H: $J

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: ':::\
t. ,i ' :rrii:i -,1,:'l a

Bi
Hi

Ir
Eii h,:

The Literature ot'

Exhaust'ion
to

7L

t,:.:.':.,1:.' ..' ' .1'a'1,

li:
at
l;r

f,;
F,

JOHN BARTF{ The Literature of Exhaustion

., .,,,,-;,;ri
a,r:i'jj ,,:.ii ' ,rr'i
' ,:-rt::r

::.':.'-:?ai

,.whimsical writings, 'often pointed" once mailed

,

various

friends (what

th;

ti
i:

t,

Ii il

',t.:lil.ii :. ,..,:2.?
,'.:i1 a,:,:ai't

l,ugust rgSTltl'',:*i
, ] :.'qi

of chance, Anecdated irornraphy -description oi ali the'objects that happen . author's parlour table - 'in fact, however '
of Spoerri's existence"

Correspondence

catalogue describes as The New York School oi titerature); and Daniel Spoerri's

'on the surface' a to be on the ' a cosmology

, ,l;i

The fact is that, every writer creates his own precurs"rr. .lli F{is work rnodifies our conception of the past, as it will t;l* modify the future. ,,,':,i1, ,:.| JoR GE r, u r s BoRG ES, Labyrinrhs t,rii

.
"

--i1i::

manner sible. My flrst words weren't I'd begun difterently.

J

You who

listen give me life in a ',.:'* of speaking. I won't hoid you respon.',':i,: respon - jri
' i .:,;

!!r

.,,::i_

my first words. t #irn','.,fi

these iterns 'Cn the surface', at least, the document listing outfrt' a swinging Press, EIse Something The is a catalogue of ,ln fact, however,, it may be one of their offerings, for all School of I know : The New york Direct-Mai1 Adveriising about' read to lively are Literature. In any case, their wares fiction-writing in conversation and make for interesting Somebody-9{-other's classes, to. ."r*pI", wheie we discuss novel-in-a-box assembled randomly unbound, a very
W ak-e ""prginated, an<i the desiirUlfity of printing Finnegans

on

oH

r{ B A R T H, Lost

in the

,t_!:

Fur: F/ouse

..r

the

I want to discuss three things more or less together : fl.st,,, ,rii questions raised by the new inteimedia ,.6r; '';til -old seccnd, some aspects of the Argentine writer Jorge Luisi,'1lt Borges, whom I gi-eatly admire; third, some piotJssional ,,,1i+ concerns of my own, related to these other matters ,nd ,,-1* having to do with what I'm calling 'the _ literature of,r ,,ii( e@ibility' - 0r, more chicfr,'ffi-, e{fraust tion' I don't mean anything so tired as the '-;#; subject of physical, rnoral, or intellectuaf decadence, only
some
,'ii:,+j

long roller-towel. it', e art,and the area of -'happenings' and their than it is to rnak -uiuy of discussing aesthetics, really; illustratkin is mainry or less valid and interesting points more 'dramatically' ing and the definltion of its ierms and att about the nature of
easier
genres.

,rd sociabler to talk technique

media' arts is their tendeicy (noted even to eliminate nor only the traditional audience
uPPryhggd

the 'interone conspicuous thing, for exlmple, -about magazine) by Life

-'tryg

US-a*"g:-art often the 'cas!, -4-.1!. lenvironment rnusic iin't interragq q9

audtence ls

*alryffie

That a great many Western artisti foru have quarrelled vrith received deflnitiorrs of aitistic-niedia,,,', genres, and forms goes without saying : pop ayt, dramatic and musical 'happenings', the whole iange ^of intermedia' or 'mixed-meanrt urt, bear recentest witness to the tradition ,:,' oJ rebelling against Tradition. A catalogue I received some i, time ago in the mail, for example, advertises such items es,,l Robert Fillicu's Ample Food for Stupid Thought, a box fuil of postcards on which are inscribed ;apparently meaningf"r; ,.. questions', to be mailed to whomerei ihe puichaser juiges ',: them suited for; Ray Johnson's pcper Snaki, u collection"of .,
,,:

