#JorgeLuisBorges120
illustration by Jason Novak,
captioned by Eric Jarosinski
Rivka Galchen:
“...In “The False Problem of Ugolino,” an essay on Dante not
included in “On Writing,” Borges quotes from an essay by Stevenson that makes
the rather Borgesian claim that a book’s characters are only a string of words.
“Blasphemous as this sounds to us,” Borges comments, “Achilles and Peer Gynt,
Robinson Crusoe and Don Quixote, may be reduced to it.” Borges then adds: “The
powerful men who ruled the earth, as well: Alexander is one string of words,
Attila another.” The great deeds of the past may become no more than words, and
no more than words are necessary to summon a power as grand and enduring even
as Quixote or Achilles....”
captioned by Eric Jarosinski