Luis did not like to recall Buenos Aires. It was more an intent to avoid names (people, avoided already for such a long time, but names, the true ghosts of enduring persistence). Once he ventured to say to Laura: “If it would be possible to break and throw away the past like a draft of a letter or a book. But it stays forever, contaminates the clean copy, and I believe, it is a true future.” Indeed, why would they not talk about Buenos Aires, where their family was living, and from where, from time to time, friends sent them postcards decorated with loving words. And the newspaper La Nación, with sonnets by ecstatic ladies and already obsolete sensations! From time to time, there was a crisis in government, an angry colonel, or a magnificent boxer. Why wouldn’t they talk about Buenos Aires with Laura? But she also did not touch the past, only by chance in a dialogue, and especially when mamá’s letters arrived, she would remember something, she would drop a name or an image, which would fall like coins that are out of circulation, like old things, worn out in a remote world on the far side of a river. —Eh oui, fait lourd—said the worker, who was sitting opposite him in the bus. “If he only knew what is real heat—Luis thought—. If only he could walk on February afternoon onla avenida de Mayo, on one of the little streets ofLiniers.” Once more he took the letter from the envelope, without illusions. The paragraph was there, clear enough. It was absurd, but itwas there. His first reaction, after surprise, like a blow to the forehead, was, as always, defensive. Laura should not read this letter from mamá. No matter how ridiculous was the error; it was a confusion of names (mamá probably wanted to write“Víctor” and wrote “Nico,” instead). In any event Laura would be sad, and it would be stupid. From time to time letters get lost; God willing, this would had gone to the bottom of the sea. Now he had to throw it to the water in the office, and of course, several days later, Laura would definitely ask:“How strange, there was no letter from your mother?” She never said tu mamá, probably because she lost hers when she had been a little girl. Then, he would answer. “It is strange,

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indeed. I am going to drop a couple of lines to her today,” and he would send them, surprised by mamá’s silence. Life would proceed normally: the office, the cinema at night, Laura, always calm, kind, attentive to his needs. Getting out of the bus at la Rue de Rennes, he asked himself sincerely (it was not a question, but how to put it another way) why didn ’t he want to show the letter from mamá to Laura? Not because of her, nor because of what she would feel. It was not important to him what she would feel, not while she was disguising her feelings. (Was it important to him what she was feeling, while she was disguising them?). No, it did not matter to him much (Did it matter to him?). The first truth was important to him, supposing there was a second one behind it; the most immediate truth, if one may say so, was the face that Laura would make and her conduct. He was worrying about hi mself, naturally, about the effect that Laura’s perception of mamá’s letter would produce on him. Her yees would come across the name of Nico, and he knew that her chin would start trembling lightly, and afterwards she would say:“But how weird . . . What has happened to your mother?” And all the time he would feel that Laura was restraining herself from screaming, or hiding inher hands her face already disfigured by crying, disfigured by the outline of Nico’s name ready to escape from her lips. At the advertising bureau, where he worked as a designer, he reread the letter, one of so many others written by his mamá, without noticing anything extraordinary except for the paragraph where she had mixed up a name. He even thought that it could be possible to erase the word, to change Nico to Víctor, simply substitute the truth for a mistake, and to come back home with the letter for Laura to read. She was always interested in letters from mam á, though in an indefinite manner they were not addressed to her. Mamá wrote to him; at the end, sometimes in the middle of the letter, she sent warm regards to Laura. Never mind, Laura read them with the same interest, deciphering some words twisted by mother’s rheumatism and myopia. “I take Saridon, and the doctor prescribed me a bit of salicylic acid. ” Mamá’s letters stayed at his working table for two or three days at a time. Luis had wanted to throw them away after responding, but Laura reread them; women like to reread letters, to examine them again and again, as if they find another meaning each time when they return to them. Her letters were short, home news, with one or two references to national affairs (but these things, already known from the telegrams from Le Monde, were no longer of interest). It even seemed that they were one and the same letter, simple and mediocre, without anything interesting. The best was that mamá never gave way to the grief which the absence of her son

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and daughter-in-law could cause, nor to the pain—“so many screams and tears at the beginning—of Nico’s death. Never, in the two years whichthey had spent already in Paris, had mother mentioned Nico in her letters. She was like Laura, who also never talked about him. They never mentioned his name, although two years had passed since Nico’s death. A sudden reference of his name, in the middle of the letter, was almost a scandal: the very fact of Nico’s name unexpected appeared in one line, with the capital and trembling ‘N,’ and a bended ‘o.’ But it was worse, because the name was placed in an absurd and incomprehensible phrase, in something which could not be anything else but an announcement of senility. All at once, mamá had lost the notion of time, she was imagining that . . . This paragraph appeared after a brief acknowledgement of Laura’s letter. A period marked by the weak blueink bought in the local store, and a point-blank statement: “This morning Nico has asked about you. ” The rest followed as usual: her health, a cousin Matilde had fallen and dislocated her collar-bone, the dogs were well. But Nico has been asking about them. Of course, it was easy to change Nico to Víctor, who was, no doubt, the one who had asked about them. Cousin Víctor, who is always very attentive. Víctor has two more letters then Nico, but with an eraser and skill, one may change these names. This morning, Víctor has asked about them. It was very natural that Víctor came over to visit mamá, and asked about relatives in Paris. When he came home for lunch, the letter was intact in his pocket. He was still inclined not to tell anything to Laura, who was waiting for him with a friendly smile on her face, a bit blurred sinceleaving Buenos Aires; as if the grey air of Paris had taken its color and clarity. They had been living in Paris already ’s for two years, having left Buenos Aires as soon as two months after Nico death, but in reality Luis had been considered absent from the day of his marriage to Laura. One afternoon, after talking withNico, who was already sick, Luis had sworn to escape from Argentina, from the Flores mansion, from mamá and dogs, and from his brother (who was already sick). In those months, everything was rotating around him like figures in a dance: Nico, Laura, mamá, dogs, the garden. His oath was a brutal gesturesimilar to breaking a bottle into smithereens in the middle of a dance floor. Everything had been brutal in those days: his mará, a forgetriage, their departure with neither explanations nor concern for mam fulness of all social duties and of friends who were half surprised, half disenchanted. Nothing was important to him, not even Laura’s attempts to protest. Mamá was left alone in the mansion with thedogs, bottles of medicine, and Nico’s clothes, á which were still hanging in the cl oset. Let her stay, let everybody go to hell. Mam

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had seemed to understand, she was already not crying for Nico any longer, and was walking as before in the house, with the cold and resolved resi gnation of the old for death. But Luis did not want ot remember what had happened during the night of departure: suitcases, a cab at the door, the house where he spent his childhood, the garden where he and Nico had played at war, two dogs, lazy and stupid. Now he was almost ready to forget about all this. He was going to the agency, was drawing posters, was coming back to eat, was drinking a cup of coffee which Laura served him with smile. They were going often to the cinema, to the forests, were becoming more and more familiar with Paris. They were fortunate, life was surprisingly easy, a manageable job, a nice apartment, excellent movies. Then letters from mamá started arriving. He did not hate them; if he had not received them, he would feel his freedom falling on him like an unbearable weight. Mam á’s letters were bringing him a salient forgiveness (although there was nothing for which to ask forgiveness), they were throwing a bridge across which it was possible to continue walking. Each one was calming him down or was making him worry about his mam á’s health, reminding him about family concerns, about the permanence of a familiar order. Sometimes he hated this order, and he hated it because of Laura, because Laura was in Paris, but each letter from mamá, defined her as a stranger, as an accomplice of that order which he had rejected one night in the garden, after having heard once again Nico’s damped, almost humble cough. No, he would not show her the letter. It was not noble to substitute one name for another, but it was unbearable to let Laura read this phrase. Mamá’s grotesque —he was seeing her struggling with the mistake, her silly accidental awkwardness old pen, with a sliding paper and insufficie nt sight—, it would grow in Laura like a responsive seed. It was better to throw the letter away (he threw itaway that very afternoon), and at night to go to the cinema with Laura, and to forget as soon as possible that Víctor had asked about them. Even though it had beeníctor, V a wellbrought up cousin, he would forget that he had asked about them. Diabolic, cunning, licking his lips, Tom was waiting for Jerry to fall into his trap. Jerry escaped and innumerable catastrophes fell on Tom. During intermission Luis bought ice-cream, and theyate it while watching distractedly colorful announcements. When the film started, Laura sank further into her chair and took away her hand from Luis’s arm. He again felt that she was far away; who knows whether what they were watching together was the same thing for both, though afterwards they commented on films on the street or in bed. Luis asked himself (it was not a question, but how to put it another way), whether

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Nico and Laura had been as distant in the movie theatre, when Nico had courted her, and they had been going out together. Probably they had known all of the movie theatres of Flores, the whole stupid embankment of Lavalle street, a lion, an athlete who struck the gong, subtitlesin Spanish by Carmen de Pinillos, the characters of that film had been as fictitious as the relationship itself . . . Thus, when Jerry had escaped from Tom and an hour of Barbara Stanwyck or Tyrone Power had started, Nico’s hand would slowly touch Laura’s hip (poor Nico, so timid, so chaste), and both would feel ashamed of God only knew what. It was clear to Luis that they were not guilty of anything definitive; although he did not have the most delicious proof, but such a rapid disappearance of Laura ’s attachment to Nico had been sufficient for him tosee that this engagement was a simple simulacrum of a union, determined by vicinity and the same cultural and social circles which formed the salt of Flores. It was sufficient to come one evening to the same ballroom which Nico had frequented, and he had introduced Laura to Luis. Perhaps for that reason, for the easiness of the beginning, the rest had been unexpectedly difficult and bitter. But he did not want to recall it now; the comedy was finished with the bland ruin of Nico, his melancholic refuge in death from tuberculosis. The strange thing was that Laura never mentioned him, and therefore he also never did. Nico was noteven a deceased, not even a dead brother-in-law, a mamá’s son. At first, this had brought him relief after a confused exchange of reproaches, mamá’s crying and screams, the stupid intervention of uncle Emilio and of cousin íV ctor (Víctor has asked about you this morning), a hastened marriage without any ceremony —a call for a taxi and three minutes in front of a functionary with dandruff on his lapels. Having found a refuge in a hotel in Adrogu é, far from mamá and from all infuriated kinsfolk, Luis had been grateful to Laura who never had make a reference to the poor puppet who so vaguely had been transformed from a boyfriend to a brother-in-law. But now, divided by ocean, two years after his death, Laura continued not to mention him, and he, Luis, from cowardice, joined her in this silence, knowing that in the depth of his soul this silenceoffended him because it had to do with a reproach, with repentance, with something that was starting to appear similar to a betrayal. More than once he had explicitly mentioned Nico, but he understood that this was not counted, because Laura’s response was only to change the topic of conversation. Slowly a forbidden territory had been forming step by step in their language, isolating them from Nico, wrapping his name and his memory in stained and sticky cotton. And from the other side mother was doing the same, asif in an inexplicable plot with them, she was keeping silent. In each letter she was talking about dogs, Matilde, Víctor,

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aspirin, the payment of herpension. Luis had been hoping that mam á would hint to her son at leastonce that it was time toally with her in front of Laura, to oblige Laura gently to accept Nico’s posthumous existence. Not because it was necessary: to whom was Nico that important either alive or dead? But the tolerance of memory about him in the pantheon of the past would be a dark, irrefutable proof that Laura had forgotten about him completely and forever. The nightmare caused by the mention of his name would dissipate into a feeling as weak and inane as when he was alive. But Laura continued to silence his name, precisely when it would be natural to pronounce it, and Luis was again feeling Nico’s presence in the garden at Flores, was hearing his discreet cough, which prepared the best possible imaginable present for their wedding, his death during the honeymoon of the one who had been his brideand the one who had been his brother.

’s letter had not arrived. They A week later, Laura was surprised that mother went over all the possible hypotheses, and Luis wrote her that sameafternoon. A response did not worry him too much, but he would like (he thought about it while he was getting down the stairs in the mornings) for the superintendent to give him the letter personally instead of bringing it to the third floor. After approximately two weeks (15 days), he recognized a familiar envelope, the face of Admiral Brown and a view of the Iguaz ú waterfall. He held on to the envelope until he went out to the street and responded to Laura’s farewell from the window. It seemed ridiculous to him to have to turn around the corner before he could open the envelope. Bobby had escaped to the street,and in several days he had started itching, infected by themange from another dog. Mamá was going to see a veterinarian, Uncle Emilio’s friend, because it was not acceptable for Bobby to spread the pestilence to Blackie. Uncle Emilio was thinking that she should bath them inacaroina, but she was already too old for this, and for her it would be better if a veterinarian would prescribe some powder against insects or something to mix in the dogs’ food. A lady in the neighboring house had a mangy cat, and who knows, may be cats can infect dogs, though it would be across a chicken wire fence that divided the houses. But why would they beinterested in this old lady’s talk, though Luis always had been very gentlewith dogs, and as a child had even slept with one at the foot of his bed, in contrast wit h Nico, who had never liked them much. A lady in the house next to theirs advised to dust them with DDT, because even if there was no itching, dogs get infected with all kinds of mange while they are walking on the streets; in the corner of Bacacay stopped a circus with rare animals, and there are plenty of microbes in the air, and

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so on. Mamá was overwhelmed by fear, and she was writing either about a dressmaker’s son who scalded his arm with boiling milk, or about itchy Bobby. Afterwards, there was something similar to a little blue star (the tip of the pen had probably caught on the paper and mother began an annoyed grumble) and then some melancholic thoughts about how lonely she would feel when Nico also would go to Europe, as it seemed to her, but this was the destiny of the old; children are swallows who lea ve the nest one day, and one should resign oneself to this, while strengths last. The lady next door. . . . Somebody pushed Luis, and with a Marseilles accent reminded him rapidly about the rules of behavior on the streets. He vaguely realized that he was hindering the movement of people who were entering the narrow subway corridor. The rest of the day was equally foggy, he called Laura to say that he would not come back for lunch, spent two hours on a bench at the square rereading mamá’s letter, asking himself what should he do with this insanity. To talk to Laura, before anything else. Why (it was not a question, but how to put it another way) to continue hiding what was happening from Laura? He could not pretend already that this letter was lost as the other one. Already he could not believe indeed that mamá had mistakenly written Nico instead of V íctor, and that she was suffering so much that she had gone insane. No doubt, the cause of these letters is Laura, that was what was happened to Laura. Not even this: that what had happened from the day of their wedding, the honeymoon in Adrogué, the nights when they had desperately loved each other in the ship which was bringing them to France. That was all Laura, everything would be Laura now, when Nico wanted to come to Europe in mam á’s delirium. Accomplices as never before, mam á started talking to Laura about Nico, informing her that Nico was going to come to Europe, and she wrote it in that way, knowing well that Laura would understand that hewould arrive in France, in Paris, at the house where everybody skillfully pretended to forget about him, poor thing. Luis did two things: he wrote to Uncle Emilio, indicating the symptoms which worried him and asking him to visit mamá immediately to personally ascertain her condition and to take any necessary measures. He then drank two glasses of cognac one after another, and walked home in order to think about what he should say to Laura, because he finally needed to talk to her, to keep her posted. Moving from one street to another, he felt how difficult it was for him to think about the present, about what should happen in half an hour. Mamá’s letter placed him, drowned him, in the reality of these two years of his

