p. 12: "I walked four days.. .my course for Natchez":HereBorgesis quoting/trans- lating fairly directly from Twain"sLife on the Mississippi, pp. 214-215 (Penguined.cited in the note just above). Throughout this story, JLB inserts a phrase here, a sentence there from Twain, but then, when he says he is quoting, as in the case of the preaching and horse thieving, he is in reality inventing the quotation and imagining a scene that Twain only suggests.
The Widow Ching-Pirate p. 19: Aixa"s rebuke to Boabdil:Boabdil isAbu Abdallah,the last Moorish king of Granada (r. 1482-1492); Aixa was his mother. The reproof that supposedly was given Boabdil by Aixa upon the Moors" defeat and expulsion from what had been Islamic Spain is substantially asBorgesreports it here, and the words here given Anne Bonney are substantially those given inGosse"sHistory of Piracy,p. 203. (See the "Index of Sources" p. 64.) p.21: Rules for pirates: These may actually be found, as quoted, but in a different order, inGosse"sHistory of Piracy,p.
272. (See "Index of Sources," p. 64, for biblio- graphical information.) p. 24: Quotation on peace in the waters of China:Gosse, p.278. Note also that the widow"s new name, while indeed given inGosse,is attributed to another personage who learned a lesson from the emperor. This is but one of countless examples of the way JLB changes things, even dates, to fit his purposes, purposes that one must confess sometimes are enigmatic. Why change the date of Tom Castro"s being found guilty from February 26 to February 27? Monk Eastman"s death from December 26 to De- cember 25? The spelling of Morell/Murrell/Murell"s name? Here the theory of transla- tion must needs be a theory of artistic creativity.
Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities p. 25: Resigned:Borgesuses this curious word, which I have not wanted to "inter- pret," apparently to indicate the fatedness, or ritual aspect, of this duel. It is as though the word indicated "resigned to fate." This aspect of violence, of duels, can be seen throughoutBorges;I would especially refer the reader to the story t.i.tled "The En- counter," in the volumeBrodie"s Report, p. 364.
p. 28: Junin:Site of a famous battle in the wars of independence. The Battle of Junin took place in the then department of Peru; on August 6,1824, a cavalry engage- ment was fought betweenSimonBolivar"s nationalist forces and the royalist forces underJose de Canterac.The tide was turning against the independence forces until the royalist rear was attacked by a force of Peruvian hussars under the command ofIsidoro Suarez-one of JLB"s forebears and a man who in varying degrees and under varying permutations lends his name to JLB"s fictions. The royalists were routed.
p. 30: The Death of Monk Eastman:This story is taken, as JLB indicates, from As-bury"sThe Gangs of New York, generally pp. 274-298, but also, for the quotation about "nicks in his stick," p. xviii. Where JLB has clearly borrowed directly from Asbury and it has been possible to use Asbury"s words, the translator has done so; in other cases, the translator has just borrowed the appropriate terminology, such as the "Mikado tuck-ups" and the "stuss" games.
The Disinterested Killer BillHarrigan p. 32: Always coiled and ready to strike:One of the sources that JLB gives for this story is Frederick Watson"sA Century of Gunmen, though the truth is, there is not much there that JLB seems actually to have used. With, that is, the possible exception of this phrase,siempre aculebradoin the Spanish, which the translator has rendered conjecturally in this way."Aculebrado,"from the Spanishculebra,"snake," calls to mind in the native Spanish speaker the notion of "coiled, like a snake" and also of "snakelike, slithering." On page 77 of his book, Watson quotes an old western novel, which says this: "It"s not the custom to war without fresh offence, openly given. You must not smile and shoot. You must not shoot an unarmed man, and you must not shoot anunwarned man-----The rattlesnake"s code, to warn before he strikes, no better, [i.e., there"s no better extant code for a man of the West] : a queer, lop-sided, topsy-turvy, jumbled and senseless code- but a code for all that." Thus it seems that JLB may have wanted to paint Billy the Kid as an even worse "varmint"
than the rattlesnake, since the rattlesnake at least gives fair warning, unlike Billy, who, as we see in a moment, shoots the MexicanVillagranbefore Villagran knows what"s happening. Perhaps, in fact, that was what made Billy the Kid so dangerous-so dangerous that hisfriend Pat Garrison shot him in cold blood. But whatever JLB"s motivation for this word, it is a very mysterious one to use here, however related to all the other animal imagery used throughout this volume.