gg*lbilitipr=

b.y__r,o_.ropa+r

n r,

*"rffitiffi;fiorion
scious ,g.ri

grem,,l

pair.i.',

of-rhearrisTT the Aristotelian conthe who achieves with technique a1d. cunning uncommon with endowed one words' artistic effect; in other disciplined that talent, who has moreover developed and notion on aristocratic an It's endowment into virtuosityseems eager to West democratic the wtrich it, of the face author of older have done with; not only the 'omniscient' artist' has been controlling the of idea ,*ty tfr" flctioh, but
cond,emned

\ Yw+trrso"ali,-"bei' EHffim i'reb \ ffithat

4',.
u*
inspiration
J-.4F

,s poliiicallv

reactio r,ary , even fascist"

requires
rar

_t_epi

of-ffi

the f amou s Albright-Kn ox

72

Vhe Novel Today

it

collection, a few blocks from my house in Buffalo, like a liveiy conveisation for the most part, but was on the whole more impressed by the jugglers and acrobats at Baltimore's old Hippodrome, where I used to go every time they changed shows: genuine vrrfuosi doing things that anyone can dream up and discuss but almost no one can do. I suppose the distinction is between things worth remarking - preferably over beer, if one's of my generation - and things worth doing. 'somebody ought to make a novel with scenes that pop up, like the old children's books,' one says, with the implication that one isn't going to bother doing
oneself.

v5 The Literature ot Exhousilon locate I',d category artist. In the first ,. technically up-to-date for better or worse urite not as if .,, all those ,rorllirt, who thlf:ti:yTf:: , the twentieth century didn't exist' but as if existed lnota bene that of the last sixty yeals or so hadn't done; it's dismaying to tWo-thirds than *o." our Century', Dostoer-skifollowing :t-T:*:I see so many of our lvriters

'..

iii

I would to add that this least important attribute may be nevertheless essential. trn any case, to be technically our of date is likely to be a genuine defect : Beethoven's Sixth symphony or the Chafires cathedral if executed today would be merely embarrassing. A good many current
is the least important attribute of a writer, though

in history do change. I sympathize with a remark attributed to Saul Bellow, that to be technically up to date
However, art and its forms and techniques live
an,C certainly

have

or Flaubert or Balzac, when the real and succeed. not e'en Joyce seerns to me to be how to and Kafka an-d Jol.ce Kafka, but those who,ve succeeded' irr..rr). second the In ow-n are now in the evenings of their of mine in such folk ,, an artist-neighbour category sometimes in ^,* Bufiaro wrro fashions dead v/innie-the-poohs sand and with stufied oilcloth of out monumental scale irnpaledonst,teso'h'ngUythe.lttk'lnthethirdbelong is as hip as any the few peopte vrhose "?titti. thinking to manag",-l'otutheless French rr.rur-rrovelist's, but who our still-human hearts speak eloquentl,'- u"g ;-*"'ly:-:t have always doue' Of and cond-itions, as the great artrsts that I know of are specimens iivin* two of the finest
these,

technical questton

novelists write turn-of-the-century-type novels, only in more or less mid-twentieth-century language and about contemporary people and topics; this makes them considerably less interesting (to me) than excellent writers who are also technic ally contemporary : Joyce and Kafka, for instance, in

oniy contemporaries of Beckett and Borges, i,rsi about^the ,"itr, the 'oId masters' mentionabre my reading acquaintance unexciting historl'- of

their time, and

in

Borge. The intermedia arts, I'd say, tend to be intermediary too, between the traditional realms of aesthetics on ttre one hand and artistic creation on the other; I think the wise artist and civilian will regard them with quite the kind and degree of seriousness with which he regards good shoptalk: he'll listen carefully, if non-committally, and keep an eye on his intermedia coileagues, if only the corner of his eye. They may very possibly suggest something usable in the making or understanding of genuine works of contemporary
atr"