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life in Paris, in a lie of a traded peace, in the happiness in the eyes of outsiders, maintained by entertainment and performances, by a forced pact of silence, where both of them became more and more dista nt, as usually happens in a negative pact. Yes, mamá, yes, poor itchy Bobby, mamá. Poor Bobby, poor Luis, what a strong itch, mamá. A dance in the club at Flores, mamá, I went because he insisted, I imagine that he wanted to boast of his conquest. Poor Nico, mam á, with that dry cough, in which nobody believed yet, in that suit with stripes, his hair shined with briolin, his silk ties, so crisp and neat. A short talk, you feel liked, . . . How not to invite your brother ’s fiancé for a dance. Oh, to say fiancé is too much. Luis, I suppose I can call you Luis, can’t I? But yes, I am surprised that Nico did not bring you home yet, mother is going to like you very much. Our Nico is so awkward, he did not even talk to your father. Timid, yes, always the same. As I am. Why do you laugh, you do not believe me, do you? But I am not as I seem to be . . . It ’s warm in here isn’t it? Indeed, you have to come, mamá would be pleased. The three of us live together with our dogs. Hey Nico, it is shame to hide all this from us, you rascal. We are like that between us, Laura, we say everything to each other. With your permission, I would dance this tango with mademoiselle. Such a small thing, so easy, and he (Nico) is so shiny with his silk tie. She had broken up with Nico by mistake, because of the blindness, because his slippery brother had been able to win in a moment, to turn her head without any real effort. Nico does not play tennis, when would he play, please, if you cannot tear him away from chess or stamps. Quiet, such a poor thing, Nico was left behind, lost in the corner of the patio, calming himself down with cough syrup and a bitter mate. The moment when he fell ill, poor thing, and was prescribed rest, coincided with dancing in the gym and in the fencing hall “Villa de Parque.” One would not lose such things, especially when Edgardo Donato was going to play . . . To mam á, it seemed very good that he would take Laura for a walk; she liked her as her own daughter from the moment they had brought her home. Listen, mamá, the boy is very weak, and he might get upset if somebody told him about it. Sick people mayimagine whatever; he might think that I am flirting with Laura. It would be better if he didn’t not know that we were going to gym. But I did not say this to mam á, nobody at home knew that we were going out together. Naturally, till sick Nico would feel better, poor thing. And thus, dances, two or three, Nico’s X-rays, afterwards short Ramos’s auto, the evening party in Beba’s house, wine glasses, a ride in the car till the bridge across the river, a moon, this moon as an upstairs window of the hotel, and

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Laura resisting, a bit drunk, skillful hands, kisses, suffocated screams, a blanket of vicuna wool, return in silence and a smile of forgiveness. The smile was almost the same when Laura opened the door. There was baked meat, salad, flan. At ten ’oclock their neighbors, who were their canasta partners, came over. Very late, after having prepared to go to bed, Luis took out the letter and put it on the lighted table. —I did not talk earlier with you about this, because I did not want to upset you. It seems to me that mam á . . . He laid down on his back and waited. Laura put the letter back in the envelope and turned off the light. He felt her near him, not exactly near, but he could hear her breath near his ear. —Do you understand?—said Luis, restraining his voice. —Yes. Don’t you think that she confused the name? It could be that. Pawn two, king four. Pawn two, king four. Excellent. —Most probably she wanted to write Víctor.—he said, thrusting nails into the palm of his hand. Knight two, king four, bishop. They pretended to sleep. Laura agreed that Uncle Emilio should be the only person told about this; and days passed without any further discussion. Each time when he came home, Luis waited for an unusual phrase or gesture,a breach in this perfectly kept quietness and silence. They went to the cinema as always, were making love as always. For Luis, there was no more mystery in Laura, except for herhumble resignation with this life, in which nothing had been realized from what they had been dreaming about two years ago. Now he knew her very well, and when he compared them, he had to admit that Laura was similar to Nico, to those who stay behind and only act by inertia, though she sometimes used her almost terrible will in not doing anything indeed, in not living for anything. She would have found much more common understanding with Nico than with him. Both Luis and Laura had understood that from the dayof their wedding, from the first steps which followed the bland acquiescence of their honeymoon and desire. Now Laura again had nightmares. She dreamt often, but nightmares could be recognized immediately. Luis recognized them among many other movements of her body, confused words and the short screams of a suffocated animal. Everything had already started on the ship, when they were still talking about Nico, because he had just died and they had boarded just a few weeks afterwards. One night, after thinking about Nico, when there was already insinuated a tacit

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silence that would be installed afterwards between them, Laura had a nightmare. It repeated from time to time, and it was always the sa me: Laura was waking him up with a hoarse moan, a sharp convulsion in her legs, and suddenly a scream which was a complete negation, arejection with the hand, with herwhole body and voice, of something terrible that was enveloping her in her dream likehuge a piece of sticky material. He was shaking her, calming her down, bringing her water which she was drinking while sobbing, hounded by the other side of her life. Then she was saying that she did not remember anything, it was something horrible that could not be explained. She was falling asleep taking her secret with her, because Luis knew that she knew thathe s had just faced somebody who had entered her sleep, God knows under which horrifying mask; and whose knees Laura would hug in an attack of fear, or probably of barren love. It was always the same, he was bringing her a glass of water, waiting in silence until she would again rest her head on the pill ow. Perhaps once, fear would be strongerhan t pride, if there was pride. Perhaps then he would be able to enter the battle from his side. Perhaps not everything was lost, perhaps the new life would indeed become something else other then this mirage ofphantom smiles and French cinema. In front of the drawing table, surrounded by strangers, Luis was recalling a sense of symmetry and was trying to reestablish that order which he liked to follow in life. Given that Laura did not touch the topic, waiting with an apparent indifference for Uncle Emilio’s response, it was up to him to communicate with mamá. He responded to the letter, limiting himself to short news of the last weeks, and left for postscript a rectifying phrase: “So, Víctor talks about coming to Europe. Everybody likes to travel; it should be tourist agency propaganda. Tell him to write to us; we can send him all the necessary information. Tell him also that he can count on our hospitality.” Uncle Emilio ’s response came with the return mail. It was dry, corresponding to a close relative, resenting them for what, during the time of mourning for Nico, had qualified as unqualifiable. Without openly expressing his indignation, Uncle Emilio had shown his feelingsin a subtle manner, as in similar cases, when he hadn ’t come to say good-bye to his nephew, and had forgotten his birthday for two consecutive years. Now he limited himself to fulfilling his duty of mamá’s brother-in-law, and was reporting bare results. Mamá was doing well, but almost did not talk. That could be understood, taking into account her multiple afflictions of the lastyears. One could notice that she was feeling very lonely in the house at Flores; it is logical because no mother who had lived all her life with her two sons could feel happy alone in

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a huge mansion, filled with memories. As for the phrases in question, Uncle Emilio had proceeded with the tact which this delicate issue required, he was lamenting to tell them that he could not clarify the situation. Mamá had not being inclined to talk and even had received him in the front hall-way, something she had never done before to her brother-in-law. To his hint about a therapeutic treatment, she had responded that, apart from rheumatism, she was feeling very well, though these days it was very tiring for her ot iron so many shirts. Uncle Emilio was interested in asking about what shirts she was talking about, but she just shook her head and offered him sherry and Bagley biscuits. Mamá did not give them a lot of time to discuss Uncle Emilio’s letter and its obvious inefficiency. Four days later, a certified letter came, though mamá knew perfectly well that there was no need to certify letters which went by air to Paris. Laura called Luis and asked him to come home as soon as possible. Half an hour later, he found her breathing heavily, lost in contemplation of some yellow flowers on the table. The letter was lying at the mantelpiece, and after reading it, Luis put it back there. He sat near Laura and waited. She shook her shoulders.

—Mother has lost her mind—she said. Luis lit a cigarette. The smoke brought tears to hiseyes. He understood that the game was continuing and that it was his turn to make the next move. Three or probably four players were participated in this match. Now he was sure that mamá was also standing at the edge of the board. Luis was sinking deeper and deeper into the armchair, and he covered his face with a useless mask of hands. He heard Laura’s crying, and downstairs, the children of the superintendent were rushing up and down. The night brings solutions, et cete ra. It brought them a heavy and mute sleep, after their bodies had met in the monotonous battle which neither desired. Once again a silent agreement gained power: in the morning they would talk about the weather, the crime at Saint-Cloud, or about James Dean. The letter continued to rest on the mantelpiece, and while drinking tea, they could not see it. But Luis knew that when he would come back from work, he would not find it there. Laura was brushing away all the traces with cold and persistent effort. One day, another day, one more day. In the evening h t ey laughed loudly at their neighbors’ stories and Fernandel’s program. They decided to go to the theatre performance, and to spend the end of theweek in Fontainebleau. Unnecessary facts were accumulating on his drawing table, everything was coinciding with mamá’s letter. The ship, indeed, was coming to La Havre

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on Friday the 17th in the morning, and a special train was arriving at Saint Lazare at 11:45 a.m. On Thursday they saw a theatre performance, and had a great time. Two nights before Laura had had another nightmare, but he did not move to bring her water, and was waiting, turning his back to her till she would calm down by herself. Then Laura had fallen asleep, and during the following day, she cut and sewed a summer dress. They talked about buying an electric sewing machine, when they finished paying for the refrigerator. Luis found the letter from mamá in the drawer of the night table and took it to the office. He called the steamship line, though he was sure that mamá had given him precise information. It was the only certain thing, because it was impossible even to think about the rest. And this imbecile, Uncle Emilio. It would be better to write to Matilde. In spite of them having been distant, Matilde would understand the urgent necessity to intervene, to protect his mamá. But, indeed (it was not a question, but how to put it another way), was it necessary to protect mamá, specifically mamá? For a moment he thought about calling her, but he remembered sherry and Bagley biscuits, and shook his shoulders. There was also no time to write to Matilde, though in reality there was time, but probably it was preferable to wait until Friday, the 17th, before . . . The cognac already was no longer helping him not to think, or at least to think without fear. Each time he was recalling with more and more clarity, the last weeks in Buenos Aires, after Nico ’s funeral. What he had understood before as a pain turned out to be something else now, something where there was a lack of confidence, malicious distrust as the bared teeth of a predatory animal who feels that everybody wants to get rid of him, and throw him somewhere far from home. Indeed, only now did he start seeing his mamá’s true face. Now he was seeing her as she had been during those days when all the family had been visiting her, extending their sympathy in connection with Nico’s death, spending evenings with her. He and Laura were also coming from Adrogué to spend time with her. There stayed just for a bit, because soon after they had arrived, uncle Emilio or Víctor or Matilde immediately appeared, with the same cold rejection of the family, indignant with what had happened, with Adrogué, because they were happy, while Nico, poor thing, while Nico . . . They would never suspect how everybody had collaborated to put them on the first available ship, how they joined together to buy tickets, and how they had put them gently on the deck, showered with gifts and the wavings of farewell handkerchiefs. Clearly, his duty as a son obliged him to immediately write to Matilde. He was still capable of thinking about things before his fourth cognac. By the fifth

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one he was thinking about them again, and was laughing(he was crossing Paris by foot to be alone and to clear up his mind), he was laughing at his son’s debt, as if children had obligations, as if these obligations could be as those of a fourth grader, sacred obligations before a sacred mademoiselle from the filthy fourth grade. Because his son’s debt was not to immediately write to Matilde. Why to pretend (this was not a question but how to put it another way) h t at mamá had lost her mind? The only thing which could be done is not to do anything, let the days pass, except Friday. When he said good-bye to Laura, telling her that he would not come back for lunch because he had urgent posters to deal with, he was so sure of the rest that he could almost add: “If you want, let’s go together.” He found a refuge in a caf é at the station, less for hiding rather than in order to have a little advantage of seeing while remaining invisible. At 11:35 a.m., he recognized Laura by her blue skirt, followed her at a distance, saw her looking at a time table, asking something of anemployee, buying a ticket at the platform, entering the platform where people, with the look of those who were waiting, already were gathering. Standing behind a truck full of boxes of fruit, he was watching Laura, who seemed to doubt whether to stay at the entrance to the platform or move forward. He watched her without anyurprise, s as if she were an insect whose behavior could be interesting. The train arrived almost immediately, and Laura mixed with people who came close to the windows of the coaches, looking for their friends and relatives among the screams and hands which were sticking out as if they were drowning inside. He went around the truck and entered the platform between boxes of fruit and spots of grease. From where he was staying, he would see the passengers going out, he could again see Laura, her face relieved, because why wouldn’t Laura’s face be relieved? (It was not a question, but how to put it another way). And then, giving himself the luxury of staying on the platform, after the last passengers and porters would pass, he would go down the square, full of sunshine, to drink cognac at the corner café. And the same afternoon he would write to his mamá without a minor reference to a funny episode (but it was not funny) and then he would have courage and would talk to Laura (but he would not have courage and would not talk to Laura). At any event, cognac, this without any doubt, and let everything else go to hell. To see a bunch of people hugging each other, with screams and tears, the unleashed kinsfolk, a cheap eroticism, as a fair’s merry-go-round flooding the platform between piled up suitcases and packages; and finally, finally, such a long time since we’ve seen each other, how tanned you are, Ivette, but yes, the sun was wonderful, daughter. Inasmuch as he was looking for similarities, for the fun of allying with stupidity, two of the

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man who passed should be Argentineans by their hair style, their jackets, their expressions of satisfaction which hid their agitation at entering Paris. One of them indeed looked like Nico, if, of course, you were looking for similarities. The other did not, as in reality the first one did not either. His neck, for instance, looked much fatter, and his waist looked much broader then Nico’s. But with the intention to find similarities just for fun, that other, who had passed and approached the exit with only one suitcase in his left hand, as well as Nico, was left-handed, with a round-shouldered back and the same houlders line. And Laura was probably thinking the same thing, because she was following him, watching him with the facial expression which Luis knew so well, for that was Laura’s face when she was waking up with nightmares, and was lying in bed with her eyes fixed in the air, watching, now he knew it, one who was moving away, turning his back on her, consumed by revenge without name, which made her scream and fight in her sleep. But no matter how they would look for similarities, naturally, the man was a stranger, they saw him from the front when he put his suitcase on the floor in order to look for a ticket to pass it to the employee at the exit from the platform. Laura was the first to leave the station; he allowed her to gain her distance and to get lost at the bus stop. He entered the coffee shop at the corner, and threw himself on the chair. Later, he did not remember whether he was asking for something to drink, if that which had burned his mouth, was the bitterness of cheap cognac. He worked the whole afternoon on posters, without taking any rest. Sometimes he thought that he had to write to mamá, but he left it alone till the end of the working day. He was walking home. When he came, he found the superintendent in the front hall and talked to her for a while. He would prefer to talk to the superint endent or his neighbors, but everybody was entering their apartments; the dinner hour was approaching. He slowly climbed up the stairs (the truth is that he always was going up slowly, not to exhaust his lungs, and not to cough), and as he reached the third floor, he leaned to the door, before ringing the bell, in order to rest, and as if listening to what was happening inside the apartment. Then he gave two short rings, as always. —Ah, it’s you—said Laura, offering him a cold cheek. I already started asking myself whether you’d need to stay longer. The meat, probably, is already overcooked. It was not overcooked, but it did not have any taste at all. If at this moment he would be able to ask Laura why she had come to the station, the coffee would recover its taste, or a cigarette. But Laura had not left the house during the whole

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day, she told him, as if she needed to lie or to wait till he would make a funny comment about the date and of mamá’s lamentable manias. Stirring his coffee, with his elbows on the table cloth, he once more allowed a moment to pass. Laura’s lie was not important anymore, one more among so many kisses belonging to someone else, so many silences where everything was Nico, where there was nothing in her or in him that was notNico. Why (it was not a question, but how to put it another way) not to put athird knife, fork and spoon on the table? Why not go away, not close a fist and smash with it this sad and suffering face that a cigarette’s smoke was deforming, that was going and oming c back between waters, that seemed to be filling up stepby step with hatred, as if it weremamá’s own face? Perhaps he was waiting in another room, or perhaps he was, as Luis, waiting while leaning at the door, or he had been already settled, where he always was an owner, in the white territory of sheets, where he was coming so often in Laura’s dreams. There he would wait, lying on his back, also smoking a cigarette, coughing a bit, with a smile on the clown’s face, as was his face during his last days, when there was not a drop of healthy blood in his vessels. Luis passed to another room, went ot his working table, turned on the amp. l He did not need to reread mamá’s letter in order to respond to it, as he had to do. He started writing, dear mam á. He wrote: dear mamá. He threw the paper and wrote: mamá. He felt that his home was a fist that was squeezing him. Everything was tighter, more and more suffocating. The apartment was good for two; he was thinking exactly about two. When he lifted his eyes (after finishing writing: mamá), Laura was standing at the door, watching him. Luis put his pen aside. —Do you think that he has become much thinner?—he asked Laura made a gesture. Two shiny streams of tears were running down her cheeks. —A little bit,—she said.—One is changing . . .

