Uqbar

Mark Wallace writes that the stories that Borges writes “are based on genuine dread of the endless time and space and a wise skepticism, but for the most part that dread happens on the level of ideas and not in the narrative itself as such… the dread comes from contemplating the philosophical puzzle the stories present.” Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius makes the reader contemplate mankind’s need to make connections and see order in a seemingly orderless world. The narrator states that “any symmetry, any system with an appearance of order—dialectical materialism, anti-Semitism, Nazism—could spellbind and hypnotize mankind” (81). The Circular Ruins raises questions of the way mankind perceives the world and if what is perceived is actually in existence.…

Within Jorge Luis Borges’s short story collection “The Garden of Forking Paths” are the stories Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and The Garden of Forking Paths. Within Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Borges introduces the question of metaphysical time and reality by recounting the events surrounding the mysterious land of Uqbar and its lore surrounding Tlon- the third orb. On the other hand, The Garden of Forking Paths questions the knowledge of the universe and linear time as current scientific…

ideological shifts. These deviations from the realist era of the prior century allowed for abstract and surreal literary works that challenged rationale to flourish, which in no small part influenced the shifting of societal norms. The works “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and “On Exactitude in Science” by Jorge Borges epitomize the modernist shift by confronting the drastic scientific changes occurring during his time through surrealistic interpretations of reality and by raising different…

1). This is in some ways true, but this definition leaves a lot to be desired. Just like any other definition, one must understand all the words in the definition to imagine the word being described. What is a fact? At what point does an idea become a fact? Is information a fact? In Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, Socrates introduces knowledge as something that is already apparent as long as one knows where to look. This suggest that there are facts in this world, but Socrates also takes a moment…

“when [Pynchon] didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on his second novel, The Crying of Lot 49.” Bell-Valada (1999, p.280) reiterates, stating, “the carryover of ideas and vocabulary from Borges to Pynchon is unmistakable.” This “carryover” seemingly alludes to cultural transmission; Borges passes linguistic concepts and arrangements onto Pynchon, to be further developed. In fact, one of Pynchon’s characters in Gravity’s Rainbow is named…

establishes Borges’ impact, recounting, “when [Pynchon] didn’t write, he read—mainly Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges, a big influence on … The Crying of Lot 49.” Bell-Valada (1999, p.280) reiterates, stating, “the carryover of ideas and vocabulary from Borges to Pynchon is unmistakable.” This “carryover” seemingly alludes to cultural transmissions; Borges passes linguistic concepts and arrangements onto Pynchon, to be further developed. In fact, one of Pynchon’s characters in…