Order, Memory, and Anxiety in Borges Fiction :: Reading Memorize Memory Essays

Order, Memory, and Anxiety in Borges Fiction The fundamental questions of how and why we understand have an infinitude of answers, none of which entirely do the job, simply because they bear in addition closely upon the automatic, (and therefore, to us, secret) processes of the mind the act of reading is too closely think to the act of living in the world for us to comprehend definitively. in that location are few writers who understand and exploit this primal link more than persistently than Jorge Luis Borges. One of the ways in which he forces us to dig into the parallels between reading and existing (I use the word force because it is non of all time a pleasant confrontation) is through the thematic use of depot. I. Total visit It is because I forget that I read.-Roland Barthes, S/Z One of the most(prenominal) masterful treatments of the memory theme is in Funes the Memorious, the brilliantly, (and somewhat absurdly), touching accounting of a man who cannot live und er the strain of his natural and ineluctable ability to retrieve everything perfectly. The story begins with the words I recall, and straight off we are plunged into the realm of memory-we understand that what we are about to read is a semblance of a reminisence. Jon Stewart calls attention to the importance of the repetition of this verb in the opening paragraphs of the story The continual use of this verb clearly foreshadows the most important component of the character of Funes-his prodigious mnemonic powers but there is more to it than this. Borges continually uses the same verb and with it brings together a number of scattered and seemingly pell-mell memories that he has of Funes. The point of this repetition is to underscore his proclaim impoverished memory of Funes. (p.74) But Stewart neglects to take this point to its logical and important conclusion the narrators impoverished memory is not merely a foreshadowing of Funes infinitely rich one-it comes to be, in fact, t he needful circumstance, and the subject of the story. Borges tells us that the story grew out of his own bouts of insomnia I remember that I used to lie down and try to forget everything, and that lead me, inevitably, to remember everything. I imagined the books on the shelves, the clothes on the chair, and even my own body on the bed... and so, since I could not erase memory, I unplowed thinking of those things, and also thinking if only I could forget, I would for certain be able to sleep.