Prologue to “ Letters from Mother by Jorge Luis Borges

”1

Around 1947 I was aneditor of a virtually unknown magazine publi shed by Sarah de Ortiz Basualdo. One afternoon asoften happened, a tall young man handed us a manuscript. I do not remember his face; blindness is an accomplice of forgetfulness. He said he had brought a fantastic tale to show me. I asked him to come back in ten days, but before ten days were up, he was back. I told him that

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I had two pieces of news for him. First, that his manuscript was at the printer ’s; second, that my sister Norah, who liked it very much, would illustrate it. This story, now justly famous, was entitled“House Taken Over.” Years later, in Paris, Julio Cortázar reminded me of this old episode and confessed that it had been the first time that he had seen his work in print. I was honored to learn this. I know very little about contemporary literature. I believe tha t we can know about the past in a symbolic mode, and that we can imagine the future, according to our fears and hopes; but in the present, there are too many things for us to decipher. Future generations will know what we do not know, and will study pages which deserve re-reading. Schopenhauer advised that to avoid being trapped in the hands of chance, one should read books which were written a hundred years ago. I have not always been true to this cautious dictum; I read Secret Weapons with a special pleasure and have selected this story. A fantastic story, according to Wells, should admit of only one fantast ic element in order for the readers’ imagination to easily accept it. This prudence belongs to the skeptical nineteenth century,not to the age that dreamed up theories of the universe or Tales from a Thousand and One Nights. In “Letters from Mother,” the trivial, the necessarily trivial, resides in the title, in the protagonists’ conduct, and in the continuous mentioning of cigarette brands and subway stations. The miraculous requires such details. Another virtue of this fine story is that supernatural is not stated, but rather insinuated, making it all the more powerful, as in Lugones’s tale “Ysur.” The possibility is left open that everything is a guilt-inspired hallucination. Someone who seemed innocent comes back with a vengeance. Julio Cortázar has been condemned or approved for his political views. Ethics aside, I believe most people’s opinions are superficial and ephemeral. 2

Buenos Aires October 29, 1983

NOTES

Introduction 1. 2.

3.

4.

See, also, Borges ’s prologue to Cortázar’s “Cartas de mamá.” All translations in this book, unless otherwise indicated, are mine. Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida on numerous occasions expressed the admiration for Borges’s works and considered them as inspirational for their own writings. See, for example, Foucault’s The Order of Things, and Derrida’s Dissemination. For other comparative studies of Borges ’s and Cortázar’s works see Carter Wheelock’s “Borges, Cortazar and the Aesthetic of the Vacant Mind,” Peter Ronai’s “Reading Jorge Luis Borges in the Manner of Julio Cort ázar,” Eduardo González’s “Hacia Cortázar, a Partir de Borges,” Sonia Thon’s “El ritmo en la prosa de Borges and Cortázar,” Policarpo Varon’s “Borges y Cort ázar,” Regina Harrison ’s “Mythopoesis: The Monster in the Labyrinth According to Supervielle, Gide, Borges, and Cortázar,” Manuel Alcides Jofré’s “Teoría y práctica de la superrealidad en la literatura latinoamericana: Borges, Cortázar y Neruda,” and Daniel Mesa Gancedo’s “De la casa (tomada) al café (Tortoni): Historia de los dos que se entendieron: Borges y Cortázar.” In the West, the closest concept to contemporary ‘place’ among earlier terms is the biblical Hebrew makom, which has a connotation of “hiding place” or a “resting place” in the Book of Job (16:18). In Genesis (22:3, 28:15, 28:19) place is associated with revelation and with the divine. Makom refers28:11, to a place where God might be worshipped. A rabbinical commentary on Genesis exclaims, “Why is God called place? Because He is the place of the world, while the world is not His place” (Sambursky, 15). Aristotle’s conception of place is based on his ideas of relation, delimitation and regula” (Physics 53). Whereas for Aristotle, place tion: “Place is a space in which the body is placed serves as the condition of all existing things, for Immanuel Kant, place is essential for the formation of human knowledge about this world and or fthe description of epistemological syst ems. Place is a category associated both with the scope of knowledge and the “positions” which the parts occupy relatively to one another. Kant ’s notion of“architectonic” which is a “system of the places of knowing” (653) emphasizes the relation ship between place, epistemology and order.

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In a similar fashion, Foucault discusses “the trajectory of meaning” (196) and the position of the subject within the space of knowledge. In Archaeology of Knowledge, for example, he points out that “knowledge . . . is also the space in which the subject may take up a position and speak of the objects with which he deals in his discourse ” (238). Martin Heidegger considers place in its existential connection with “dwelling” and “thinking” (148). From his ontological perspective the notion of building is close to that of thinking. Place is unseparable from the authenticity of dwelling. “Being” must be placed and place ’s existence is due to being, forwhen ontology is able to take meaning into Being, space is then filled with meaning, i.e., it becomes place (204). Place is “next to none” (84). The “primal gathering principle” or event (Ereignis) is the srcinal understanding of place, clearing, abode, home, whole, or totality, worlded earth, ground —all of which mean fundamentally the same. For Gaston Bachelard, human perception of place is influenced by imagination and memory; a human being“experiences the house in its reality and its virtuality, by means of thoughts and dream” (8). Though he discusses the symbolism of such locations as house, its parts and physical objects which usually are places for others, for instance, chests, drawers and wardrobes in connection with self-development; he fails to recognize the difference between space and place. In his topoanalysis place is seen as an extension of human existence, and is treated as a homogeneous part of human life. Similarly, for Henri Lefebvre places indicate “relationship of local to global” (288). He distinguishes between the trivialized spaces of everyday life and special symbolic ones which can be “desirable” or “unde-

5.

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sirable, ” benevolent or malevolent. Postmodern philosophers emphasize the contrast between anthropological place of modernity based on place-identity-relations continuum “passage” (de Certeau 156). Nonand “non-place” of contemporaneity, which is equivalent to places undermine the concept of integration and fixation and create solitude and similitude; they lead to the coexistence of worlds and theirarchetype appears to be a travel space (Aug é 85). A similar distinction is maintained incontemporary architecture. As Mies van der Rohe (1947) points out, place-identity-form unity is characteristic for modernist buildings. This relationship, however, is challenged by postmodern struct ures. By becoming a“zone” of radical indeterminacy (McHale 44), postmodern place questions the inside/outside opposition and loses the senses of “stability” and “limit” (de Certeau 117). Juri M. Lotman ’s and Boris A. Uspenskij’s The Semiotics of Russian Culture emphasizes the distinction between fixed and mobile spaces, between passable places andclosed boundaries. It shows how the fixed elements in a literary text formthe cosmogonic, geographic and social structure, the so-called “field” of the hero. Displacement, whose history as a concept is more recent then that of place, implies the act of displacing and the state of being displaced. Being a physical action and its result, displacement is associated with“the loss of particular places” (35), “dislocation,” “replacing” or “removal” (Casey 161). Moreover, displacement, an essential element of any ystem s of knowledge, is inevitable in any attempt todescribe and understand the physics of place. According to Joseph Fell, for example, metaphysics is“dis-placement” for it regards the ground or place as to be “supplied” or “made present by ontotheological inquiry,” and it does so because “it has forgotten that theground/placealreadyis the place in which the beings about whose ground metaphysics inquires have already been identified as the beings they are ” (204). Displacement becomes an essential concept for existentialism and psychoanalysis, as Soren Kierkegaard’s and Sigmund Freud’s treatments of this phenomenon demonstrate.

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Kiekegaard associates displacement with “no placement,” an experience of exile and of “open-endedness” and “incompleteness” (Palmer 39). Exile exemplifies the external relationship between a human being and the surrounding world, as well as the inner connection between a person and his/her self. As Kierkegaard observes:“Most men live in relation to their self as if they were constantly out, never at home” (in Palmer 67). His notion of home is both associated with a particular territory and it is a metaphor for human self. This experience of displacement, however, is a force which returns human beings to themselves, to their true place, to their freedom. According to Kierkegaard, a spiritual diaspora, the displacement which a person can experience in hishome is often expressed in an artistic creation. Likewise, in his Being and Time, Heidegger breaks with his own earliest conception of place as place of dwelling, of familiarity and residing and suggests that un-homeness which “the evokes ontological anxiety is the goal for which human beings should strive to trespass ” Displacement is also a desirable state inhisAn Introduction to Metaphysics, limits of the familiar. “must risk dispersion, in-stability,disorder, where the creative person is described as one who mischief” (123). Thus, the only notion of the true place is that of displacement. Kierkegaard ’s and Heidegger’s ideas about the connection between intellectual exile and creativity have been further developed by Edward Said in his lecture called “Intellectual Exile: Expatriates and Marginals.” In this text, Said affirms that to be out of place, to be displaced, is the right place for the modern intellectual, who is a person of movement and search: “The exilic intellectual does not respond to the logic of the conventional but to the audacity of daring, and to representing change, to moving on, not standing still” (63). Existential displacement multiplies into textual ones, “literary open-endedness and incompleteness” (Houe 362), cultural displacement, for“thought and language displace reality or are displacements of reality” (359), and artistic one where place is an “irrecuperable displacement” (81); “the Open” is a “place of conflict” (Heidegger 81). Freud introduces the concept of displacement and “de-centering ” in his investigation of dreaming. Insisting on the mutual dependence between displacement and imagination, he considers the latter to be “nothing less than the essential portion of the dream-work ” (121). The displacement/imagination relationship implies “de-centering ” for “the dream is, as it were, differently centered from the dream-thoughts —its content has different elements as its central point ” (305). Freud ’s treatment of displacement and

“de-centering’’ has been both used and “displaced” by the deconstructionists. For Derrida, displacement involves the idea of“de-centering” and “exile” of the traditional approaches to the meaning and selfhood. Though displacement does not have the special status of terms such as diff érrance, supplement, spacing , and dissémination in Derrida ’s texts, in his Positions which develops “a general strategy of deconstruction, ” displacement is mainly associated with “dissemination” which generates an unpredictable turbulence of signifiers. Emphasizing the importance of displacement in post-structuralist theory , Mark Krupnick points out the determinant importance of displacement in its various connotations for post-structurali st theory which manifests “a decisive shift in humanity ’s understanding of itself ” (4). Postmodern anthropologists regard displacement as a common practice in contemporary society, and analyze its challenge to the traditional differentiation between self and

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other. As Smadar Lavie and Ted Swedenburg point out, the modern concepts of nations and cultures appear to be undermined by the displacement which involves “the undoing of one particular old certainty—the notion that there is an immutable link between cultures, peoples, or identities and specific places ” (1). In his conversation with Andr é Camp, Borges explicitly separates his passion for philosophy from his personal beliefs: “I am fond of circular form. That does not mean that I believe in circular time, in the hypothesis of Pythagoras, Hume, Nietzsche, or many others. The stoics also held that history repeats itself in exactly the same fashion. I do nothing but take advantage, to the best of my ability, of the literary possibilities of this hypothesis Nietzsche thought he had invented” (qtd. in Kristal 143). As Goodman observes, “We cannot test a version by comparing it with a world undescribed, undepicted, unperceived” (4). In his book Crítica y Ficción, Ricardo Piglia characterizes Borges ’s texts as “una microscopía de las grandes tradiciones” (83). In a similar fashion, in his book Out of context, Daniel Balderston perceptively observes that “Borges plays in his fictions with narrowly constricted space and time yet suggests that even there (as in Aleph) there are infinite possibilities ” (138).

Chapter 1 1.

2.

3. 4.

5.

6.

For the most complete discussions of the kabbalistic elements in Borges ’s fiction, see Jaime Alazraki ’s “Borges and the Kabbalah, ” Sa úl Sosnowsky ’s Borges y la cabala and Edna Aizenberg’s The Aleph Weaver. The importance of the Kabbalah in Borges’s fiction has been also discussed by in such works as “Una vindicación de la cábala” by Marcos R. Barnatán, “Borges, el Aleph y la Kábala” by Mario Satz, “Borges, Cabbala and ‘Creative Misreading’ ” by Evelyn Fishburn, and most recently in “Two Borges Essay Manuscripts in the University of Virginia Collection: ‘La cábala’ and ‘Flaubert’ ” by Donald L. Shaw. In Genesis (see, particularly, 22:3, 28:11, 28:19), place, makom, is a locale where God might be worshipped. In post biblical Hebrew and Aramaic, place became a theological synonym for God, as expressed in the Talmudic sayings “He is a place of his world,” and “His world is His place” (Jammer 26). All references are to Andrew Hurley ’s translation of “El Aleph” as it appears in Borges. Collected Fiction (New York: Penguin, 1998), pp. 274–286. Bakhtin de fined th e chronotope as fo llows: “We will give the name chronotope (literally, “time-space”) to the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature ” (84). Drawing on striking similarities between the settings in Evaristo Carriego’s sonnet “Como en los buenos tiempos” [“As in good times”] and “The Aleph,” which in the later one has ironic connotations, Norman Thomas Di Giovanni’s suggests that Borges’s work as a biographer influenced his own creation. He considers Carriego ’s text to be “a prime source for ‘The Aleph’ ” (108), and notices similarities between the settings and the narrator ’s engagement with paying homage to his diseased beloved in both works, albeit ironized in the last one. Charles Mears, the protagonist of Rudyard Kipling ’s “The Finest Story in the World,” a story which Borges creatively translated into Spanish (see Kristal 34 –35), can be seen as

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a possible source of inspiration for Borges’s Daneri. Both characters “suffered from aspirations,” which have been “all literary” (294). 7. In my analysis, I will refer to another edition of Hobbes ’s Leviathan, where the quote used by Borges appears on p. 643. 8. For a recent, illuminating discussion of Borges ’s vision of quotations as an artistic encounter, a literary theme, and an incessant source for literary creation, see Lisa Block de Behar ’s Borges. The Passion of an Endless Quotation. My detailed analysis of this insightful book has been published in Semiotica 3(2006), pp. 345–355. 9. Admiring Schopenhauer ’s book Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, Borges points out: “Creo que es el que ha dado, de algún modo, digamos, la cifra, la clave para entender el mundo” (qtd. in Balderstón et al. 294). [ “I believe that it is he who gave, in a certain way, let’s say, the key for understanding the world ”]. 10. According to Humberto Nunez-Faraco, this episode echoes a passage from Luke (4–5): “And the devil taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.” 11. Borges and Derrida similarly use the foreign words “el aleph” and “pharmakon,” respectively, the ambivalent meanings of which become organizing principles of “El Aleph ” and Dissemination. 12. This episode can also be interpreted as a ludic allusion to Dante ’s “Paradiso,” where the pilgrim is exposed to a reality he cannot express: “In that heaven which partakes most of

13. 14.

15. 16. 17.

His light/I have been, and have beheld such things as who/ Comes down thence has no wit nor power to write” (4–6). According to Sharon Lynn Sieber, “El Aleph” is one of the most “compelling examples” (200) of the structure of simultaneity in modern fiction. Following on Estela Canto ’s observation that a kaleidoscope is a source of inspiration for Borges’s story, Heather Dubnick persuasively argues that the storyexemplifies a“new modern consiousness ” that Charles Baudelaire in his “The Painter of Modern Life ” compares “ ‘to a mirror as vast as a crowd’ that reflects upon everything within its sight’ ” (138). I will quote from James E. Irby ’s English translation of “Las ruinas circulares” as it appears in Labyrinths (New York: A New Directions Book, 1964), pp. 45 –51. Daniel Mesa Gancedo perceptively notices that the topos of an attempt to create human being ázar. It is a leitmotif of his story“Bruja” [“A Witch”]. in dream has been also of interest for Cort The magician’s reaction on theinsomnia echoes Caliban ’s despair in Shakespeare’s The Tempest

when he says: “ . . . when I wak ’d/I cry’d to dream again” (3.2.24–25). The dream-desertlabyrinth pattern is consistent inBorges’s fiction. See, for example“El milagro secreto.” 18. “The Doctrine of Cycles,” trans. Esther Allen, in Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, ed. Eliot Weinberger, trans. Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger (New York: Penguin, 1999), pp. 115–123. 19. “Circular Time,” trans. Esther Allen, in Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, ed. Eliot Weinberger, trans. Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger (New York: Penguin, 1999), pp. 225–229. 20. The metaphoric image of dream as “la materia incoherente ” echoes Prospero ’s lines in Shakespeare’s The Tempest when he says “. . . We are such stuff/As dreams are made on ” (Act IV, scene1).