The Uncivil Teacher of Court EtiquetteKotsukenoSuke p. 36:Ronins:In A. B. Mitford"sTales of Old j.a.pan, which is the source of much of this story, Mitford inevitably uses this word for the "loyal retainers" of the dead n.o.ble- man. The word"Ronin"means literally a "wave-man," one who is tossed about hither and thither, as a wave of the sea. It is used "to designate persons of gentle blood, enti- tled to bear arms, who, having become separated from their feudal lords [or in this case, of course, vice versa], wander about the country in the capacity of knights-errant. Some went into trade, and became simple wardsmen" (Mitford).
WhileBorgeshimself does not use this word, the word is inevitably used in English reports of the phenomenon, and so the translator has thought it appropriate to translate what the Spanish has as "retainers," "captains," etc., by the technical word.
It is possible, of course, that JLB is doing with the Chinese system of loyalties what he did to the world"s architecture: remaking it in the likeness of Argentina"s. One notes that virtually all the houses that JLB uses in his fictions have long, narrow en- trances and interior patios, the very floor plan of the Buenos Aires house of the end of the nineteenth century. Likewise, one senses that JLB may have used the word "cap- tains" in the story to indicate the sort of relationship between the lord and his retain- ers that was common in the Argentina ofcaudillosandtheir captains. Thus the translator recognizes that if JLB was trying, consciously or not, to produce this effect, it may be somewhat risky to go all the way to the source, to"Ronin,"for the "transla- tion." The reader is notified. Likewise, "Chushingura" is the name by which the dra- mas, poems, and films are inevitably known in English, so the translator has incorporated that inevitable cultural reference. From its absence in the Spanish text, one supposes that in Spanish the word "Chushingura" was not used.
p.39:The source for this story: Much of this story is indeed taken from Mitford"sTales of Old j.a.pan, pp. 3-19. The translator has taken the spelling of the characters" names and several quotations, such as the "Satsumi man"s," from there.
Man on Pink Corner p. 45: t.i.tle:The t.i.tle of this story in Spanish is"Hombre de la esquina rosada";it presents many intriguing possibilities, and therefore many problems, to the translator, not so much for the words as for the cultural a.s.sumptions underlying them. This story is in a way a portrait of thecompadrito(the tough guy of the slums) or the cuchillero(knife fighter) and his life; as such, many items of that "local color" thatBorgesdeplored in, for example, stories of the "exotic" Orient are found, though casu- ally and unemphatically presented. The first thing that must be dealt with is perhaps that "pink corner."Esquina("corner") is both the actual street corner (as other trans- lations of this story have given it, without the colorful adjective) and the neighbor- hood general-store-and-bar, generally located on corners, which was the hangout for the lowlife of the barrio. The reader can see this establishment clearly in "Unworthy" (in the volume tidedBrodie"s Report) and more fieetingly in many other stories. What of the adjective "pink"(rosada) then? The Buenos Aires of JLB"s memory and imagi- nation still had high, thick stucco or plastered brick walls lining the streets, such as the reader may see in the colonial cities of the Caribbean and Central and South America even today: Havana, San Juan, Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, etc. Those walls in Buenos Aires were painted generally bright pastel colors;Borgesrefers to "sky blue" walls more even than to pink ones.