ours, Samuel Beckett and Jorge Luis'

of twentieth-century fl;il.. In the pub[shers' Frize' literary awards, the ry6r International indeel' exception h"pplis- a -tho" t'*-o is that in shared by Beckett ^rrd 6orgs, about ,hi"i; one of the modern Yfinal solutions' at least felt an age of ultimacies *a weaponT to theolog)'' the from ultimacies, in everything history of socleq", celebrated. dehumanizatiln of ^the and deals "td' refiects \1a)'s separate in the novel - their lvork and thematically' ?s' for with ultimacy, both techniiall,y its d'ilTerent manner' Cne
its s)-mptomatic worth' notices, by the \lray, for whatever end' Borges is tr-t1jlt' the at that Joyce was virturlly blind musew6e'
sentences through

example, Finn egans Waie doesin

mute' so, and Beckett has beconne virtualllhavingprcgressedfrommarvellouslyconstructedEnglish to the unterser and terser French ones
prose $rntactical, unpunctuated
si}ence aS well
of-

Comment c'est and 'ulti-

I want to discuss a little here, Jorges Luis Borges, illustrates well the difference between a technically oldfashioned artist, a technically up-to-date civilian, and a
The rnan

mately,towordlessmimes.onemighte-xtrapolateatheore afte*u, consists. of tical course for Beckett; langu;;", is Still Communlca. aS ,o.,,,a, and ,h'" *ime

tion-,thatnineteenth-centuryidea',aYalestudentonce

74

The Novel Today

The Literature of. th;'t'?1

-'1;
:.1tr.

Exhaustion
novel"

75

snarled

language of action consists of rest as well as movement, and..'i.:u flgures still aren't altogether ultirnate. How about an emp ty,'

at me - but by the language of action- But

Cornposes

several chapters

of Cervantes's

obile, ;,,.10:

Arsene says in Watt, 'and you will hear my voice no more., Only the silence Molloy speaks of, 'of which the universe is made'. After which, I add on behalf of the rest of us, it might be conceivable to rediscover validly the artilices of language and literature - such far-out notions as grammar, punctuation eyen characterization ! Even plot ! - if one goes about it the right way, aware of what one's predecessors have been up to. Now J. L. Borges is perfectly aware of all these things. Back in the great decades of literary experimentalism he was associated with Prisma, a 'muralist' magazine that published its pages on walls and billboards; his later Labytinths and Ficciones not only anticipate the farthest-out ideas of The something Else press crowd not a difficult thing to do - but being marvellous works of art as well, . illustrate in a simple way the difference between the foct of aesthetic ultimacies and their artistic use. What it comes to is that an artist doesn't merely exemplify an ultimacy; he employs it. Consider Borges's srory 'pierre Menard, Author of the

his crowning work, his 'last word'. what a convenient corner to paint yourself into ! 'And now I shall finish,' the valet
cease

necessarily and inextricabty the background againsi which ,-I ta-, Being et cetera; for Beckett, at this point in ni, career, to

of the actors; 'we have our exits and our entranies,; and so even that would be imperfectly ultimate in Beckett's fl;i, case. Nothing at all, then, I suppose : but Nothingness is , 't.,ij
''

silent stage, then, or blank pages (an ultimacy ,lr"ray ".::i attained in the nineteenth century by tha t avont-gardist, if '';$ East Aurora, New York, Elbert Hubbard, in his Essay on '',i=+ silence) - a 'happening' where nothing happens, like irg"'., t.., 4' ss" performed in an empty hall z gur dramatic com- -.ii ,.ij consists. of the absence as_ weil as the presenee T11l:rtign
. -::-.;'i

lvienard.'s

trt is a revelation [Borges's narrator tells us] to cotnpare Don Quixote lvith Cervantes's. The latter, for example, wrote (part one, chapter nine):

c truth,

deposit oyy

whose mother is history, rivatr of time, of deeds, rvitness of the past, exernplar and

adviser

to the present, the future's counsellor.