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21. This appearance of the God of Fire as a reflection of the magician ’s dream echoes Luther’s words quoted by Nietzsche in his description of the condition of God: “God himself cannot exist without the wise man” (The Gay Science 191). 22. Such critics as Stephen E. Soud and Ivan Almeida associate the functioning of “ruinas” with a metaphor for the fragmented literary presence of “intertextuality” in this story. 23. Oscar Hahn and Soud extensively and thoughtfully discuss the presence of the golem element in this story. Borges himself accepts thegolem-oriented interpretations of his story (see Cortínez (ed.), Borges the Poet). 24. “The Disk,” trans. Andrew Hurley in Borges,Collected Fictions. (New York: Penguin, 1998), pp. 477–480. 25. In Antiguas literaturas germánicas and Literaturas germánicas medievales, Borges et al. refer to Odin, a mythical pagan Scandinavian god who has a gift of prophecy, as one of the main figures in medieval Germanic literatures. 26. This almost naturalistic scene of Isern ’s death evokes Jacob Grimm’s observation about The Volsunga Saga: “La saga de los antepasados de Sigurd . . . se caracteriza por una barbarie que es índice de su mucha antiguedad” (qtd. in Borges et al. LGM. 182–183) [“The saga of the ancestors of Sigurd . . . is characterized by the barbarity which is a sign of its antiquity ”] The death of “Isern” can be also interpreted along the lines of the Old English Riddle #58 from the Exeter Book, which Borges admired. According to L. Blakeley, the phrase “isernes dael” in this riddle signifies “much iron,” this meaning is both present and ironized in the Borges’s story, where one blow of the axe takes Isern’s life. As this scholar of Old English further explains, there are two forms of the word “iren” and “isern.” While the first one, she suggests, is more typical for poetry, and can be found, for instance, in Beowulf; “Isern” is more colloquial, it appears four times in the Exeter book, and it is a form that is usually used in West-Saxon dialect, that is in standard Old English. I thinkthis is why Borges prefers to use “Isern” in the story, where realistic setting and the narrator ’s colloquial style dominate. Also, one may notice that the king introduces himself as “a king of Secgens,” which is defined as “an unknown Germanic tribe” in the Cambridge Old English Reader. The word “Secgens” turns out to be almost a homophone of the old English verb “secgan” which is “secgen” in its present tense in the first, second and third person plural. This verb means “to say ” or “to tell, ” the word “saga” is most probably derived from it. “The king of Secgens,” therefore I suggest, can be interpreted in as a ruler, or leader of storytellers. 27. The marking of the place where an object fell is a recurrent motif in German folklore (see, Antti Aarne’s. The Types of the Folktale(Helsinki: Tampere, 1964), p. 385. 28. “The Book of Sand, ” trans. Andrew Hurley, in Borges, Collected Fictions (New York: Penguin, 1998), pp. 480–484. ” (Obras1:452) [“than weav29. An indirect quotation of this image, “que tejer una cuerda de arena “que amonedar ing a rope of sand” (47)], and a synonymous expression of an impossible object ” (47)] also appear in“Las ruinas circulares.” el viento sin cara” [“coining the faceless wind 30. In his conversation with Antonio Carrizo, Borges refers to the history of the title of the story and the book and points out that he was primarily influenced by Las montañas del oro and wanted to call his text El libro del arena [The Book of the Sand], but “después me dí cuento que era absurdo y que ten ía que ser El libro de arena . . . un libro imposible, porque se disgrega ” (47) [“afterwards I realized it was absurd and that it had to be The Book of Sand . . . an impossible book which disintegrates ”].

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31. For example, the narrator of Snorri Sturluson ’s creation says: “Then Hogni sailed after him all the way to Orkney ” (121).

Chapter 2 1. Julio Cortázar. Hopscotch, trans. Gregory Rabassa (New York: Random House, 1966). 2. For a detailed discussion of the novel’s structure, see Alazraki’s essay “Rayuela: Estructura.” 3. In his conversationwith Prego, Cortázar tells that for several years before he has started writing the novel, he has identified himself with Oliveira: “. . . cuando me puse a escribir Rayuela había acumulado varios años de Oliveira, de haber enfocado la realidad como Oliveira la enfoca. Eso se va explicitando después a lo largo del libro, pero ya estaba en mí cuando empecé a escribirlo” (Prego 143) [“When I have started writing Hopscotch, I have already accumulated several years of Oliveira, of his perception of reality. This becomes explicit in course of the book, but it was in me already when I ’ve started to write ”]. Oliveira and Cort ázar appear to share anxiety caused by the prospering of distorted Peronist values and the limiting nationalistic vision of the country dominant in the cultural discourse of the time. In Rayuela the allusion to this situation can be found in the narrator ’s description of Oliveira’s vision of his city, its past and its present: “. . . Oliveira no ten ía más que remedar, con una sonrisa agria, las decantadas frases y los ritmos lujosos del ayer, los modos áulicos de decir y de callar. En Buenos Aires, capital del miedo, volv ía a sentirse rodeado por ese discreto allanamiento de artistas que se da en llamar buen sentido y, por encima, esa afirmaci ón de suficiencia que engolaba las voces de los j óvenes y los viejos, su aceptación de lo inmediato como lo verdadero ” (75: 496) [“all that Oliveira had to do was put on a wry smile and imitate the exaggerated phrases and the luxurious rhythms of yesterday, the auclic ways of speaking and keeping still. In Buenos Aires, the capital of fear, he felt himself surrounded once again by that discreet smoothing of edges that likes to go by the name of good sense and, on top of it all, that affirmation of sufficiency which lumps together the voices of young and old, its acceptance of the immediate as the true ” (388)]. In his conversation with Luis Harss, Cortázar refers to his youth experience in Argentina, a combination of anxiety and disappointment which motivated his immigration: “La gente soñaba con París y Londres. Buenos Aires era una especie de castigo. Vivir allí era estar encarcelado.” (257). [“People were dreaming of Paris and London. ”]. Buenos Aires was a kind of punishment. To live there was as to be imprisoned Considering Cortázar as both most Argentinean writer and intellectual exile who resides in Paris from 1951, Harss observes that it has been too late for the writer to disengage from “los vínculos con su país, que lo ha perseguido con todos sus fantasmas al exilio ” (257) [“the bonds with his country, which followed him with all the phantoms of exile ”]. Cortázar’s Buenos Aires in Rayuela, the novel written in Paris, vividly exemplifies this critic’s perceptive observation. Teoría del túnel (see, 4. Cortázar, for example, expresses his sympathy with existentialism in his for instance, pp.115–125), which in Saul Yurkievich’s opinion “constituye el pretexto de la práctica novelesca de Cortázar” (29) [“constitutes a pretext for the novelistic practice of Cortázar”]. In this essay he develops his theory of the novel applied later in his own works, and particularly inRayuela [Hopscotch]. He also published in 1948 a review of Leon Chestov ’s book Kierkegaard y la filosofía existencial.

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5. Cortázar refers on various occasions to the works of Balzac and Dostoevsky, which contributed to his formation as a reader and a writer. An explicit reference to Le Pére Goriot appears in Teoría del túnel (50). He also wrote an essay“Del sentimiento de no estar del todo” [“On Feeling Not All There”] included in La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos, where he also mentions Balzac’s Eugénie Grandet (39). In Rayuela itself, he mentions Eugene Rastignac as an archetypical dramatic character (297). 6. Similarly to Balzac, who has been considered as “[a]nother writer of the romantic generation” (Auerbach 468), Cortázar also states that he belongs to the romantic tradition in the conversation with Prego, where he defines “Romanticismo” as “la ruptura” [“a break”] with the previous literature:“A lo largo del siglo XIX la llegada del Romanticismo significa la liquidación del período neoclásico anterior” (147) [“During the 19th century, the arrival of Romanticism signifies a liquidation of the previous neoclassical period”]. 7. The French writer Paul Claudel describes a typical room in Paris as “a sort of geometrical site, a conventional hole, which we furnish with pictures, objects and wardrobes within wardrobe” (qtd. in Bachelard 27). 8. In his analy sis of the influ ence of Bal zac on Dosto evsky, Leonid Gro ssman men tions that Dostoevsky ’s first published work was his translation of Balzac ’s Eug énie Grandet (see pp. 21). Bakhtin also mentions Balzac ’s influence on Dostoevsky in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (see, for instance, p. 34). 9. Cortázar’s familiarity with Bachelard’s works becomes evident, for instance, in his conversation with Garfield (94). 10. The desire to find the center, in contrast to the postmodernist “awareness of the absence of centers” (MacHale 46), echoes an epistemological quest considered by Brian MacHale as a dominant feature of modernism, whose representatives are preoccupied with the following ” (9). questions: “How can I interpret this world of which I am a part? And what am I in it? 11. An ideal city as the way of liberation in Rayuela [Hopscotch] is an embryonic image of the city in 62: Modelo para armar [62: A Model Kit]. 12. Traveler, Horacio ’s friend and double who appears in the second part of the novel makes a similar statement about Horacio ’s ambitions when he describes his Doppelg änger in a following way: “Una especie de cátaro existencial, un puro. O César o nada, esa clase de tajos radicales” (278) [“A kind of existential puritan, a purist. Caesar or nothing, that kind of radical demand ” (340)]. Traveler’s comment can be considered as an example of miseen-abyme, abundant in the novel. 13. The city-woman image is maintained also in the second pa rt of the novel whe re Traveler accuses Oliveira of “su manía de encontrarlo todo mal en Buenos Aires, de tratar a la ciudad de puta encorsetada” (190; italics added) [“his mania for finding everything wrong with Buenos Aires, for treating the city like a tightly girdled whore” (228; italics added)]. 14. As Jones points out, “Both heavenly city and earthly city are unitedin the figure of La Maga, who is related to Babylon through a series of references . . . suggesting that the sensual life must be an essential part of the new Jerusalem” (230). 15. Marcelo Alberto Villanueva emphasizes the symbolic importance of the metaphysical rivers and the water associated with the srcin of reality in mythical thinking: “Ya en los mitos de Sumeria se encuentra la idea del diluvio universal como aquel en que se reitera que la diosa de las aguas fue primordialmente el srcen de toda realidad. Tambi én la Biblia afirma que antes de la creación de los animales y las plantas ya‘el Espíritu de dios se movía sobre

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la faz de las aguas’ ” (44–45) [“The idea of the universal deluge can be foundalready in myths of Sumeria, where the godess of water was the primarily the origin of reality. Also, the Bible affirms that before the creation of animals and plants already‘the spirit of god moved above the face of the water ’ ”]. See, for example, Genesis 1:2. 16. In his conversation with Luis Harss and Barbara Dohmann, Cort ázar mentions a multilevel importance of the symbol of mandala for his writting ofRayuela which srcinally he wanted to call Mandala: “Cuando pensé el libro estaba obsesionado con la idea del mandala, en parte porque había estado leyendo muchas obras de antropología y sobre todo de religión tibetana. Además había visitado la India, donde pude ver cantidad de mandalas indios y japoneses” (266) [“When I thought about the book, I was obsessed with the idea of the mandala, partially because I was reading many book on anthropogy and Tibetan religion. Also, I was visiting India, where I could see a lot of Indian and Japanese mandalas. ”] ” Gregorivious 17. In addition of having the philistine reasoning of “the people with strong nerves, displays striking similarities with Dostoesvsky ’s character Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment. Both characters, for instance, are engaged with the activity of spying. Whereas Svidrigailov listens in to the conversation between Raskolnikov and Sonia, Gregorivious follows Horacio on the streets, and La Maga calls him“Espía” (112) “[s]py” (127). 18. Mentioning just some of the possibilities, one may suggest that The Underground Man could prefigure Kafka’s anonymous protagonist inThe Castle, the “absurd man” in Albert Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus, and Hermann Hesse’s “outsider” (Steppenwolf). 19. As Daniel L ópez Salort perceptively observes, a motif of a search with no particular purpose is ’sen also vividly present in Buddhism and ancient Chinese poetry. He gives and example of T T’sang classical poem “Hsin-Hsin-Ming” (606 AD) [“Verses on the Faith Mind”]. For a ’s and recent comprehensive exploration of an impact of Buddhist philosophy on Borges Cortázar’s fiction, see Chien-Yi Tu ’s Borges, Cortázar and el Budhismo (Borges, Cortázar and Buddhism). 20. Oliveira’s meditations about the endless search can be considered an example of the internal dialogization defined by Bakhtin as an opposite to the external, marked dialogue. In the internal dialogization “The word lives, as it were on the boundary between its own context and another, alien, context” (284). 21. As Lotman points out, “The city is a complex semiotic mechanism, a culture-generator, but it carries out this function only because it is a melting-pot of texts and codes, belonging to all kinds of languages and levels. ” (194). 22. One of the critics who considers Morelli to be Cort ázar’s “alter-ego” is Fernando Alegria, who refers to “La posición Cortázar- Morelli” [“a position Cortázar-Morelli”] in Rayuela (92). 23. Hector Castellano-Giron analyses Galdos ’s ‘presence’ in Rayuela and suggests an interesting reading of the chapter 34 in light of Galdos’s Lo prohibido. 24. I use the term “overt metafictional” as defined by Linda Hutcheon in Narcissistic Narrative. The Metafictional Paradox, where she points out that “[o]vert forms of narcissism are present in texts in which the self-consciousness and self-reflection are clearly evident, usually explicitly thematized or even allegorized within the ‘fiction’ ” (23). 25. “Break of the Day,” trans. Stephen Kessler, in Borges, Selected Poems , ed. Alexander Coleman (New York:Viking, 1999), pp. 23–24. 26. “Patio.” trans. Robert Fitzgerald, in Borges, Selected Poems, ed. Alexander Coleman, p. 15. 27. “Unknown Street.” trans. Alexander Coleman, in Borges, Selected Poems, p. 11.

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28. Oliveira’s return to Buenos Aires can be interpreted in a way similar to Borges ’s approach to Wakefield, the protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthrone’s Twice Told Taleswhere “la honda trivilidad del protagonista . . . contrasta con la magnitud de su perdici ón” (Obras 2:55) [“the protagonist ’s profound triviality, [which] contrasts with the magnitude of his perdition ” (Selected Non-Fictions 223)]. 29. I also follow Hutcheon in her use of the concept of parody. She adopts the definition srcinally proposed by Russian formalists, which in her opinion is particularly applicable to metafiction: “Parodic art both is a deviation from the norm and includes that norm within itself as background material ” (50). 30. “The Fearful Sphere of Pascal,” trans. Anthony Kerrigan, in Borges,Labyrinths, pp. 189–193. 31. The references to encyclopedias appear in several Borges ’s texts. A paradigmatic example “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis of Argentineans involved in study of the encyclopedia may be found in Tertius.” 32. Borges in his conversations with Grau, for instance, discusses the importance of Piranesi’s works ’s engravings and drawings: for his own texts and recalls his first acquaintance with Piranesi “Yo conocí a Piranesi através de Thomas de Quincey. Es muy curiosa la descripción de las Carceri . . . Yo tengo en casa un grabado de Piranesi, “Avanzo del Tempio del Dio Canopo, ” y otro de un discípulo suyo.” (150) [“I became familiar with Piranesi through Thomas de Quincey. A description of the Carceri is very curious . . . I have at home a print of Piranesi ’s “Avanzo del Tempio del Dio Canopo ” and another one by his student.”] 33. All references are to James E. Irby’s translation of “El inmortal” as it appears in Labyrinths, pp. 105–119. 34. Some carnivalesque features already appear in the first pa rt of the novel (e.g. doubles), however they culminate and obtain metafictional significance in Buenos Aires. 35. Numerous critics such as Boldy (see p. 85) and Villanueva (see p. 44) analyze the plank episode as a metaphorical representation of the Buenos-Aires/Paris dychotomy and as a metaphysical exercise. In her reading of the novel as utopian space, Ana María Amar Sanchez suggests that the failure to cross, the impossibility of crossing, also reminds us that “ there is no way across, that there is no between to stand on” (32). I sugges t a metafictional reading of this episode. 36. As defined by Bakhtin, “Eccentricity is a special category of the carnival sense of the world organically connected with the category of familiar contact; it permits —in concretely sensuous form—the latent sides of human nature to reveal and express themselves ” (Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 123). 37. In contrast to Dostoevsky ’s doubles, whose representation according to Bakhtin“always preserved alongside the tragic element an element of h t e comic as well” (117), in Cortázar’s doubles the comic aspect is dominant. 38. Some examples of d oubles in Dostoevsky ’s works include for Raskolnikov Svidrigailov , Luzhin, and Lebeziatnikov; for Ivan Karamazov—Smerdyakov, the devil, Rakitin. Oliveira’s in Cortázar’s Rayuela also has two doubles with opposite functions: Grigorovius andTraveler. 39. Sonya, for instance is an embodiment of compassion in Crime and Punishment. When she first hears about Raskolnikov’s crime, Sonya experiences her “first passionate and poignant impulse of sympathy” (“pity” is the most appropriate word for the Russian“sostradanie” (348; italics added)).