ThusBorgeswas able to evoke in two words(esquina rosada)an old neighborhood of Buenos Aires, populated by toughs and knife fighters, and characterized by bars and bordellos in which that "scandalous" dance the tango was danced. (In its beginnings, the tango was so scandalous that no respectable woman would dance it, and one would see two men-compadritos-dancing together on street corners; nor would the tenement houses, which had moved into the large old houses vacated by the higher cla.s.ses, allow such goings-on, even though theseconven- tillos,as they were called, might be none too "respectable"-certainly none too "genteel"-themselves.) In evoking that old Buenos Aires,Borges alsoevoked "the man"-here, theYardmaster,Rosendo Juarez,and the nameless narrator of the story, all of whom partic.i.p.ate in the coldly violentethos of theorillero, the (to us, today) ex- aggeratedly macho slum dweller (especially along the banks of the Maldonado [see note below]) who defended his honor against even the most imagined slight. How- ever, certain aspects of this "man" will probably strike the non-Argentine reader as cu- rious -for example, those "boots with high-stacked heels" (in the original Spanish, "women"s shoes") and that "red carnation" in the first paragraph of the story "Monk Eastman, Purveyor of Iniquities," the same sort of carnation that appears in this story. There is also the shawl worn by the gaucholikeYardmaster.These elements, however, were authentic "touches"; thecompadritoaffected these appearances. Previous transla- tions have apparently tried to give all this "information" by calling the story "Street-corner Man," emphasizing the "tough guy hanging out on the corner" aspect of the story, and one can be sympathetic to that solution. Another intriguing possibility, however, is suggested byBernesin the first volume of theGallimardedition of JLB"sOeuvres completes.I translate the relevant paragraph: "The t.i.tle of the original publi- cation, which omits the definite article, reminds the reader of the t.i.tle of apainting given in the catalog of an art exhibit. It stresses the graphic aspect of the scene, whichBorges,in the preface to the 1935 edition, called the "pictorial intention" of his work. One should think of some t.i.tle of a piece by PedroFigari-----[p. 1497] " This "impres- sionist" tide, then, should perhaps be retained; what one loses in "information"
one gains in suggestion.
p. 45: Maldonado:The Maldonado was a creek that at the time of this story (and many others of JLB"s stories) marked the northern boundary of the city of Buenos Aires. The neighborhood around this area was called Palermo, or also Maldonado. This story evokes its atmosphere at one period (perhaps partly legendary); the Mal- donado (barrio) was a rough place, and the creek was terribly polluted by the tanner- ies along its banks.
p. 45: Don NicolasParedes... Morel:Paredeswas a famous knife fighter and ward boss for the conservative party in Palermo; Morel was another famed political boss, orcaudillo.
p. 52:1 couldn"t say whether they gutted him:Here and elsewhere inBorges(one thinks, of course, especially of the story tided " The Story fromRosendo Juarez"in the volumeBrodie"s Report and the story in this volume tided "The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell"), a corpse is gutted, or somebody thinks about gutting it. This, ac- cording to folk wisdom, is to keep the body from floating up and revealing the murder before die culprit has had good time to get away.Apparenty agutted body did not produce as much gas, or the gas (obviously) would not be contained in an inner cavity. Thusdiereis an unacknowledged "piece of information" here that the ruffians of the Maldonado and odier such neighborhoods tacitiy shared-tacitly because it was so obvious that no one needed to spell it out.
Etcetera
A THEOLOGIAN IN DEATH.
p.54: Attribution: TheSwedenborgConcordance: A Complete Work of Reference to the Theological Writings ofEmanuelSwedenborg,based on the original Latin writings of the author,compiled, edited, and translated by the Rev. John Faulkner Potts, B.A., 4vols.(London:SwedenborgSociety, 1888). The text quoted here appears in the index ( p. 622 of the appropriate volume) under "Melancthon" and is a mixture of the entries indicating two differentSwedenborgtexts:A Continuation of the Last Judgment andThe True Christian Religion. The reader may find the text under "C.J. 47" and"1.797, 1-4." The full entry on Melancthon in the Concordance runs to p. 624.
