Barth & Borges May 5
John Barth in his 1967 essay “The Literature of Exhaustion”, was arguably the first prominent U.S. American writer to acknowledge in his own creative process a resonance stemming from a South American, in this case Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1980).
Although that year Latin American literary tradition received world wide attention (Guatemalan Miguel Angel Asturias was the Nobel Laureate and Colombian Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude was published), Barth’s essay bears especial importance since it provides a turn in the relationship between the literatures of the Americas.
The long debated “The Literature of Exhaustion” first appeared in the August issue of The Atlantic Monthly in 1967. That same month, Barth read –spoke- at Harvard University of some of his self-recorded fictions, part of Lost in the Funhouse, a work in progress at that time, which would appear a year later. David Morrell claims that at that moment, Barth wanted to write “something quite different, he explained: to compose several small pieces, what he called ‘fictions’” (80), after Giles Goat-Boy, a novel that took five years to write, published in 1966, which had left Barth “exhausted”.
Interestingly enough, Borges’s first English translations in book form appeared in 1962 with the titles Labyrinths and Fictions. From October 24, 1967 to April 10, 1968, Borges delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard University, where Barth had read his work in progress. “The Literature of Exhaustion” provides the aesthetics and the interpretative key with which to read the Borgesian Lost in the Funhouse fictions of John Barth.
In his essay “The Literature of Exhaustion”, John Barth parallels the writer’s ability in “exhausted” times with that of the mystics. Quoting Keirkegaard, Barth claims that mystics, at every moment, leap into the infinite and fall back into the finite –therefore Barth constitutes “literature” as a “secular” act of faith.
For Barth, Borges illustrates “how an artist may paradoxically turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and means for his work –paradoxically because by doing so he transcends what had appeared to be his refutation, in the same way that the mystic who transcends finitude is said to be enabled to live, spiritually and physically, in the finite world” (274).
If we read Barth literally, Borges is a “mystical” writer. In this sense, every fiction created by Borges, in an age of ultimacies, is a “literary” leap of faith. “His artistic victory,” Barth wrote about Borges, “is that he confronts an intellectual dead-end and employs it against itself to accomplish new human work” (272).
Barth central issue in his essay “The Literature of Exhaustion” is death and continuity, to assent to (literary) life in the face of death (of the novel, of culture, of the author). This essay provides the key to understand his outstanding short story collection “Lost in the Funhouse”.
The fictions gathered in Lost in the Funhouse are themselves a labyrinth, Borges’s favorite image. Barth’s funhouse is not only a labyrinth, but a labyrinth of mirrors. Barth merged two of Borges’s images (labyrinths and mirrors) into one: a funhouse. The funhouse is a maze of reflections.
Works Cited
Barth, John. Lost in the Funhouse. New York: Doubleday, 1968.
Borges, Jorge Luis. Borges: A Reader. Ed. Rodríguez Monegal, E. and Reid, A. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1981.
Morrell, David. John Barth: An Introduction. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976.
Juan Murillo May 6
¿Es tuyo este artículo?
El año pasado compré Lost in the Funhouse, cuyo primer cuento es una sola oración escrita sobre un espacio bordeado por una linea punteada. Según las instrucciones, debe recortarse, doblar una de las puntas y pegar ambas puntas de modo que forme una cinta de Moebius. El resultado final tiene que ser un cuento infinito.
Debo confesar que este tipo de juego me recordó más a Cortazar que a Borges, que hubiese considerado semejante mecanismo ‘una fruslería’.
Ya el título mismo de Barth (Lost in the Funhouse) llama la atención a la diferencia de sensibilidades estéticas entre la estadounidense y su proclividad al ‘gimmick’ y la borgiana (porque esa en verdad no es argentina, ni latinoamericana) y su inclinación por la ’serendipity’ filosófica.
Ronald May 6
Of course, Juan. This article is mío. I´m glad you enjoyed it!
Manolo May 6
I have always wondered what would happen if Funes stares into the Aleph… that would be exhaustive.
Lorena Flores-Moscoso May 7
Paradox is present in almost all Borges works. It is part of his intellectual game; he provokes in his naïve or self confident reader the uncertainty of the possible. A continue what if? Or it could happen.
He likes to use recent past tense. So when he is telling us something ranging from yesterday to centuries ago we feel it as if it happens today. This little detail gives us as readers the idea of finitude and infinitude at the same time.
For him everything is a source of an infinite series of causes at the same time is a source of an infinite series of effects.
Quoting Borges (1898-1986):
The fact is that all writers create their precursors. Their work modifies our conception of the past, just as it is bound to modify the future
To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, and incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal.
Interesantísimo artículo. Next stop: Lost in the Funhouse.
Ronald May 7
Juan, one more thing. You do have an excellent point, but Donald Bartheleme is closer to Cortazar (I think). Thanks again.
@Manolo and @Lorena: Thank you!
Juan Murillo May 9
Jajaja! Manolo, que bueno, Funes would have the headache to end all headaches (this kind of loop reminded me of Goedel, Escher and Bach from Hofstadter).
True enough Ronald, Barthelme and Cortázar share the same irreverent humor and love of mind games. Barthelme and Cortázar would be like two irreverent teenagers fooling around with their grandfather´s (Borges´) incredibly intricate and elegant machines.