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40. This ‘poem’ can also be considered an example of carnivalesque profanation. 41. These Oliveira ’s thoughts can also be considered a parodic echo of José Hernández’s famous work Martín Fierro which has two parts “La ida” [ “The Departure of Martin Fierro”] and “La vuelta” [“The Return of Martin Fierro”]. 42. The original being “There’s no place like home” from the conclusion of the film“The Wizard of Oz,” which Cortázar admired. 43. Oliveira’s isolation in the fictional universe of Rayuela makes it echo the abstract—alien world of Greek romances, described by Bakhtin as one of the major sources for the creation of the European novel. As the Russian critic points out in his essay “Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel,” “[i]n it everything is foreign, including the heroes ’ homeland. . . . There is no implied native, ordinary, familiar world” (101). Like Oliveira, the char” Privacy and isolation are the essential acter of the Greek romance is“passive and unchanging. features of the human image, and “a man can only function as an isolated and private individual deprived of any organic connection with his country, his city, his own social group, his clan, even his family ” (Bakhtin 108). 44. Oliveira’s (constant) no-placement allows Nieves Soriano Nieto to compare and contrast him with Homer’s Ulysses from Odyssey. 45. This particular characteristic of uncertainty in Cort ázar’s opinion makes Rayuela “un libro muy argentino” (in Bermejo 62) [ “a very Argentine book”]. 46. Darlene Emily Hicks considers Traveler to be a physical being who embodies “The problem of alienation, the alienation of Horacio from Argentina” (64). 47. Emphasizing the recurrent motif of the “hombre en tránsito” [“a person in transit”] in Cortázar’s works, Matamoro draws parallels between Oliveira, Johnny CarterEl ( perseguidor) and Martini (La isla a mediodía) and concludes: “Para ellos el exilio es la forma natural de vida” (39) [“For them exile is a natural form of life”]. 48. Cortázar explains the symbol of “Rayuela” in his conversation with Yurkievich: “adopté la rayuela como símbolo de una tentativa metafísica, como búsqueda mística que supone una iniciación y una prueba, porque hay que avanzar con la piedrita de casilla en casilla y existe la posibilidad de fracasar, de no llegar nunca al cielo” (60) [“I adopted hopscotch as a symbol of metaphysical intent, as a mystical search which presupposes initiation and test because you have to go ahead with a little stone from one box to another and there is a possibility to fail, to never reach the sky.”] 49. The ambiguity of Rayuela’s ending is also in vein with the carnival sense of the world created in the text, which is“hostile to any sort of conclusive conclusion” and where “all endings are merely new beginnings” (Problems of Dostoevky’s Poetics 165). 50. Alonso suggests the “Open” work strategies are common for Cortázar’s texts: “[t]he movement encompassed by Cortázar’s oeuvre is neither an epiphany nor a solution, but rather a gesture toward an uncomfortable and unsettled ‘between’ ” (14).

Chapter 3 1.

All references are to Andrew Hurley ’s translation of “Utop ía de un hombre que est á cansado” as it appears in Collected Fictions, pp. 460–466.

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The title of the story and its tone allude to the presence of Quevedo’s poetic world in Borges’s text, particularly Quevedo’s sonnet “Represéntase la brevedad de lo que se vive y cuán nada parece lo que se vivi ó” where the lyric voice characterizes himself in a following way: “soy un fue, y un ser á, y un es cansado” (11) [“I am one who was, who will be, and who is tired”]. For the detailed analysis of Quevedo’s influence on Borges, see Giuseppe Bellini’s Quevedo y la poesia hispanoamericana del siglo XX: Vallejo, Carrera Andrade, Paz, Neruda, Borges and Christopher Maurer’s “The Poet’s Poets: Borges and Quevedo.” 3. Quevedo translates page and a half of More ’s book and quotes it in his political work “Carta a Luis XIII” (1635). 4. Eudoro Acevedo ’s self-introduction and his last name which is that of Borges’s mother alludes to the fictional presence of the writer in the text. 5. “The Postulation of Reality,” trans. Esther Allen, in Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, ed. Eliot Weinberger, pp. 59–65. 6. One of the most evident ambiguities of More ’s Utopia appears in the chapter “Their Gold and Silver, and How They Keep It ” where the reader learns that utopians “hold gold and silver up to scorn in every way ” (More 44), but at the same time they recognize the value of gold because it is used for the employment of mercenaries to wage their expansionist war. 7. An identification of the religious writing with the fantastic fiction produces comic effect of “transposition” (Bergson 136). 8. The peculiarity of Yahoos, their insensivity to pain and pleasure are also addressed in 2.

9.

10.

11. 12.

Borges’s story “El informe del Dr. Brodie” which enters in an explicit dialogue with Swift ’s canonical text. A description of Someone ’s death where history and fiction intertwine evokes Borges’s critique of violence brought by WWII. In his essay “Anotación al 23 de Agosto de 1944,” Borges’s emphasizes the brutality of Nazism by referring to it as “una irrealidad,” [“unreality”] that is fiction and by describing it as“una imposibilidad mental y moral.” (Obras 2:106) [“mentally and morally impossible” (Selected Non-Fictions 211]. Someone’s words and suicide also echo the Utopian’s approach to death suggested in More’s pioneer book: “the Utopians believe that a man whose life has become torture to himself will be—and should be glad to die ” (More 65). All references are to Alastair Reid ’s translation as it appears in Borges a Reader (New York: Dutton, 1981), pp. 163–165. An overlap between the past and the future can also be noticed in More ’s text. The land

of future, he describes, for instance,“had previously been called Abraxa” that “connotes mystical antiquity” (34). In his convincing interpretation of More ’s book, Arthur Morgan suggests that a description of the life and social system in Utopia very closely corresponds to Ancient Peru: “There is a strong evidence that several Portuguese voyages, both before and after Columbus, reached the east coast of South America in time to have met the conditions required by More’s narrative. . . . This narrative seems the more probably as factual account in the light of what we now know of the first acquaintance of Europeans with the Inca Empire.” (230–231). 13. Borges’s allegory of the imperial map in “Del rigor en la ciencia ” (El Hacedor ) [“On Exactitude in Science” (The Maker)] produces similar effect. 14. These lines suggest a pun based on the beginning of Esteban Echeverría’s “La cautiva”: “...El ” (43) [“The Captive”] desierto inconmensurable, abierto/y misterioso a sus pies/se extiende

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[“At their feet unmeasurable, open, and mysterious, stretches theDesert” (3)]. Someone’s reference to the ruins of Bahía Blanca located in Brasil also manifests mise-en-abyme relationship between the narrative levels of discourse and the characters in this storyObras ( 3:54). Julio Cort ázar, 62: A Model Kit, trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: Random House, 1972. I will refer to the City using capital letter as the narrator does at the beginning of the novel. He switches to the low case letter, however, to emphasize the City’s ‘habitual’ nature. Malva E. Filer convincingly argues that the City exemplifies a poetic search for place that is at the core of Cortázar’s ouevra: “La búsqueda de palabras espacio y el dise ño de territorios poéticos da impulso a toda su obra [de Cortázar], en verso y en prosa, y cristaliza emblemáticamente en la ciudad, el espacio m ágico” (49) [“The search for the words, space and design of poetic territories gives impulse to all of his [Cort ázar’s] works in verse and prose, and crystalizes in an emblematic way in the city, the magic space”]. As the author himself points out this novel has been inspired by the Chapter 62 of Rayuela. It seems interesting to mention whether it is just a curious coincidence or not, that Freud uses as an example the number 62 in his essay“The Uncanny” when he speaks of the involuntary repetition that renders uncanny and seemingly inescapable what might otherwise look like innocent chance. He shows the number 62 recurring close together on addresses, hotel rooms, railway compartments, and how a person will be“tempted to ascribe a secret meaning to this obstinate recurrence.” (43). A comparable atmosphere might be said to pervade Cortázar’s novel, yet he never made such reference in any of his statements about the book.

19. I coincide with Kerr ’s approach to the characters in this novel as both “controversial concept ” and “conventional category ” (“Betwixt Reading and Repetition (apropos of Cortázar’s 62: A Model Kit)” 94). 20. See, for example, More ’s Utopia or Lord Bacon’s New Atlantis among many others. 21. For Cort ázar’s explanation of the meaning of “paredros” see his conversation with Garfield (122–123). 22. In his conversation with Ernesto Gonz ález Bermejo, Cortázar refers to his personal vision of “la Ciudad” as different from the derived from a novelistic convention: “[e]sa ciudad existe en mí y a su manera: hace ya muchos años que empecé a soñar con ella, a conocerla paulatinamente tal como se describe en “62”; entre mis papeles guardo un plano de la ciudad, al que fui agregando detalles, plazas, el canal del norte, a medida que mis sue ños me iban internando en ella” (70 –71) [“[t]his city exists in me in a particular way: many years ago I have started dreaming with it and familiarize myself with it gradually”]. The city in the novel, however, appears to escape any plan or map. 23. This approach to language as a challenge to epistemology can be a result at least of double influence. It can be inspired by Zen Buddhism whichhas been an object of his interest recurrently mentioned inRayuela and Nabokov’s Pale Fire which has been among Cortázar’s readings at time he was writing62: Modelo para armar. As described by Roland Barthes, who also felt an affinity with Zen’s intuition of something beyond connotation, beyond the codes, and beyond what Barthes calls‘the vicious infinity of language’, “All of Zen . . . is no more than a panic suspension of language, the blank which erases in us the reign of the Codes, the breach of the internal recitation which constitutes our person ” (74–745). Similar idea is vividly present in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire, a text of absolute epistemological uncertainty. Cort ázar extensively refers to this Nabokov ’s work as one of the sources of inspiration for his own novel in his essay “La muñeca rota” [“The Broken Doll”].

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24. Vague characters and a recurrent difficulty in defying the narrative voice are other manifestations of the resistance to the idea of the “determinate knowledge” of the object which culminates in the image of the City. 25. The City ’s metapoetical functions may be regarded as an illustration ofthe parralel between the works of architect and writer Cort ázar draws in his essay “Notas sobre la novela contemporanea” [“Notes about a contemporary novel”]: “El novelista se plantea su labor en ético equitérminos architectónicos. Procede análogamente al architecto que logra un orden est librando la función directo del edificio . . . con la belleza formal que la contiene porque si la iglesia esárida . . . Así también hay libros que se caen de las manos ” (144) [“The novelist plans his/her work in architectonic terms. He/She proceeds like an architect who achieves aesthetic order by balancing the direct function of the building . . . with formal beauty, because if there is a church which is too arid . . . there are also books which fall from hands”]. 26. Similar metapoetical thoughts are most vividly presented in Borges ’s “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” (Ficciones) whose srcin is due to Encyclopedia and a mirror. 27. Alazraki also emphasizes the prominence of the visual aspects of the City, an open-ended literary construct,“espacio que corporiza un mundo público y convencionalizado, un mundo que se impone no tanto por su verdad, como por la dureza de su visibilidad ” (236) [“a space which shapes the public and conventional world, a world which dominates not so much by its verisimilitude, but rather by the prominence of its visibility”]. 28. On numerous occasions Cort ázar has referred to the image of the City as a “pesadilla” [“nightmare”] (Prego 80) and “infierno” [“hell”] (Garfield 25). 29. Using Reyner Banham ’s term, the city can be identified with an “autopia” that is a utopia whose value lies “in the lines of connection between its disparate elements and where the vision of the whole adheres in the physical reality of the connections themselves ” (qtd. in Siebers 28). The concept of autopia can be considered parallel to the notion of language as a network which “defines a field across which textual activity occurs” (Wiseman 303). 30. On Cort ázar’s globe-trotting experience as a translator, see his essay, accompanied by details from Paul Delvaux ’s eerie nocturnal cityscapes, “Noches en los ministerios de Europa,” (La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos I, 113–119) (“Nights in Europe ’s Ministries,” Around the Day in Eighty Worlds). 31. It is interesting to mention essential overlap between Foucault ’s notion of heterotopia and Marin’s approach to the Utopia as “always a synthesis, a reconciling synthesis” (“Frontiers of Utopia: Past and Present” 413). 32. Pointing to the disturbing function of city as any heterotopia, Andrew Bush considers Cortázar’s novel to be “a tale of discovery in which an apparently ficticious world,la ciudad, invades, reforms, and disintegrates quotidian reality” (132). 33. In a sense the City is a door, which as heterotopia, “always presuppose[s] a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable” (26). In some sense, the functioning of the city is similar to the door as described by Bachelard as “the Half-open” which is “the very srcin of a daydream that accumulates desires and temptations ” (222). 34. The motif of the mirror is also one of the most prominent in Nabokov ’s fiction that Cortázar admired. See, for instance, Invitation to a Beheading or Pale Fire among many other examples. 35. All references are to James E. Irby’s translation of“La casa de Asterión” as it appears in Borges, Labyrinths. Selected Stories and Other Writings (New York: New Directions,1964), pp. 138–141.

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36. See, for example, “El jardin de los senderos que bifurcan ” (“The garden of forking paths” and “Biblioteca de Babel” (“The Library of Babel”). 37. Foucault’s description of the double appears to be compatible with that which emerges in Asterion’s mind: “the Other that is not only a brother but a twin, born, not of man, nor in man, but beside him and at the same time in an identical newness, in an unavoidable duality” (The Order of Things 326). 38. This is different from the conventional interpretation of the outside/inside dichotomy as one which “forms a dialectic division” (Bachelard 211). 39. Marta Spagnuolo suggests Hern ández’s “Martin Fierro” as another source of inspiration for Borges’s story. She discusses literary and psychological parallelisms between the two texts; and finds affinities between Asterion and Fierro’s oldest son. 40. According to Foucault, the idea of combining elements pertaining to different times, epochs “belongs to our modernity. ” (26). and one may continue texts, as well ascontradictory attitudes 41. Julio Cortázar. The Winners, trans. Elaine Kerrigan, London: Allison and Busby, 1986. 42. Reminding one of Borges ’s “Lotería en Babylonia” (“The Lottery in Babylon”), the novel starts with the image of chaos. 43. Felipe Trejo ’s hesitation in his relationship with Ra úl as well as the fact that he has been raped by the sailor, exemplify the novel’s affinity with Melville’s sea-narratives such as White -Jacket; or the World in a Man-of-War and Billy Budd where ship opens the spatial condition of possibility defined by engaging in homosexual practices. 44. The co-presence of narration of events and the sections which reflect Persio ’s meditations illustrate Cortázar’s vision of the novel as a hybrid genre developed in his essays written prior to his novel such as “Notas sobre la novela contemporánea” (“Notes about contemporary novel”) and “Situación de la novela” where he defines a novel as “la simbiosis de los modos enunciativos y poéticos del idioma.” (Obra crítica 2:143) [“a symbiosis of the enunciative and poetic modes of the language. ”]. 45. On multiple occasions Borges refers to this Schopenhauer ’s creation. See, for example, “Nueva refutación del tiempo” (Otras inquisiciones) “New Refutation of Time,” “El budismo” (Siete noches) “Buddhism” and “Historia de la eternidad” (Historia de la eternidad) (“A History of Eternity”) among many others. In his recent article “De Borges a Shopenhauer,” Ivan Almeida suggests an illuminating analysis of Borges ’s perceptions of this German philosopher, and offers insights into the writer’s creative interpretations of Schopenhauer’s ideas, vividly present in the former ’s oeuvre. 46. The topos of the interchangeability and fluid nature of human identity appears in numerous Borges’s stories. See, for example, “La lotería en Babilonia” (“The Lottery in Babylon”) and “Historia del traidor y del heroe” (“The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”). 47. The parallelism between human life and the game of chess is recurrent in Borges ’s fiction such as “El milagro secreto” (“The Secret Miracle”), the poem “Ajedrez” (“Chess”) among many others.

Chapter 4 1. Carlos Cort ínez et al. Con Borges (texto y persona). (Buenos Aires: Torres Aguero Editor, 1988).