THE CHAMBER OF STATUES.
p.56: Attribution: Freely taken from Sir Richard Burton"sBook of the Thousand Nights and a Night (New York: Heritage Press, 1934 [1962] ), pp. 1319-1321. The reader is referred to A Note on the Translation for more detailed comment on JLB"s and the translator"s uses of translations.
THE STORY OF THE TWO DREAMERS.
p. 57:Attribution: This is freely adapted from a different version of the1001 Nights, Edward William Lane"sThe Arabian Nights Entertainments -orThe Thousand and One Nights (New York: TudorPubi.,1927), p. 1156. There are several other editions of this work, so the reader may find the tale in another place; Lane does not divide his book quite in the way JLB indicates.
THE MIRROR OF INK.
p. 62: Attribution:One would not want to spoil JLB"s little joke, if joke it is, but others before me have pointed out the discrepancy between this attribution and the fact. This story appears nowhere in Burton"sLake Regions and only sketchily in the volume thatdiGiovanni and many others give as the source: Edward William Lane"sManners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (1837). Nonetheless, whereBorgesdoes seem to be translating (or calquing) the words of the last-named book, I have incor- porated Lane"s wording and word choices.
mahomed"s double p.63: Attribution:EmanuelSwedenborg,The True Christian Religion, containing the Universal Theology of the New Church, foretold by the LordmDanielVII,13,14, and in the Apocalypse XXI, i, 2, translated from the Latin ofES (NewYork: AmericanSwe- denborgPrinting and Publishing Society, 1886),iJ.829-830.
Index of Sources p. 64: Source for "The Improbable Impostor Tom Castro":The source given byBorgeshere is the PhilipGossebookThe History of Piracy; as one can clearly see, it is the same source cited for "The Widow Ching-Pirate," just below it. In my view, this attribution is the result of an initial error seized upon byBorgesfor another of his "plays with sources"; as he subsequently admitted freely, and as many critics havenoted, much of this story comes from the EncyclopcediaBritannica,Eleventh Edition, in the article t.i.tled "Tichborne Claimant." Here again, where JLB is clearly translating or calquing that source, I have followed it without slavish "transliteration" of JLB"s Spanish.
p. 64: Source for "The Disinterested Killer BillHarrigan":Neither the Walter n.o.ble Burns book nor the Frederick Watson book contains anything remotely approaching the story given byBorgeshere. Some details are "correct" (if that is the word), such as Billy"s long and blasphemous dying, spewing Spanish curses, but little in the larger pattern of the "biography" seems to conform to "life." WhileBorgesclaimed in the "Autobiographical Essay" (written with Norman ThomasdiGiovanni and published inThe Aleph and Other Stories [1970]) that he was "in flagrant contradiction" of his "chosen authorities]," the truth is that he followed the authorities fairly closely for all thecharacters herein portrayedexcept that of Billy the Kid. He did, of course, "change and distort" the stories to suit his own purposes, but none is so cut from whole cloth as that of this gunfighter of the Wild West. The lesson in the "Autobiographical Essay" is perhaps that JLB"s predilection for the red herring was lifelong.
Notes toFictions ("The Garden of Forking Paths" and "Artifices"), pp. 65-128; 129-180.
p. 65: t.i.tle:First published asFicciones(1935-1944) by EditorialSur in1944, this book was made up of two volumes:El jardin de senderosque sebifurcan("The Garden of Forking Paths"), which had originally been published in 1941-1942, andArtificios("Artifices"), dated 1944 and never before published as a book. Each volume in the 1944 edition had its own t.i.tle page and its own preface. (In that edition, and in all suc- cessive editions,The Garden of Forking Paths included the story"El acercamientoa Al-motasim" (The Approach to Al-Mu"tasim"), collected first inHistoria de la eternidad("History of Eternity"), 1936, and reprinted in each successive edition of that volume until 1953; this story now appears in theObras CompletasinHistoria de la eternidad,but.i.t is included here as a "fiction" rather than an "essay") In 1956Emecepublished a volume t.i.tledFicciones,which was identical to the 1944 EditorialSuredition except for the inclusion inArtifices of three new stories ("The End," "The Cult of the Phoenix," and "The South") and a "Postscript" to the 1944 preface toArtifices. It is this edition ofFictions, plus "The Approach to Al-Mu"tasim," that is translated for this book.
THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS.
Foreword.
p. 67: The eight stories:The eighth story, here printed as the second, "The Ap- proach to Al-Mu"tasim," was included in all editions subsequent to the 1941-1942 original edition. It had originally been published (1936) inHistoria de la eternidad("AHistory of Eternity"). Ordinals and cardinals used in the Foreword have been adjusted to reflect the presence of this story.
p. 67:Sur:"[T]hemost influential literary publication in Latin America" (Rodriguez Monegal, p. 233), it was started by Victoria Ocampo, with the aid of theArgentine novelistEduardoMalicaand the American novelist Waldo Frank.Borgeswas one of the journal"s first contributors, certainly one of its most notable (thoughSurpublished or discussed virtually every major poet, writer, and essayist of the New or Old World) and he acted for three decades as one of its "guardian angels." Many of JLB"s fictions, some of his poetry, and many critical essays and reviews appeared for the first time in the pages ofSur.
Tlon,Uqbar, Orbis Tertius p.68: Ramos Mejia: "A part of Buenos Aires in which the rich had weekend houses containing an English colony. It is now an industrial suburb" (Hughes and Fishburn).
p.68: BioyCasares:Adolfo Bioy Casares(1914- ): Argentine novelist, JLB"s closest friend and collaborator with JLB on numerous projects, including some signed with joint pseudonyms. In their joint productions, the two men were interested in detective stories, innovative narrative techniques (as the text here hints), and tales of a some- what "fantastic" nature. Unfortunately rather eclipsed byBorges,especially in the English-speaking world, BioyCasaresis a major literary figure with a distinguished body of work; a description of the reciprocal influence of the two writers would re- quire (at least) its own book-length study.
p.69: Volume XLVI: TheObras completas,on which this translation is based, has "Volume XXVI," which the translator takes to be a typographical error, the secondX slipped in for the correctL p. 70: Johannes Valentinus Andrea in the writings of Thomasde Quincey:It is perhaps significant thatdeQuincey credits Andrea (1586-1654) with "inventing" the Rosicrucian order by writing satirical works (and one especially: FamaFraternitatis of the meritorious Order of the Rosy Cross, addressed to the learned in general and the Governors of Europe)describing an absurd mystico-Christian secret society engaged not only in general beneficence and the improvement of mankind but also in alchemy and gold making. The public did not perceive Andrea"s satirical intent, and many rushed to "join" this so- ciety, though they could never find anyone to admit them. At last, according todeQuincey, a group of "Paracelsists" decided that if n.o.body else would admit to being a Rosicrucian, they would take over the name and "be" the society.
p.70: Carlos Mastronardi: Mastronardi (1901-1976) was "a poet, essayist, and jour- nalist [in Buenos Aires], a member of the group of writers identified with the avant-garde literary magazineMartin Fierro"(Fishburn and Hughes).
Balderston(The Literary Universe of JLB: An Index... [New York: Greenwood Press], 1986) gives some of his t.i.tles:Luz de Provincia, Tierra amanecida, Conocimiento de la noche.Mas- tronardiwas one ofJLB"sclosest friends throughout the thirties and forties(Borgestoo was closely a.s.sociated withMartin Fierro),andRodriguez Monegalreported in his biography of JLB thatBorgeswas still seeing Mastronardi as the biography(pubi.1978) was written; it seems safe to say, therefore, thatBorgesand Mastronardi were friends until Mastronardi"s death.
p. 71:Capangas:Overseers or foremen of gangs of workers, usually either slaves or indentured semislaves, in rural areas, for cutting timber, etc., though not on ranches, where the foreman is known asacapataz.This word is ofGuaranior perhaps African origin and came into Spanish, as JLB indicates, from the area of Brazil.
