The Aleph

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The Aleph

Introduction
• When reading Borges, one must remember that his work does not
hinge on characters or plot, but rather than that it relies on a idea or a
proposition or a metaphor—similar in concept to a conceit.
• In “The Aleph” for example, the story centres around:
• The concept of infinity.
• A point containing all other points in space.
• Questions arise about what one would see and how to describe it to others.
• "The Aleph" was first published in the Argentine journal Sur in 1945
and was included as the title work in the 1949 collection The Aleph.
Introduction
• Like so many of Borges's other stories, essays, and poems, "The
Aleph" is an attempt to explore and dramatize a philosophical or
scientific riddle. To date, the story stands as one of Borges's most
well-known and representative works.
• In a 1970 commentary on the story, Borges explained, "What eternity
is to time, the Aleph is to space." As the narrator of the story
discovers, however, trying to describe such an idea in conventional
terms can prove a daunting—even impossible—task.
The Author
• Jorge Luis Borges was born on August 24, 1899, in Buenos Aires, one of
Argentina's most famous cities. His father, Jorge Guillermo Borges, was a
lawyer; it was in his father's large library that he discovered his love of reading.
• When Borges was a young boy, his family moved to Palermo, a suburb of
Buenos Aires. Surprisingly, Borges did not begin attending school until he was
nine years old because of the fear of tuberculosis.
• Both English and Spanish were spoken in the Borges house, and many of
Borges's favorite authors were ones who wrote in English like H. G. Wells,
Charles Dickens, Edgar Allen Poe, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
• The first book he ever read from start to finish was Mark Twain's The
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
The Author
• In 1919, he traveled to Spain and found himself one of the members of the
Ultraists, a number of writers contributing to a vaguely defined literary
movement that aimed to renew literature through radical techniques.
• Before leaving Spain in 1921, Borges published his first poem, "Hymn to
the Sea," in the magazine Grecia.
• Upon returning to Buenos Aires in 1921, Borges collaborated on the
magazine Prisma, notable for its unusual method of delivery—it was
pasted, mural-style, on the walls of the city.
• The next ten or so years saw Borges publishing a number of books, both
collections of poetry and essays.
The Author
• His poetry collections include 1923's Fervor of Buenos Aires, 1925's
Moon Across the Way, and 1929's San Martin Copybook.
• His essay collections were 1925's Inquisitions, 1926's The Measure of
My Hope, 1928's The Language of the Argentines, 1930s Evaristo
Carriego and 1932's Discussion. In 1935, Borges published his first
attempt at prose fiction, A Universal History of Infamy.
• During subsequent years, Borges remained in Argentina and perfected
the techniques for his short, puzzling stories. In 1941, a collection of
stories, The Garden of Forking Paths, was published to great acclaim.
The Author
• Despite his status, he was removed from his librarian's post in 1946 for political
reasons. With the 1955 overthrow of the Perón government, he was appointed
Director of the National Library in Buenos Aires.
• His reputation now confirmed, Borges enjoyed a life of travel, lecturing, honorary
degrees, and worldwide recognition.
• In 1961, he shared the International Publishers' Prize with Samuel Beckett and
lectured on Argentine literature at the University of Texas.
• The year 1962 saw Borges's first two English publications: the translation of Ficciones
and Labyrinths, an anthology of stories, essays, and poems.
• As his fame grew, his eyesight worsened, and by 1964 he was totally blind. However,
this did not affect his prolific output and he continued publishing books of verse,
essays, lectures, and stories until his death (from liver cancer) on June 14, 1986.
Critical Overview
• Borges is universally regarded as a major and powerful figure in
twentieth-century literature; indeed, it is as difficult to find a negative
critique of Borges's work as it is to find an essay on the failures of
Shakespeare as a dramatist.
• Most critics agree with James E. Irby, who boldly states in his preface
to the 1962 collection Labyrinths that Borges's work is "one of the
most extraordinary expressions in all Western literature of modern
man's anguish of time, of space, of the infinite.“
• "The Aleph" is conventionally praised as one of Borges's most
important stories.
Critical Overview
• In her 1965 study, Borges the Labyrinth Maker, Ana Maria Barrenechea
argues that "the most important of Borges's concerns is the conviction
that the world is a chaos impossible to reduce to any human law."
• She specifically praises "The Aleph" as an example of "the economy of
Borges's work" in its ability to erase "the limits of reality" and create in
the reader "an atmosphere of anxiety.“
• In his 1969 study, Ronald Christ contends that "The Aleph" stands as
wholly representative of Borges's art and his attempts to "abbreviate the
universe in literature.” To Christ, the Aleph of the story's title is a symbol
of Borges's style and desire to compose another of his "resumes of the
universe."
Critical Overview
• Martin S. Stabb, in his 1970 book Jorge Luis Borges, suggests that "The
Aleph" is Borges's attempt to explore his dominant themes in a lighthearted
fashion that may not possess the depth of his other work that reads as a
"half-philosophical, basically playful composition—generously sprinkled with
Borgesian irony and satire," the story "comes off rather well."
• Perhaps the most effusive praise of the story comes from George R.
McMurray, who (in his 1980 study Jorge Luis Borges) states that the story
not only reflects the "mystical aura of magic that imbues so many of
Borges's works," but also "emerges as a symbol of all literature, whose
purpose … is to subvert objective reality and recreate it through the powers
of imagination."
Critical Overview
• Other critics have examined the story from different angles.
• In his 1996 biography, Borges: A Life, James Woodall examines the
ways in which "The Aleph" can be read as a piece of veiled
autobiography.
• It contains references to Borges's discovery of a kaleidoscope (which
becomes the Aleph in the story), his love affair with Estela Canto (who
becomes the story's Beatriz) and his opinions of some fellow writers
(who are mocked through the character of Carlos Daneri).
• According to Woodall, "women . . . and love" were "preying" on
Borges's mind while he composed the story.
Critical Overview
• One of the most startling and cutting-edge approaches to the story,
however, is found in Floyd Merrell's Unthinking Thinking: Jorge Luis
Borges, Mathematics, and the New Physics (1991).
• In this complex study that combines literary analysis with current
scientific theories, Merrell argues that "The Aleph" dramatizes the
discovery of what physicists call a space-time singularity: a point in
the universe where a star collapses and "the limits of space and time
have been reached."
• Like his fellow critics, Merrell praises Borges's work for its ability to
illustrate abstract and difficult ideas.
To Be Continued . . .

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