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2. Various critics have pointed out the importance of these texts as “a necessary complement to the stories of Ficciones and El Aleph” (Irby 10) and as “fundamental reading for the full understanding of his creative work” (Rodriguéz-Monegal 345). 3. Derrida’s notion of archive can be contrasted with the one offered by Michel Foucault in his Archaeology of Knowledge, which associated archive with systematization and order: “we have in the density of discursive practices, systems that establish statements as events . . . and things. . . . They are all these systems of statements (whether events or things) that I propose to call archive” (128). 4. “Coleridge’s Dream” trans. Eliot Weinberger, in Borges,Selected Non-Fictions, pp. 369–373. 5. In The Interpretation of Dreams, Freud distinguishes two major mechanisms of dream-work: “condensation” and “displacement” (278). 6. Sylvia Molloy also points out Freud ’s and Borges’s common interest in “the uncanny as an organizing principle” (78). 7. In his essay “Valéry como símbolo” he refers to “la era melancólica del nazismo y del materialismo dialéctico, de los augures de la secta de Freud y de los comerciantes del surréalisme” (Obras 2:65) [“a melancholic era of nazism and dialectical materialism, of augurs from Freud’s sect and merchants of surréalisme” (198)]. 8. In a sense, Borges is also a follower of Schopenhauer ’s and Jung’s approaches to dreamcreativity. Both Schopenhauer ’s statement that “everyone, while he dreams, is a Shakespeare ” and Jung’s metaphor that dream is “a theatre, in which the dreamer is a scene, player, prompter, director, author, audience, and critic” are adopted by Borges, who directly and implicitly refers to these philosophers in his conversation with Ernesto Sábato. Whereas Jung’s metaphor, without mentioning the name of the philosopher appears internalized in Borges’s discourse (see 141), he comments about Schopenhauer: “escribió que la vida y los sueños eran hojas de un mismo libro, y que leerlas en orden es vivir, y hojearlas, so ñar” (141) [“he wrote that life and dreams are pages of the same book, and to read them in order is to live and to leaf through them is to dream ”]. Freud also mentions Schopenhauer on numerous occasions in The Interpretation of Dreams (see, for instance, pp. 293, 503), and appears to be influenced by his philosophy. 9. A motif of music as the highest art form explicitly appears in “La muralla y los libros” [“The Wall and the Books”]. 10. A very similar place to the palace “Xanadu” discussed in“El sueño de Coleridge” [“Coleridge’s Dream”] appears in Borges’s later text, “Parábola del Palacio” [“Parable of th Palace”], where a striking similarity between a palace and a poem both gives and takes the poet’s life: “Aquel día el Emperador Amarillo mostró su palacio al poeta. Fueron dejando atrás, el largo desfile, las primeras terrazas occidentales que, como gradas de casi inabarcable anfiteatro, declinan hacia un paraiso o jard ín cuoys espejos de metal y cuyos intrincados cercos de enebro prefiguraban ya el laberinto” (Obras 2:179) [“That day the Yellow Emperor showed his palace to the poet. Little by little, step by step, they left behind, in long procession, the first westward-facing terraces which, like the jagged hemicycles of an almost unbounded amphitheatre, stepped down into a paradise, a garden whose metal mirrors and intertwined hedges of juniper were a prefiguration of the labyrinth ” (Collected Fictions 317)]. The Emperor appears to be stricken bythe similarities between the palace and a poem, “El texto se ha perdido; hay quien entiende que constaba de un verso; otros de una sola palabra. Lo cierto, lo increible, es que en el poema estaba entero y minucioso el palacio

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enorme” (Obras 2:179) [“The text has been lost; there are those who believe that it consisted of but a single line; others, of a single word. What we know—however incredible it may be—is that within the poem lay the entire enormous palace.” (Collected Fictions 318)]. Being afraid that the poem would replace the building, he orders to kill the poet killed: “Emperador exclamó: “ ‘¡Me has arrebatado el palacio!’, y la espada de hierro del verdugo segó la vida del poeta” (Obras 2:180) [“ ‘You have stolen my palace!’ [the emperor] cried, and the executioner’s iron scythe mowed down the poet’s life” (Collected Fictions 318)]. 11. Freud’s use of continuous displacement as a narrative strategy appears to be influenced by Immanuel Kant’s idea about orientation and a parallel he draws between mind and territory. In his essay “¿Qué significa orientarse en el pensamiento?” Kant observes that “sólo me oriento geográficamente gracias a un principio de diferenciaci ón subjetivo ” (qtd. in Almeida 10) [“I can orient myself geographically thanks to the principle of subjective differentiation” (318)]. The German philosopher associates orientation with an inference which indicates rather then demonstrates. As Almeida explains in his perceptive article “Conjeturas y mapas Kant, Pierce, Borges y las geografías del pensamiento,” to orient oneself, for Kant, does not necessarily imply that one will come to know the unknown place. Kant’s idea was familiar to Freud, and possibly explains his choice of displacement as an organizing principle of the discourse inThe Interpretation of Dreams. Displacement is also a common narrative strategy in rabbinical interpretations of the secret kabbalistic books. This allows one to suggest a double influence of both Kantian though and rabbinical practices on Freud’s use of displacement as an organizing principle of his discourse. ” 12. In her illuminating essay, “The model of Midrash and Borges’s Interpretive Tales and Essays, Myrna Solotorevsky considers “El sueño de Coleridge” an “exegetical writing” in which “various interpretations are incidentally pitted against each other ” (256). In my reading, I try to show that they are not “incidentally pitted,” but rather form a spiritual/intellectual voyage related to the places where the dreams happened. 13. Another allusion to this Hinduistic belief appears in “El enigma de Edward Fitzgerald.” 14. Borges expresses his admiration for Buddhism, in his lecture on “El budismo,” which he closes in the following way: “Para mí el budismo no es una pieza de museo: es un camino de salvación” (Obras 3:254) [“Buddhism is not a museum piece; it is a path to salvation ” (Seven Nights 75)]. 15. References to Plato are recurrent in Borges ’s works. In his essay “El ruiseñor de Keats” he refers to the distinction Coleridge drew between“aristotélicos and platónicos,” In “Historia de eternidad” Borges talks about “inmóvil y terrrible museo de los arquetipos platónicos,” the vision which radically changes as he confesses in a prologue to the 1953 edition of the Complete Works: “No sé cómo pude comparar a “inmoviles piezas del museo” las formas de Platón y cómo no sentí leyendo a Escoto Erígena y a Schopenhauer, que éstas son vivas, poderosas y orgánicas” (qtd. Balderstón et al 261). Both the idea and the concept of archetype are recurrent in Borges’s essays and fiction. See,for instance,“La esfera de Pascal” (Otras Inquisiciones) and “El inmortal” (El Aleph), among many others. 16. “The Wall and the Books,” trans. James E. Irby in Borges, Labyrinths, pp. 180–183. 17. Borges translated and admired Kafka ’s “The Great Wall of China. ” In the prologue to his translation of the collection of Kafka ’s stories under the title La metamorfosis , Borges observes: “En el más memorable de todos ellos [cuentos]—La edificación de la muralla china, 1919—, el infinito es multiple: para detener el curso de ejércitos infinitamente lejanos, un

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emperador infinitamente remoto en el tiempo y en el espacio ordena que infinitas generaciones levanten infinitamente un muro infinito que d é la vuelta de su imperio infinito ” (Obras 4: 98) [“In the most memorable of them all —‘The Great Wall of China’ (1919)— the infinite is manifold: to halt the progress of infinitely distant armies, an emperor who is infinitely remote in time and space orders that infinite generations infinitely erect an infinite wall around his infinite empire” (Selected Non-Fictions 502)]. The hope for, immortality and fear of, immortality as preoccupations of human beings is a recurrent topos in Borges’s fiction. See, for example, “El inmortal,” “Notas,” and “La biblioteca de Babel.” The Emperor ’s aspirations do not by chance happen in China. They may be considered an illustration of Michel Foucault’s observation that China is “a vast reservoir of utopias. . . . a ceremonial space overburdened with complex figures, with tangled paths, strange places, secret passages, and unexpected communications ” (XIX). Unlike Derrida who is interested in archive and repression as syntactic phenomena, Borges emphasizes its semantic aspect of destruction and the imposed new order. Derrida’s concept of différance unites in itself semantic and spatial dimensions: he defines it as “a play of differences, of the traces of differences, of the spacing by means of which elements are related to each other ” (27). In his historically-oriented reading of the essay as, possibly, “americanista,” Balderston suggests that Shih Huang Ti’s thoughts about his two activities are also for Borges“una med-

itación sobre dos actividades . . . de los dos Perón: ‘la rigurosa abolición de la historia, es decir del pasado’ y la construcción de una muralla para mantener alejados a‘los bárbaros’ (¿o para no dejarlos escapar?)” (6) [“a meditation about two activities . . . of the Perons: ‘the abolition of history, that is to say of the past,’ and the construction of a wall in order to maintain distance from‘barbarians’ (or in order to not allow them to escape?)”]. Similarly, Edwin Williamson in his most recent biography of Borges interprets this essay as a “veiled attack” on Peronists “xenophobic cultural policy” (313). 23. The Emperor ’s actions can be used as an exemplification of Freud’s observation that “in the history of the human species something happened similar to the events in the life of the individual” (Moses and Monotheism 101). 24. This can be viewed as an extension of the parallelism, originally introduced by Freud and maintained by Derrida, between repression as a mental mechanism and repression in a historical sense as “something past, vanished, and overcome in the life of the people” (Moses and Monotheistic Religion 170). 25. All references are to Hurley ’s translation of “Deutsches Requiem” as it appears in Collected Fictions, 229–235. 26. All references are to Alastair Reid’s translation “El pudor de la historia” as it appears inBorges a Reader (New York: Dutton, 1981), 246–248. ón de términos a primera vista con27. As Jaen T. Didier notices, “[l]a paradoja, con su combinaci ículo ideal para producir el efecto inquietante . . . la paradoja sirve para tradictorios, sirve de veh la expresión de la ironía circunstancial” (105–106) [“a paradox, with its combination of terms from the first glance, serves as an ideal device for an expression of circumstantial irony ”]. 28. Among several studies on Kafka ’s presence in Borges’s aestheic world, one may distinguish Ben Belitt’s “The Enigmatic Predicament: Some Parables of Borges and Kafka ” and more recent David Krenz’s Metaphors for/in Infinity: the Parables of Kafka, Borges and Calvino.

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29. Both Borges’s and Kafka’s texts also suggest a relationship between repetition, repression, memory and archive, as srcinally suggested by Freud. Whereas in Borges ’s text this relationship can be seen through the mutually annihilating acts of the destruction of the books and ’s story evokes Freud’s repreconstruction of the wall, the very structure of the wall in Kafka sentation of memory as thread with breaches. As René Major perceptively observes,“[s]ince ‘frayages’ ” (298). This drive Freud, memory is represented through the differences of breaches for non-reconciliation is also another manifestation of the possible confluence between deconstructionist thought and Kabbalist tradition, the latter no doubt familiar to Kafka. As Krenz observes, “The dynamic, ever precarious tension between essentially irreconcilable opposites was always at heart of the Jewish tradition and is still a source of its enduring vitality” (110). 30. This symb olic parallelism between the bu ilding of t he wall and the appr oach to th e aesthetic phenomenon can also be regarded as an extension of Kant’s use of the notion of “architectonic” for the description of the epistemological system and his recognition of the determinant importance of “the form” for the positionality of the parts of knowledge. 31. In many of his stories, Borges uses a similar device when he combines almost documentary introductory paragraphs with overtly fictional development. In “El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan” [“The Garden of Forking Paths”], for example, a detective like metaphysical story has a realistic frame.

Chapter 5 1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6. 7.

All references are to Paul Blackburn ’s translation of “Lejana” as it appears inEnd of the Game and Other Stories. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967) pp. 274–286. All references are to my translation of “La puerta condenada” as it appears in Appendix, pp. 135–141. –156. All references are to my translation of “Cartas de mamá” as it appears in Appendix, pp. 141 Los fundadores de la nueva poesí a latiIn his letter to Yurkievich, for example, he praises noamericana with a reference to Bachelard’s works: “. . . los an álisis de poemas me parecieron muy reveladores . . ., y conoci éndome como me conocés no te asombrará mi alegría al ver con qué frecuencia y eficacia te basás en la línea Bachelard o Eliade para mirar el fondo del pozo.” (Cartas 3:1473) [“the analysis of the poems seem to me very revealing . . ., and knowing me as you know, you would not be surprised by my enthusiasm, which springs from the fact that your thoughts, at their basis, are frequently and effectively in line with Bachelard and Eliade, when you look at the heart of the matter”]. Most prominent artistic examples influenced by this vision can be found in surrealist art which considers the inner, subjective space, and where place obtains a life of its own. For an illuminating discussion of the influence of the surrealist concept of place on Cort ázar’s works, see Marta Morello-Frosch’s “Espacios públicos y discurso clandestino en los cuentos de Julio Cortázar.” “Some Aspects of the Short Story.” Trans. Aden W. Hayes.The New Short Story Theories (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994), 245 –255. Metapoetical references to a bridge are recurrent in Cort ázar’s works. Alazraki also points out the metapoetical importance of the bridge in this story, which is also compatible with Morelli’s mentioning of the bridge inRayuela when he discusses the creation ofa new novel.

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As Sara Castro-Klaren points out, “La conciliación de los opuestos es un tema constante en Cortázar.” (38) [“The conciliation of the opposites is a constant theme in Cort ázar”]. Referring to Rayuela, La vuelta, and Ultimo round, she emphasizes that an annihilation of the dichotomy “sujeto-objeto” [subject-object] is among the central preoccupations in his works. A parallelism between the notions of (the compound nature) of the self and city in “Lejana” can be another example which illustrates this observation. 9. In tune with Lacan ’s ideas, Irving Howe asserts in his essay “The Self in Literature” that “the self implies multiplicity” (249). 10. An explicit identification of the bridge with the self occurs in Libro de Manuel: “Porque un puente aunque se tenga el deseo de tenderlo y toda obra sea un puente hacia y desde algo, no es verdaderamente puente mientras los hombres no lo crucen. Un puente es un hombre cruzando un puente, che” (27) [“Because a bridge, even if you have the desire to build one and if all works are bridges to and from something, is not really a bridge until people cross it.” A bridge is a person crossing it, che (22–23)]. 11. As Kerr suggests, there are a number of beliefs and superstitions attached to bridges (and specifically the center as the meeting place of two or more people) which might offer cultural explanations, and should be considered among sources of inspiration, for the use of images associated with the bridge in this story. E.and M. A. Radford in the article“Bridges” (Encyclopedia of Superstitions, ed. and rev. Christina Hole), point out that bridges are“obvi’s ous symbols of transition,” and that “from very early times they have been associated in men 8.

minds with the passage of souls to the next world, and therefore with death ” (67). The idea of “the Devil’s Bridge” involves the devil as the builder ofa bridge, who is repaid for his work with the soul of the first person to cross it after completion. In many countries these old superstitions still hold and they always involve the themes of the devil and death: “One well-known tradition says that if two people part on, orunder, a bridge, they will never meet again” (68). This, may explain what happens to Alina and the old woman in“Lejana” (147). 12. Drawing a parallel between the notions of the divided self and body, Lacan points out that a “fragmented body usually . . . manifests itself in dreams when the movement of the analysis encounters a certain level of aggressive disintegration in the individual ” (4). 13. Cortázar points out that “en ‘Lejana’ . . . el sue ño o el deseo usurpa a la vigilia ” (Garfield 84) “in [“ ‘The Distances’ . . . a dream or desire usurps wakefulness ”]. 14. In his En busca del unicornio, Alazraki regards this meeting as a neofantastic resolution of the confrontation between Alina’s true self and her false self. In his Lacanian interpreta-

15. 16.

17. 18.

tion, Alina sees her acts as those of the false I (see “Lejana,” pp. 181–200). I suggest it remains impossible to decide between Alina ’s true/false selves. Visualizing Alina’s scream, Mercedes Blanco compares it to “the famous painting by Edvard ázar’s essay on the fantastic.” (245). Munch,The Scream, a reproduction of which illustrates Cort Other examples of the transmigration of souls can be found in “Axolotl” (Final del juego) where the narrator and the plant exchange selves, and “La noche boca arriba” (“The Night Face Up”) (Final del juego) where a fusion between the 20th century protagonist and a pre-Columbian Indian is dramatized. According to Julio Rodr íguez-Luis, this story is “an allegory of the search for the authentic self” (68). Wheelock perceptively characterizes this final act as that of “solipsism,” which he defines as “a notion that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and states ” (9).