p. 72:NestorIbarra:(b. 1908) "Born in France of an Argentine father who was the son of a French Basqueemigre, Mwent to the University of Buenos Aires around 1925 to complete his graduate education. While [there] he discoveredBorges"poems and ... tried to persuade his teachers to let him write a thesis...o...b..rges" ultraistpo- etry"(RodriguezMonegal, p. 239). Ibarra"s groundbreaking and very important study of JLB,Borges et Borges,and his translations of JLB (along with those of Roger Cail-lois) into French in the 19505 were instrumental in the worldwiderecognition of JLB"s greatness. Among the other telling a.s.sociations with this and other stories is the fact that Ibarra andBorgesinvented a new language ("with surrealist orultraisttouches"), a new French school of literature, Identism, "in which objects were always compared to themselves," and a new review, tidedPapers for the Suppression of Reality (see "Pierre Menard," in this volume; this information, Rodriguez Monegal, pp. 240-241). TheN.R.F. is the NouvelleRevueFrancaise,anextremely important French literary magazine that published virtually every important modern writer in the first three de- cades of this century.
p. 72: EzequielMartinezEstrada:Martinez Estrada (1895-1964) was an influential Argentine writer whose work Radiografiade la pampa(X-ray of thePampa)JLBre- viewed very favorably in 1933 in the literary supplement (RevistaMulticolorde losSabados["Sat.u.r.day Motley Review"] ) to the Buenos Aires newspaperCritica.
p. 72:Drieu La Roch.e.l.le:Pierre-EugeneDrieu La Roch.e.l.le(1893-1945) was for a time the editor of the NouvelleRevueFrancaise;he visited Argentina in 1933, recog- nized JLB"s genius, and is reported to have said on his return to France that"Borges vaut levoyage"(Fishburnand Hughes).
p. 72: Alfonso Reyes:Reyes (1889-1959) was a Mexican poet and essayist, amba.s.sador to Buenos Aires (1927-1930 and again 1936-1937), and friend of JLB"s (Fishburn and Hughes). Reyes is recognized as one of the great humanists of the Americas in the twen- tieth century, an immensely cultured man who was a master of the Spanish language and its style ("direct and succinct without being thin or prosaic" [Rodriquez Monegal]).
p. 7y Xul Solar:Xul Solar is thenom deplume-turned-name of Alejandro Schultz (1887-1963), a lifelong friend of JLB, who compared him favorably with William Blake. Xul was a painter and something of a "creative linguist," having in- vented a language he called creol: a "language ... made up of Spanish enriched by ne- ologisms and by monosyllabic English words ... used as adverbs" (Roberto Alifano, interviewer and editor,Twenty-Four Conversations withBorges, trans. NicomedesSuarez Arauz,WillisBarnstone,andNoemiEscandell [Housatonic, Ma.s.s.: Lascaux Publishers, 1984], p.
119). In another place, JLB also notes another language invented by Xul Solar: "a philosophical language after the manner of John Wilkins" ("Autobio- graphical Essay," p. 237:The Aleph and Other Stories: 1933-1969 [New York: Dutton, 1970], pp. 203-260). JLB goes on to note that "Xul was his version of Schultz and Solar ofSolari." XulSolar"s painting has often been compared with that of PaulKlee;"strange" and "mysterious" are adjectives often applied to it.
Xul ill.u.s.trated three of JLB"s books:El tamano de mi esperanza(1926),El idioma de los argentinos(1928),andUn modelo para la muerte, the collaboration betweenJLB and Adolfo Bioy Casaresthat was signed"B.SuarezLynch."
Inhis biography ofBorges,Emir RodriguezMone- gal devotesseveral pages to Xul"s influence on JLB"s writing;Borgeshimself also talks at length about Xul in the anthology of interviews noted above. Xul was, above all, a "character" in the Buenos Aires of the twenties and thirties and beyond.