Written in the seventeenth Century, written by the 1ay genius' Cervantes, this enumeration is a mere rhetorical : fraise of history. Menard, or the other hand, writes
o

to create altogether would be fairly meaningful :

o truth, whose mother is history, ri'ral of

ory of
deeds, ivitness

time,
and

',i",'

't,
"
,,

deposit

of the past, ex'emplar

adviser

to

the present, the future's counsellor"

History, the mather oi truth : the idea is astounding. Menard, a contemporan' of William James, does not deflne history as an enquiry into reality but as i'r's
ongl-n . o
o

Et cetera. Now, this is an intenesting

i<iea,

of considerable

i\

I
\

intellectual validitY- t Sixrh were compoied toEaijiworfilE-e .a$ emb-arrtsqPe95.

u;r

hte; *rr...ffia W"ffirr* "i

Jat

have then potentially,

for

atrd
better

kind of signiflcance of warhol's campbell's

Workrcf art is being J?rod,uced- rnsteao oI a worK Llr uulnL]e r-rtulE ore--b'e-mGe art rnd fh commenT wouK[---tfiererore and_lhe_ironic ayt, e direr-f]w .ln the genfe genre anCl nlstofy OI [ne arL LILait r-'rr LrtrOn directly-pn--the difeCtly

urse, to make the valid re-conlpose the Sixth eYen need.n't one point intellectual Syrnphony iny more than Menard really needed to rer
create the eu ixote.

: the hero, an utterly sophisticated turn-of-thecentury French Symbolist, by an astounding effort of imagination, produces - not copies or imitates, mind, but
Quixote'

It would've been sufficient for lvlenard to hav e attiibuted the nover to himself in order to have a new work of art, fronn the intellectual point of view' Indeed, in several stories Borges plays with this very i'dea, and I Can readily imagine Beckett's next novel, for example, as

-:.i+r;.

j_Ji,.:;

j..1.;"ilj.titiil-}+-i

1
,

T6
aJUl! I

The N ovel TodaY

"

[,

The Literature

of

Exhaustion

77

i;;;"id;;" ;;ffi;";;.

just as Nabokov's last was th.*.i:lo1?1.:::' ,"".tit"a translation of Pushkin' I myself !1..1""-:'T:I: aspired to write Burton's.versi?1:f,l\:-.:i,?:.I11,*i the like, in twelve volumo-,3"1 ff.t. with appendices and I lt fffL^+ ^ needn't."19" Y1t: purposes_ jl^-Y}l L'" i","ir".i,l

rom
vq

lones,

i H,ifi;!],iffi?h;l*il;tin"'io.)"'rion,uqbar,orbis tir" iascinating-Encycloi i".ii"rl *f,. merely allud.es tohim t:H i one of the first rank' makes what artist; an ts paedia, iiriir,', intellectually pro: that of combination the is iit * Kaflra,
insight, poetic power, and E iffii;i#"J; ;;;;;;; E lffi"i;il#ffi;;hi';;;;;;?"n.,itio.,whichwourd in any century but

speaking flctional and would f,nd a read), publisher in l"{ew

Johnson Administration

,f t*

work of literature, tl:-':llf.'j G perhaps the.rrnnecessitv. E difficulty, ifr"*" which is ihe ur.,intnnr *-*+iotia artistic.-victorY' His "f literature' of works *.itl"s ,"i E ".igi"ur r tirat,l,.^.?:1?1,: 1l-5"1f""f,::j"11;:l ri(e, E human new accomplish ;e-;^pilyt it against itself to-r--,r^ E 'anrarr ---^+;^^ rr,r,-.o#opo,d'.
remarkable and orignal
rr YY.vr\' ,i"'r.l--il