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19. In his study of a relationship between psychoanalysis and geography, Pile emphasizes the importance of the link between“the body, the constitutive ambivalence of self, and the construction of (deeply-felt) emotional geographies ” (89). 20. In his work Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Freud discusses “the representation through the opposite” (56) as a mechanism of wit. 21. As Cort ázar tells Garfield, this interest in the magic of words has been evoked by “las experiencias surrealistas” [“surrealist experiences”] and “algunos textos sobre la cábala” (91) [“some texts about Kabbalah”]. 22. An impossibility to distinguish between a ‘true’ self and a ‘false’ one is one of the leitmotifs in Anton Chekhov’s and Katherine Mansfield’s short stories, admired by Cortázar. 23. As Claudio Cifuentes Aldunate points out, in Cort ázar’s “relatos funadamentales . . . se í-allá correspondiendo a Europa, Latinoam érica o viceversa” (170) puede leer el problema aqu [“major stories, one may read the problem “here-there” that corresponds to Europe, Latin America and vice verse”]. 24. David Lagmanovich in his pionerring book Estudios sobre los cuentos de Julio Cortázar. (Barcelona: Ediciones Hispam, 1975) considers the beggar to be Alina’s “doppelganger,” “un ‘otro’ que es bastante más que un eco o una suerte de emanación pasiva, en la medida en que no solo duplica, sino . . . también frustra o invierte los actos del‘yo’ ” (12) [“the ‘other’ who is rather an echo or a destiny of passive emanation in such a measure which not only duplicates, but . . . also frustrates and inverts the acts (actions) of the ‘I’ ”]. Referring to the process of the creation of “Lejana” in his conversation with González Bermejo, Cortázar points out that “[e]l tema del doble aparece . . . con toda su fuerza en ese cuento ” [the theme of the double appears . . . in all its streng th in this story] , but not as a result of literary influence: “No creo que se trate de una influencia literaria. Cuando yo escrib í ese cuento . . . ‘Lejana, ’ estoy absolutamente seguro . . . esa noci ón de doble no era, en absoluto, una contaminación literaria. Era una vivencia” (Bermejo 26) [“I do not believe that the matter is one of literary influence. When I wrote this story . . . ‘Lejana,’ I am absolutely sure . . . this notion of the do uble was not a literary contamination at all. It was a life experience”]. 25. Two classic texts which use a door as a symbol are H.G. Wells ’ “The Door in the Wall” (1946) and William Wymark Jacobs’ “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902). 26. In his conversation with Prego, Cort ázar also recalls his memories about his creation of this story in the hotel Cervantes: “Yo quería que en el cuento quedara la atmósfera del hotel Cervantes, porque tipificaba un poco muchas cosas para m í. Había el personaje del Gerente, la estatua esa que hay (o hab íá) en el hall, una réplica de la Venus, y el clima general del hotel. Esa fue la vez que estuve más tiempo en Montevideo” (107) [“I wanted that the atmosphere of the hotel “Cervantes” would leave its mark on the story, because it typified a lot of things for me. There was the character of the manager, the statue which is (or was) in the hall, a replica of the Venus de Milo, and the general climat e of the hotel. This was from the time when I stayed for a while in Montevideo”]. 27. Ilan Stavans draws a parallel between the images of the door and the bridge, suggesting that in “La puerta condenada” the door “es un puente incomunicado, un vaso comunicante aislado” (87) [“is a bridge which isimpossible to communicate, an isolated communicating glass ”]. 28. The character of Petrone is am ong the most interesting for Cort ázar in the story: “En ese cuento hay una cosa que a mí me gusta y es que creo que acerté con el personaje, porque

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hice un hombre muy pied-a-terre, es un hombre de negocios que est á en sus cosas, que vino a terminar unos contratos, no es ning ún imaginativo en especial. Y entonces a él la cosa le cae con mucha más violencia, porque sale completamente de su orbita.Él no se imagina jamás nada extraño hasta la ultima frase del cuento, en la que él tampoco dice nada pero es posible imaginar lo que pensó. Supongo que él también huyó” (116) [“In this story there is one thing which I like, and this, I believe, is what I have stated with the character, because I created a very down-to-earth man, a businessman who deals with his things, who came to finish contracts. There is nothing especially imaginative about him. And then the thing falls on him with much violence, because it is absolutely out of his orbit. He does not imagine anything strange till the last phrase of the story, where he also does not say anything, but is possible to imagine what he is thinking. I suppose that he also ran away.”]. ’s “The 29. According to Rodríguez-Luis’ reading of this text, there are similarities between Cortazar “the Sealed Door” and Borges’s “There are More Things.” In both these stories, in his opinion, affirmation of the supernatural causes fear ” (79). 30. For Cort ázar, the wardrobe has a crucial significance forwriting a story, as he describes in his conversation with Prego:“Y fue entonces que me empezó a obsesionar un poco ese armario, que estaba colocado en una posición artificial en la pieza. . . . Entonces, como no tenía nada que hacer, lo saqué cinco centímetros para ver que pasaba y vi que el armario estaba puesto ahí porque condenaba una puerta que daba a la habitación de al lado. . . . De golpe mir é el armario, miré la puerta y el cuento me cayó ...as í.” (112) [“And it was then that the wardrobe, which had been located in a strange position in the room, started to obsess me”. Because I did not have anything better to do, I moved it five centimeters forward so that I could pass behind it, and I then saw that the wardrobe was there to block the door away to the other room . . . Suddenly I looked at the wardrobe, I looked at the door, and the story came to me”]. 31. According to Marta Morello-Frosch, “la ubicación espacial . . . es agente que sobredetermina el destino de los personajes” (76) [“the spatial location . . . is an agent which overdetermines the destiny of the characters ”]. 32. For this interpretation, see, for instance, Rodr íguez-Luis’ The Contemporary Practice of the Fantastic. 33. According to Hernández del Castillo, the story also utilizes the house “as a symbol of the womb ” [“gloomy, quiet, almost or the mother”; the hotel isdescribed as“sombrío, tranquilo, casi desierto, deserted”] and its atmosphere is characterized by “la falta de sol y air” [the lack of sun and aire]. She finds it similar to the mansion in Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 34. According to Prieto, this story along with “La salud de los enfermos” (“The Health of the Sick”), “La señorita Cora” (“Nurse Cora”) contain “the most fully developed portraits of mothers [Cortázar] ever drew” (49). 35. Garfield points to “[t]he relationship between false and visible reality and its actual hidden meanings” in “Cartas de mamá” (49). 36. In her psychoanalytical reading of the story, Cynthia Schmidt-Cruz insists on autobiographical connotations of the character of mam á and interprets her as “the betrayed Eurydice safeguarding Cortázar’s Argentineness and the focus of his creative writing ” (125). She focuses her analysis on female characters. 37. The image of the bridge as a connection between territories and people or the impossibility of this connection, is a recurrent motif in Cortázar’s fiction. It appears, for instance,

notes

38.

39.

40.

41.

181

in Rayuela, where one of the metaphorical functions of the bridge is the impossibility of reconciliation between Oliviera-La Maga-Paris. In both “Cartas de mamá” and Rayuela the dichotomy Paris/Buenos Aires and the blurring of the boundaries between these places emphasize th e characters’ existential alienation, in the earlier story (“Cartas de mamá”), the blurring of the boundaries between these two cities brings past and present to a single contradictory moment and is connected with a fantastic motif. The word “ajena,” foreigner, in“Cartas de mamá,” as the word “lejana” in the story “Lejana,” far away, in the story of that name, are metaphorically used to refer to both physical and psychological displacement. As Sosnowski points out, “el nombre ‘Nico’ era el túnel, la palabra mágica, a través de la cual se manifestó lo queno tenía razón (ital) de ser” (Sosnowski 25–26) [“the name ‘Nico’ era a tunnel, the magic word, by means of which something which did not have sense to be was displayed”]. For Cort ázar himself, the fantástic resides on “the real.” He defines “lo fantástico como nostalgia” [“the fantastic as nostalgia”], and continues “ [t]oda suspension of disbelief obra como tregua en el seco, implacable asedio que el determinismo hace al hombre” (Ultimo 1, 79) [“All suspension of belief operates as a truce from the harsh, implacable siege that determinism wages on man” (166)] As Cortázar asserts, “es necesario que lo excepcional pase a ser también la regla sin desplazar las estructuras ordinarias entre las cuales se ha insertado ” (80) [“the extraordinary must become the rule without displacing the ordinary structures in which it is inserted” (Around the Day in Eighty Worlds, 166–167)].

42. Cortázar’s text is in tune with Camus ’ “une morale dy bonheur” developed in Létat de Siégeit, where the protagonist cannotescape from accountability despite the flight fromguilt. 43. The presence of two brothers and a woman, and the Judaeo-Christian motif of guilt makes the situation described in the story echo that of Cain and Abel. 44. Kerr interprets this connection as “the latent doubling process” (219) which “is not visible on the narrative level of the text” (126). 45. In addition to the texts analyzed, a similar connection between physical displacement and psychological division can be found in such stories as “House Taken Over,” “The Gates of Heaven,” and “Continuity of Parks.”

Conclusion 1. 2.

3. 4.

Heidegger characterizes biblical Aleph, a possible source of inspiration for Borges ’s story, as “the locus of an srcinal disclosure of the ‘world’ ” (95). It can be further suggested that this condition is caused by the dominance of superficial values under Perón’s regime which Cortázar observed from Paris and Borges faced in Buenos Aires. For a detailed description of humiliations Borges suffered under Peron ’s power, see Rodriguez Monegal’s Jorge Luis Borges. A Literary Biography and Edwin Williamson’s Borges. A Life. For Cortázar’s vision of Peron’s Argentine, see his conversations with Luis Harss. In his conversation with Richard Burgin, for instance, Borges refers to existentialism as a“pathetic philosophy” (107) and confesses that hehas always“felt repelled by[Kierkegaard]” (108). For a perceptive survey on the influence of Borges ’s and Cortázar’s works on Latin American “From modernismo to Modernist and postmodern fictionsee Raymond Williams recent article ” the postmodern: theTwentieth-century Desire to beModern and SpanishAmerican Fiction.

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Borges mentions this line also in his essay “De las allegorías and las novelas” [“From Allegories to Novels”] (Otras Inquisiciones), where he omits the last“e” in “smylere.” Cortázar’s reference to this line which according toBorges initiates novelistic genre is also significant, given Cortázar’s admiration for novels.

Translations 1. 2.

According to Roberto Alifano, “Prólogo a “Cartas de mamá’ ” was first published inAnthology of Stories, illustrated by Argentine artists. He compiled it together with Borges in 1983. Leopoldo Lugones ’s story “Ysur,” translated by Gregory Woodruff, was published in the Oxford Anthology of Short Stories, ed. Roberto González Echevarría (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Books by Jorge Luis Borges Aleph and Other Stories, 1933–1969, toTrgether with commentaries and an autobiographical essay. Edited and Translated by Norman Thomas de Giovanni in collaboration with the author. New York: Dutton, 1970. Borges A Reader. Edited by Emir Rodríguez Monegal and Alastair Reid. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1981. Borges por el mismo. Edited by Emir Rodríguez Monegal. Caracas: Monte Avila, 1987. Collected Fictions. Translated by Andrew Hurley. New York: Penguin, 1999. Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings. Edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby. New York: New Directions, 1962. Obras completas. Vol. 1, 1923–1949. Barcelona: Emecé 1996. Obras completas. Vol. 2, 1952–1972. Barcelona: Emecé 1996. Obras completas. Vol. 3, 1975–1985. Barcelona: Emecé 1996. Obras completas. Vol. 4, 1975–1988. Barcelona: Emecé 1996. “Prologo a ‘Cartas de Mama’.” Proa. 4 (September/October 1999): 19. Selected Non-Fictions Jorge Luis Borges. Edited by Eliot Weinberger. Translated by Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, and Eliot Weinberger. New York: Penguin, 1999. Selected Poems.Translated Edited bybyAlexander Coleman. New York: Penguin, 2000. Seven Nights. Eliot Weinberger. New Directions: New York, 1980. The Book of Sand and Shakespeare’s Memory. Translated with the Afterward by Andrew Hurley. London: Penguin Books, 2000.

Works in Collaboration and Interviews with Borges Borges, Jorge Luis and Adolfo Bioy Casares. “Eclosiona un arte.” Crónicas de Bustos Domecq. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1967. 71–77. Borges, Jorge Luis and Ernesto Sabato. Diálogos. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1976.

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Borges, Jorge Luis and María Esther Vázquez. Literaturas Germánicas Medievales. Buenos Aires: Emecé Editores, 1978. Borges, Jorge Luis and Delia Ingenieros. Antiguas literaturas germánicas. México: Fondo de cultura económica, 1951. Barstone, Willis.Borges at Eighty: Conversations. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Burgin, Richard. Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations. Jackson: University Press of Mississipi, 1998. Carrizo, Antonio. Borges, el memorioso: conversaciones con Antonio Carrizo. M éxico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1986. Cortínez, Carlos et al. Con Borges (texto y persona). Buenos Aires: Torres Agüero Editor, 1988. Montenegro, Néstor J. Diálogos. Buenos Aires: Nemont, 1983. Sorrentino, Fernando. Siete conversaciones con Jorge Luis Borges. Buenos Aires: El Ateneo, 1996.

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ázar

Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. Translated by Thomas Christensen. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1986. Cartas. 3v. Edited by Aurora Bernárdez. Buenos Aires: Alfaguera, 2000. Cuentos completes. 2v. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994. End of the Game and other stories. Translated by Paul Blackburn. New York: Random House, 1967. Hopscotch. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Random House, 1966. Libro de Manuel. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamerica, 1973. Los Premios. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1960. A Manual for Manuel. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Pantheon Books, 1978. Obra crítica. Vol. 1. Edited by Saúl Yurkievich. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994. Obra crítica. Vol. 2. Edited by Jaime Alazraki. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994. Obra crítica. Vol. 3. Edited by Saúl Sosnowski. Madrid: Alfaguara, 1994. Rayuela. Edited by Julio Ortega and Sa úl Yurkievich. Madrid: Archivos, 1991. Relatos. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamerica, 1972. La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos. Vol. 1 Madrid: Siglo XXI de Espa ña Editores, S.A, 1980. La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos. Vol. 2. Madrid: Siglo XXI de España Editores, S.A, 1980. Ultimo round. Madríd: Siglo XXI editores, 1974. 62: Modelo para armar. Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1962. 62: A Model Kit. Translated by Gregory Rabassa. New York: Random House, 1972. “Some Aspects of the Short Story.” The New Short Story Theories . Edited by Charles May Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994, 245 –255. The Winners. Translated by Elaine Kerrigan. London: Allison and Busby, 1986.

Interviews with Cort

ázar

Bermejo Ernest González. Revelaciones de un Cronopio. Montevideo: Ediciones de la Banda Oriental, 1986. Harss, Luis and Barbara Dohmann. Los Nuestros . Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1969.

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Garfield, Evelyn Picon. Cortázar por Cortázar. Veracruz: Universidad Veracruzana, 1978. Prego, Omar. Julio Cortázar: la fascinación de las palabras. Montevideo: Trilce, 1990.

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Walker, Janet. A. “The Cramped Room in the City: a Setting for the nineteenth-century individualist. ” Proceedings of the XIIth Congress of the International Comparative Literature Association. Munich, 1990, Vol. 3, 288–293. Waugh, Patricia.Feminine Fictions: Revisiting the Postmodern. London and New York: Routledge, 1989. Weiss, Jason.Distant Mirrors: Spanish American Writers in Paris Since the Second World War. Diss. New York University, 1999. Wheelock, Carter. “Borges, Cortázar, and the Aesthetic of the Vacant Mind.” The International Fiction Review. Winter 12.1 (1985): 3–11. ——. The Mythmaker: a Study of the Motif and Symbol in the Short Stories of Jorge Luis Borges. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1969. Williams, Raymond L. “From Modernismo to the Postmodern: the Twentieth-Century Desire to be Modern and Spanish American Fiction. ” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 2002. Williamson, Edwin. Borges. A Life. Viking: New York, 2004. ” In Literature Wiseman, Mary Bittner. “Rewriting the Self: Barthes and the Utopias of Language. and the Question of Philosophy, edited by Anthony J Cascardi. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. 292–314. Yurkievich, Saúl. “Borges/Cortázar: mundos y modos de la ficción fantástica.” Julio Cortázar: mundos and modos. Madrid: Anaya and Mario Muchnik, 1994. 25–37. ——. “62: Modelo para armar: Enigmas que desarman.” Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos. 122 (1980): 463–473. Zampaglione, Héctor. El París de Rayuela. Barcelona: Lunwerg Editores, 1998. Zito, Carlos Alberto. El Buenos Aires de Borges. Buenos Aires: Aguilar, 1999.