NOTES TO THE FICTIONS 535.
p. 80: Amorim:Enrique Amorim (1900-1960) was a Uruguayan novelist, related toBorgesby marriage. He wrote about the pampas and thegaucho(andgaucholife);Borgesthought hisEl PaisanoAguilar"a closer description ofgaucholife thanGui-raldes" more famousDonSegundo Sombra"(Fishburnand Hughes).
Pierre Menard, Author of theQuixote p. 93: Local color in MauriceBarresorRodriguez Larreta:Barres(1862-1923) was a "French writer whose works include a text on bull-fighting ent.i.tledDu sang, de la volupte et de la mort"(Fishburn and Hughes);one can see what the narrator is getting at in terms of romanticizing the foreign. Enrique Rodriguez Larreta (1875-1961) wrote historical novels; one, set inAvilaand Toledo in the time of Philip II (hence the refer- ence to that name in the text) and t.i.tledLa gloriadeDonRamiro,used an archaic Spanish for the dialogue; clearly this suggests the archaism of Menard"sQuixote.
(Here I paraphrase Fishburn and Hughes.)
A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain p. 108: The Siamese Twin Mystery:A novel by Ellery Queen, published in 1933. Here the literary critic-narrator is lamenting the fact that Quain"s novel was overshad- owed by the much more popular Queen"s.
ARTIFICES.
Funes,His Memory p. 131: t.i.tle:This story has generally appeared under the tide"Funesthe Memori-ous," and it must be the brave (or foolhardy) translator who dares change such an odd and memorable t.i.tle. Nor would the translator note (and attempt to justify) his choice of a translation except in unusual circ.u.mstances. Here, however, the t.i.tle in the origi- nal Spanish calls for some explanation. The t.i.tle is"Funes el memorioso";die wordmemoriosois not an odd Spanish word; it is in fact perfectly common, if somewhat colloquial. It simply means "having a wonderful or powerful memory," what in En- glish one might render by the expression "having a memory like an elephant." The beauty of the Spanish is diat the entire long phrase is compressed into a single word, a single adjective, used in the original t.i.tle as an epithet:Funesdie Elephant-Memoried. (The reader can see that diat translation won"t do.) The word"memorisi"is perhaps die closest thing that common English yields up widiout inventing a new word such as "memorious," which strikes the current translator as vaguely Lewis Carroll-esque, yet"memorisi"has somediing vaguely show business about it, as thoughFunesworked vaudeville or the carnival sideshows. The French tide of this story is the lovely eighteendi-century-sounding"Funesou La Memoire";with a nod to JLB"s great ad- mirer JohnBardi,I have chosen"Funes,His Memory."
p. 131: TheBandaOriental:The "eastern bank" of the River Plate, die old name of Uruguay before it became acountry, and a name used for many years afterward by the "old-timers" or as a sort of nickname.
p. 131: PedroLeandro Ipuche:The Uruguayan Ipuche was a friend of die young ultraist-periodBorges(ca.1925),witi whom (along witiiRicardo Guiraldes,author ofthe important novelDonSegundo Sombra)he worked on the literary magazineProa (Fishburn and Hughes).Proa was an influential little magazine, andBorgesand friends took it seriously; they were engaged, as Rodriguez Monegal quotes the "Auto- biographical Essay" as saying, in "renewing both prose and poetry."
p. 131: FrayBentos:"A small town on the banks of the Uruguay River, famous for its meat-canning industry. In his youthBorgeswas a regular visitor to his cousins" ranch near FrayBentos"(Fishburn and Hughes). Haedo was in fact the family name of these cousins.
p. 135: The thirty-three Uruguayan patriots:The "Thirty-three," as they were called, were a band of determined patriots under the leadership of Juan Antonio Lavalleja who crossed the River Plate from Buenos Aires to Montevideo in order to "liberate" theBandaOriental (Uruguay) from the Spaniards. Their feat of bravery, under impossible odds, immortalized them in the mythology of the Southern Cone. For fuller detail, see the note to p. 474, for the story"Avelino Arredondo"in the volumeThe Book of Sand.