t ffi"J gone without saying, I suppose, E ;;;; '"ii", long ago, incidentally, in a foctno-te to a scholarlv ih;h";;-i say, is inteilectuallv-serious-::.:::Pti1f": $ a metaphvsicat^l:l1t: urie"rial, I betieve it ott.. .r,r.u.t"rdti. id""t, **t bf E of than an aesthetic nature. But the important .qi*-::,"tb:::: [ "uil""'rTitii?n.iirrJii"i'ii,l,'frn" ."r* ,rpon a perfect soiio au,urn. reminiscent ;#;i ir*^tOo.godoesn'tattributethe Quixote.lol'T:"llji1tl $ it3#r'r.tt-..atization: the actuil case of a book called L;;;;#p"se it like Pierre Menard; instead' H Y:n,l $ 'r#'ini" i*iiitois, alluded io in Browne's Retigio Medici
by Robert Rauschenberg! D^*-^^i-

might ipend loyer--leeJ) $"u.':11-s,-s-'i'i-':{: E. i"*.""ie's Wueherins H9i!!ti' or the

tmpostors is a non-existent The Three -;;;;A;;'ptr.o. d*rw,ri uLrrv! vrqv."''* blaspfiemous treatise against Moses' Christ' and Mohammed' ;fr:il t;;;;;";;;;;.h;;;t".y;;; widelv held to exist, v11:

"J,il,rh;; t"t*ryi,fj_l*:i1l r:*l*:'nt [1]t*"[xtrt',ffiiff",it:lf rtrTil#,ffi:,[s,*:ffi.,'J,'J'.: j., tr,. eishteenrh centuri.. In homelier t:ft^1'-l [. ;;;;;;;'p..i oi tirt old analogv. ,r;"';;;il, Jqrv B i.H"ri:irTli, out the bath water 'E a matter of every moment throwing g' '-:1:^*-urrur' work appearea wiit' a forged date of ':,i8-":1-:1: -:-- .L^ L^L. -'fl".1il:'##"#"tl'.?i,:Jtfi.?X3ll; accomprishment js .E 'p"'o" he seems to have read i.'n.",I"#':"'1'.1'.*i5f; [:;l't m",,tioo this work, as E ll'1l#*1*Xi*'*3;: ,,T;lf:r*fl :t-*T:ilt#i,"','"1-f,:iie',Tt'jIfr,};::il anthologized story.'rlon, tliil:""'5;of' his' rn ract'
a

T .*31.1I-':':d:^--''Y-"3 E ilIk}offir,""ri,,

l"ce e"istea. commentatT.' ",,,.ib,::1_t rv fi;-rr;;; er Pietro Aretino' Giordano Bruno'

ously

to

Boccaccio'

and

onl,e.o*.'..included,

his most orten

every aspect

Browne E *::","4 T;ffi:'n:rl;1,#*'l:-'fffl,"f?;.i,ril;.Juii?ol'.",ii ur ftOrr, of rrurr' Uqbar, Orbis Tertius'declares at the t^L^-^+^ i+o E the society of scholars wtro et*},1t3,]1; invention of a secret
Encyclopaedia-or

:::"*::'1.?.'Y.*'lt;ff*H:,11':*t,y:i"Sitt::; is*a particular ravourire or

in a surreptiiiols

:,il1*h:T'#Jli.';'ffi:::il:r.r'&=1:{i[* n'; Borges teui

;i;;;;J;il

E H:l-'"'ur enq:"rt'uioi Jhit,^liT: E Tlijn (Yl1t fl:li:iiti^y^-".t1"^*-:iti# E ".. English