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INDEX

Alazraki, Jaime, xi-xii, 184, 189, 191, 162n.1, 165n.2, 172n.27, 177n.7, 178n.14 aleph, the letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 2, 7, 8, 9, 163n.11

Balzac, Honoré de, 32. Works: Pére Goriot 34–37, 166n.5; Eugénie Grandet 166 n.5, 166 n.8 Barranechea, Ana Maria, 8, 9, 12, 33

Almeida, Ivan, ix, xiii, 164n.22, 173n.45, 175n.11, 189 Alonso, Carlos, xiii, 189, 169n.50 Amar Sánchez, Ana María, 168n.35 Apollodorus, 82. Work: The Library, 82, 195

Beecher Stowe, Harriet. Work: Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 44 Bellini, Giuseppe, 170 n. 2 Benjamin, Walter, 34 Bergson, Henri. Work: “Laughter” 8, 45, 170, 185 Boldy, Steven, 38, 47, 168n. 35, 190 Borges, Jorge Luis: on Cortázar xi, 156–157 Borges’s works: “El Aleph” xv, 1–10, 24, 26, 48, 63, 82, 129, 131, 162n.1, 162n.3,

Bacon, Francis. Work: New Atlantis, 171n.20 Bachelard, Gaston, 2–4, 7, 10, 11, 13, 34, 35, 108, 114, 117, 118, 120–123, 160n.4, 173n.38,166n.7, 177n.4166n.9, 172n.33, Bakhtin, Mikhail, xiv. Works: The Dialogic Imagination 102, 103, 104, 162n.4, 167n.20, 168n.36, 168n.37, 169n.43; Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics 47–52, 54, 166n.8 Balderston, Daniel, 162n.9, 163n.9, 175n.15 Banham, Reyner, 172n.29

162 n.5, 163n.13, 174n.2, 175n.15, 181n.1, 183 “The Aleph.” See “El Aleph” “Anotación al 23 de agosto de 1944” (“A Comment on August 23, 1944”) 170n.9 Antiguas literaturas germánicas, 164n.25 “Amanecer”, 43 “La biblioteca de Babel” (“The library of Babel”), 176n.18

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Borges’s works: (Continued) “The Book of Sand.” See “El libro de arena” “La cábala” (“The Kabbalah”), 1, 29 “Calle desconocida” (“Unknown street”), 43

“The Immortal.” See “El inmortal”

de Asterión” (“The House “Laofcasa Asterion”), xv, 61, 80–83, 87

Completas” 17 “El libro de arena ” (“The Book of Sand”), 1, 2, 24–29, 129, 131,

“A Comment on August 23, 1944. ” See “Anotación al 23 de agosto de 1944” “Deutsches Requiem,” 152 “El disco” (“The Disk”), xv, 1, 2, 20–24, 29, 131 “The Disk.” See “The Disk” “La doctrina de los ciclos” (“The Doctrine of Cycles”), 13, 15 “El enigma de Edward Fitzgerald,” “La175n.13 esfera de Pascal” (“The Fearful Sphere of Pascal”), 45, 175n.15

“On Exactitude in Science.” See “ Del rigor en la ciencia ” Fervor de Buenos Aires, 33, 43, 45, 56, 130 “The First Wells.” See “El primer Wells” “The House of Asterion.” See “La casa de Asterión” eternidad (“A “Historia HistorydeoflaEternity ”), ”173n.45, 175n.15

“Historia del traidor y del heroe” (“The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”), 173n.46 “El informe del Dr. Brodie” (“Brodie’s Report”)?? 170n.8, 174n.7

“El inmortal” (“The Immortal”), 48, 168n.15, 168n.33, 175n.15

El jardín de los senderos que se bifurcan (The Garden of Forking Paths), 173n.36 “The Kabbalah.” See “La cábala” “Lewis Carroll Obras

164n.30 “La lotería en Babilonia” (“The Lottery in Babylon”), 173n.46 Literaturas Germánicas medievales 22, 23, 164n.25 “El milagro secreto” (“The Secret Miracle”), 163n.17, 174n.47 “La muralla y los libros” (“The Wall and the Books”), xv, 89, 90, 95–100, 103–105, 132, 174n.9 “Nathaniel Hawthrone” 168n.28 “New Refutation of Time.” (“Nueva refutación del tiempo”), 173n.45 “Un Patio” 43 “El primer Wells” (“The First Wells), xiv “El pudor de la historia” (“The Modesty of History”), 99, 176n.26 resumen doctrinas “UnEinstein ” (“de A las Summary of de Einstein’s Doctrines”), 24 “Del rigor en la ciencia” (“On Exactitude in Science”), 170n.13 “Las ruinas circulares” (“The Circular Ruins”), xv, 1, 2, 11–19, 24, 129, 131, 163n.15, 164n.29

“El ruiseñor de Keats” (English??), 175n.15

index

“El sueño de Coleridge” (“Coleridge’s dream”), xv, 68–69, 89, 91–95, 104, 130, 132, 174n.4, 174n.10, 175n.12, 175n.15 “The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” See “Historia del traidor y del heroe” “El tiempo circular” (“The Circular Time”), 14 “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” 168n.31, 172n.26 “Utopia del hombre que está cansado” (“A Weary Man’s Utopia”), xv, 61, 64–72, 87, 130 “Valéry como símbolo” (“Valery as a symbol”), 174n.7 The Bible, 25, 26, 28, 29, 167n.15, 195 Brant, Herbert J., 27, 190 Bermejo, Ernesto González, 58, 169n.45, 171n.22, 179n.24, 184 Booth, Wayne C., 5, 185 Carroll, Lewis, 17 Casey, Edward, 33, 57, 108, 160n.6, 185 Castellano-Girón, Hernán, 167n.23 Cassirer, Ernst, 21 Chaucer, Geoffrey, Chesterton, Gilbert133 Keith, 28 Coleman, Alexander, 165n.25, 167n.26, 167n.27 Conrad, Joseph 84; Work: The Nigger of the Narcissus 84, 195 Cortázar, Julio on Borges: xii Works: “Algunos aspectos del cuento” (“Some Aspects of the Short Story”), 109

201

“Around the Day in Eighty Worlds”, 172n.30, 181n.41 “Casa tomada” (“A House Taken Over”), xi, 157 Cartas, 177n.4 “Cartas de mamá” (“Letters from Mother”), xvi, 108, 119–125, 126, 180n.35, 181n.38, 181n.39, 182n.1; my translation of this story 141–156; Borges’s prologue 156–157 “Continuidad de los parques” (“Continuity of Parks”), 281n.41 “La isla a mediodía” 169n.47 “La puerta condenada” (“The Sealed Door”), xvi, 107, 109, 114–119, 126, 131, 132, 177n.2, 179n.27; my translation of this story 135–141. “Lejana” (“The Distances”), 8, 281n.36 Libro de Manuel (A Manual for Manuel), 178n.10 62: Modelo para armar (62: A Model Kit), 73–80, 88, 87, 131, 166n.11, 171n.23 “La muñeca rota,” 171n.23 nocheFace bocaUp arriba “LaNight ” (“The ”), 178n.16 “Notas sobre la novela contemporánea”, 172n.25, 173n.44

“El otro cielo” (“The Gates of Heaven”), 181n.45 “El perseguidor” (“The Pursuer”), 169n.47 Los Premios (The Winners), xv, 61, 83–89, 99, 129 –136, 195

202 place

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Works: (Continued) Rayuela (Hopscotch), 31–56, 59, 79, 121, 130, 131, 132, 165n.3, 167n.22, 167n.16, 166n.5, 169n.45, 169n.43, 168n.38, 169n.48, 171n.18, 177n.7, 178n.8, 181n,37

“Del sentimiento de lo fantástico” (“On the sense of the fantastic”), 178 “Teoría del túnel” xiv, 165n.4, 166n.5 Ultimo Round, 76 La vuelta al día en ochenta mundos, 118, 133–134, 166n.5, 172n.30, 178n.8 Dali, Salvador, 86

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Eltit, Diamela 133. Work: Lúmperica 133 Ezquerro, Milagros, 40 fantastic, xii-xiii, 24, 43, 47, 62, 66, 94, 113, 117, 118, 124, 157, 170n.6, 179n.15, 181n. 38, 181n.41 psychological fantastic, xiii Filer, Malva, 171n.17, 191 Foucault, Michel, xiv, 80, 159n.1, 160n.4, 173n.40. Works: The Order of Things 62, 72, 79; “Of Other Spaces” 62–63, 71, 79, 82, 83, 84, 87; Archaeology of Knowledge 174n.3 Franco, Jean, xiii Freud, Sigmund, 90, 177n.29.

Davies, Laurence, 62, 190 De Certeau, Michel, 160n.4 Derrida, Jacques, xiii, xiv, 3, 102, 104, 105, 132, 176; Works: Dissemination (“Plato’s Pharmacy”), 8, 163n.11, 161n.6, 159n.2; Archive Fever 90, 96, 98, 99, 174n.3, 176n.20; “Freud and the Scene of Writing” 100; Positions 176n.21, 185 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 31, 32, 35, 53. Works: Crime and Punishment 34, 167n.17, 168n.39; Notes from the

Works: “Inhibition, Symptoms and Anxiety” 97; The Interpretation of Dreams 90, 91–96, 161n.6, 174n.5, 174n.8, 175n.11; Moses and Monotheistic Religion 176n.24; “The Uncanny” 171n.18; “Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious” 179n.20 Frye, Northop, 5, 23, 41, 67, 68, 105, 120, 186 Fuentes, Carlos, xiii, 57

Underground –41 Dyson, Ann, 67,39190 Dystopia, xv, 61, 62, 63, 64, 66, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 77, 78, 80, 87, 88, 131

Galdos, Benito Pérez. Works: Lo prohibido 167n.23 Garfield, Evelyn Picone, xii, 43, 58, 114, 166n.9, 171n.21, 172n.28, 178n.13, 179n.21, 180n.35, 185, 191 Gold, Barbara, 81, 82, 191 Goloboff, Gerardo Mario, 191 González, Eduardo, 191 González Echevarría, Roberto, xvi, 8, 182, 191

Eco, Umberto, 58, 195 Echeverría, Esteban. Work: “La cautiva” (“The Captive”) 170n.14 Eleazar, Rabbi, 25

index Goodman, Nelson, 42, 129, 162n.8, 186 Grau, Cristina, 81, 168n.32

203

Heidegger, Martin 1. Works:Being and Time 161n.6, 187; An Introduction to

Kerrigan, Elaine, 173n.41 Kessler, Stephen, 167n.25 Kierkegaard, Soren, 33, 58, 132, 161n.6, 165n.4, 181n.3 Kristal, Efrain, ix, xv, 162n.6, 162n.7 Kronik, John, ix

Metaphysics 33, 181n.1; “Building, Dwelling, Thinking” 110. Hernández, José, 169n.41, 173n.39, 195 Hernández del Castillo, Ana María, 117, 180n.33, 191 Hernández, Ana María, 191 Hicks, Darlene Emily, 169n.46 Hinduism 94 Homer, Odyssey, 169n.44 Heterotopia xv, 61–63, 64, 70, 71, 73, 79–80, 82, 83, 88, 132, 172n.31, 172n.32, 172n.33

Lacan, Jacques, 93, 95, 108, 117, 178n.9, 178n.12, 178n.14 Larway, David, 44 Larsen, Neil, xiii Leddy, Annette Cecile, 72, 192 Lefebvre, Henri, 108, 160n.4 Leibniz, Gottfried, 11 Levi-Strauss, Claude. Work: The Raw and the Cooked 83 Levine, Suzanne Jill, ix, 163n.18 Lindstrom, Noami, 3, 20, 192

Hume, David 28, 94, 134, 162n.7 Hurley, Andrew, 162n.3, 164n.24, 164n.28, 169n.1, 176n.25, 183 Hutcheon, Linda, 41, 46, 167n.24, 168n.29 James, Henry, Work: The Sense of the Past 69, 196 Jammer, Max, 159n.4 Jung, Carl 35, 174n.8 Jofré, Manuel Alcides, 159n.3 Jones, Julie, 38, 166n.14 Jewish mysticism 1, 9 Kafka, Franz, viii, 90, 100 –105, 167n.18, 175n.17, 176n.28, 177n.29 Work: “The Great Wall of China” 100–105 Ker, William Paton, 22 Kerr, Lucille, xiii, 171n.19, 178n.11, 181n.44, 192 Kerrigan, Antony, 168n.30

Ludmer, Josefina, xiii Nabokov, Vladimir, 61, 76. Work: Pale Fire 171n.23, 172 n.34 Marin, Louis, 74, 172n.31 Matamoro, Blas, 57, 169n.47, 192 McHale, Brian, 76, 79, 160n.4 Melville, Herman, Work: White-Jacket; or The World in a Man-of-War, 84, 173n.43 Michelet, Jules, 36 Montaigne, Michel, 89 88. Work: More, Thomas, 63, 164, Utopia 64–65, 71–73, 130, 170n.3, 170n.6, 170n.10, 170n.12, 171n.20 Morris, Brian, ix Morris, David, 66 O’Sullivan, Gerry, 26 Orkneys, 28 Ortega, José, 115 Orwell, George, 40

204 place

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pain, 58, 59, 60, 88, 141, 163, 169, 184 parody, 41, 46, 59, 168n.29 Piranesi, Giovanni Battista, 47, 48, 49, 168n.32 Pellon, Gustavo, xiii Perón, Juan, 63, 165n.3, 176n.22,

Shaw, Donald, 15, 162n.1 Sommer, Doris, xiii Soriano Nieves, Nieto, 169n.44Spinoza, Baruch, 6, 7 Stevenson, Robert, 28 Sturluson, Snorri, 165n.31

181n.2 Prego, Omar, xii, 36, 40, 42, 79,84, 165n.3, 166n.6, 172n.28, 179n.26, 180n.30 Prieto, René, xiii, 180n.34 Pile, Steve, 108, 117, 133, 179

Swift, Jonathan, 63, 64, 66, 88, 130, 170n.8, Work: Gulliver’s Travels 66–67, 71, 72

Quevedo de, Francisco, 64, 170n.2–3 Quincey de, Thomas 168n.32 Rabelais, François, 39 Ronai, Peter, 159n.3 repression, 95, 96, 99, 100, 102, 104–105, 132, 176n.20, 176n.24, 177n.29 revelation, xv, 1, 2, 3, 6, 7 –8, 10, 17, 101, 129, 131, 159n.4 Saer, Juan José, xiii, 133 Said, Edward, 33, 57, 132, 161n.6 Sambursky, Samuel, 159n.4 Sarduy, Severo, 133. Work:Cobra 133 Second World War, 66 Shakespeare, William, 174n.8 Works: Hamlet 163n.207; The Tempest163n.17, Seibers, Tobin 63. Work:Heterotopia: Postmodern Utopia and the Body Politics 63, 66, 172n.29 Sharkley, Emmett Joseph, 56

Thackerey, William, 67 Torah, 25 Thon, Sonia, 159n.3 utopia xv, 61–83, 87, 88, 130, 131, 170n.6, 170n.12 Varon, Policarpo, 159n.3 Villanueva, Marcelo Alberto, 166n.15, 168 n.35 Walker, Janet, 35 Weiss, Jason, 73 Wells, H.G., 68–69, 71, 157. Work: The Time Machine 101, 106–108, 130; “The Door in the Wall” 72–73, 114, 115–116, 126 Wheelock, Carter, 159n.3, 178n.18 Yurkievich, Saul, xii, 76, 165n.4, 169n,48, 177n.4 Zampaglione, Hector, 38 Zohar, 1

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Nataly Tcherepashenets, Place and displace in the narrative world of Jorge Luis Borges and Julio Cortázar

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