Three Versions of Judas p. 165(note):Euclides daCunha:Cunha(1866-1909) was a very well-known Brazilian writer whose most famous novel is a fictional retelling of an uprising in the state ofBahia.He was moved by the spiritualism (Fishburn and Hughes note its mys- tical qualities) of the rebels.
p. 165(note):AntonioConselheiro: (1828-1897).Conselheirowas "a Brazilian reli- gious dissident who led a rebellion inCanudos,in the northern state ofBahia.The rebels were peasants ... who lived in a system of communes, working out their own salvation. They rose against the changes introduced by the new Republican govern- ment, which they regarded as the Antichrist.... Conselheiro"s head was cut off and put on public display" (Fishburn and Hughes). His real name was AntonioMaciel;conselheiromeans "counselor," and so his messianic, ministerial role is here emphasized.
p. 165(note):Almafuerte: The pseudonym of Pedro BonifacioPalacio(1854-1917), one of Argentina"s most beloved poets. A kind of role model and hero to young writ- ers, akin to the phenomenon of Dylan Thomas in Britain and the United States a few years ago, Almafuerte was one of JLB"s most admired contemporaries.
The End p. 169: "It"d been longer than seven years that I"d gone without seeing my children. I found them that day, and I wouldn"t have it so"s I looked to them like a man on his way to a knife fight":It is not these words that need noting, but an"intertextualevent." It is about here that the Argentine reader will probably realize what this story is about: It is a retelling of the end ofJose Hernandez"famoustaleMartin Fierro. As Fierrois a knife fighter, and as a black man figures in the poem, and as there is a famous song contest, the reader will put two and two together, no doubt, even before Martin Fierro"s name is mentioned a few lines farther on. This is the way Fishburn and Hughes state the situation: "The episode alluded to in "The End" is thepayada,or song contest, betweenMartin Fierroandel moreno["the black man"] who was the brother of the murdered negro. In the contest thegauchosdiscuss metaphysical themes, but towards the endel morenoreveals his ident.i.ty, and his desire for revenge is made clear.
In keeping with the more conciliatory tone of pt. 2 [of Hernandez" original poem] a fight is prevented between the two contestants, each going his own way. "The End" is a gloss on this episode, the fight that might have taken place." By this late in the volume, JLB"s Preface to the stories, hinting at the coexistence of a "famous book" in this story, may have dimmed in the reader"s memory, but for the Latin American reader, the creeping familiarity of the events, like the echoes of Shakespeare in the a.s.sa.s.sination of Kilpatrick in "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero," should come into the fore- ground in this section of the story, and the reader, like Ryan in that other story, make the "connection."
The South p. 174: Buenos Aires:Here the province, not the city. The reference is to the north- ern border, nearEntre Riosand Santa Fe provinces, on theParanaRiver.
p. 174: Catriel:Cipriano Catriel(d. 1874). Catriel was an Indian chieftain who fought against the Argentines in the Indian wars. Later, however, he fought on the side of the revolutionary forces (Fishburn and Hughes).
p. 178: Hisgauchotrousers:This is thechiripa,a triangular worsted shawl tied about the waist with the third point pulled up between the legs and looped into a knot to form a rudimentary pant, or a sort of diaper. It is worn over a pair of pantaloons (ordinarily white) that "stick out" underneath. Sometimes, incredible as it strikes Anglo-Saxons that the extraordinarilymachistagauchoswould wear such clothing (but think of the Scots" kilts), the pantaloons had lace bottoms.
Notes toThe Aleph, pp. 181-288
The Dead Man p. 196: Rio Grande doSul:The southernmost state of Brazil, bordering both Ar- gentina and Uruguay on the north.
Later in this story, a certain wildness is attributed to this region; JLB often employed the implicit contrast between the more "civilized" city and province of Buenos Aires (and all of Argentina) and the less "developed" city of Montevideo and nation of Uruguay and its "wilderness of horse country," the "plains," "the interior," hererepresented by Rio Grande doSul.