eocyclopaedia-

and French and mere Sp-anish_will disappear

iX,i,:iliffi;;#,,fi." ilurit'ioisio"ne's urn Burial ::ru:ll*;*:U;';*':f'f;i:'.':":,}#x;iTf#T speak- f flre, metaphoricallv 'Roises's that neither tire utgebra nor the etc'' I flnd nt* 3 t:*-'I-5-I^1 on rereading Tl6n"'that'the ,f' (Moreover, ..'i+lrn,r rhe lltorct Borges's other' the -^--,r+ without result ^ther ,.hieve"this ;;ld eccentric American id, 'l' it last in wasn't vear: t*':?t it t"[? to 't algebra is what l'rn .or,rilJJ,,; h;*-1lglbra ,i: {, *a'aiii"n talk about than fire-but anv intellectual *o* ffiE"'i *'::f:"'Jl",,iluiliutT,,,u?['J1:'';.#?,,10' that 'rhe work wiir make no pact with the li][f$]:fflJ:x#:ffir.n,J|:[H:,?r:ii]:"'rT':,],:*',[, christ'') impostor Jesus ;;;k i" l, a m*"".

f':,1d.:r^'-:*:T"tj#1':T:

fffi.ifiilffi# r*:iilr**;ii:r,rdT'l; E t ["J';il#TJ;i, ,? ;;;.; AG;.di^'

]tansiation

itself are not artists, at"r"gt',fr.i.

"t--6,

TS

The Novel TodaY

The Literature

of Exhaustion

79

This 'contamination of reality by dream', 2s Borges calis it, is one of his pet themes, and commenting upon suctl contaminations is one of his favourite fictional devices. Like many of the bmt such devices, it turns the artist's mode or fott* into a rnetaphor for his concerns, as does the diary-ending of Portrait of the Artist os a Young Man or the cyclical construction of Finnegans Wake. In Borges's CaSe, the story 'Tlon', etc., for example, is a real piece of imagined reality in our world, analogous to those Tlonian

is iust the f.orm of the story but the tact of the story symbolic; 'the medium is the message'Moreover, like all of Borges's work, it illustrates in other of its aspects my subject : how an artist may paradoxically_ turn the felt ultimacies of our time into material and meanS for his work - poradoxically because by doing so he transcends what had appeared to be his refutation, in the same way that the -yrti. who transcends finitude is said to''be enabled to live, spiritually and physic ally, in the finite world. Suppose yor'r* a rvriter by vocation - a 'printoriented bistafd', as the Mcluhanites call us - and you feet, for example, that the novel, if not nalTative literature
general

artiflcts called hronir, which imagine themselves into existence. In short, it's a paradigm of or metaphor for itself; not

Ly , if not the printed word altogether,- h?t by t-lit f,or. of the world iust about shot its bclt, 2s Leslie Fiedler and others maintain. (I'm inclined to agree, with rservations and hedges. Literary forms certainly have histories alq historical coniingencies, and it may well be that the nov.*l'I time as a majoi art form is uP, as the 'times' of classical tragedy, grand opera, or the sonnet Sequence Came to be' Nq +eqessaRr-saliss fgl -alarm in thistoF-?i$, frpVS:lists,- and- nne-\May-. tq handle,such afeeHag - Whether historicallY* immaterial to me-t if seeffi persists tfr enough writeis and critics feel apocalyptical_ about it, their

feelirig becomes a considerable cultural fact, Iike the feeling

that Western civilization, or the world, is going to end rather soon. If you took a bunch of people out into the desert and the world didn't end, you'd come home shame-

The Literatute

of

Exhoustion

recheck every semester or

so')

\
:

Now Borges (whom Someone once vexed.ly it's an inventing) [ iriterested in the 6o2nd night because upon back turned story-within-the-story the of instance threefold: is instancm {Ilt': itself, and his interest in such as he himself declares, they disturb us metaphysically become readers when the characters in a work of flction of the reminded \Me're in, they're f,ction the of or authors

a accused me of

1"*;;i ana liierary history has are . ;;if;;frrurt"a the possibilities of noveltv' His ficciones postscripts to ,-{i but texts, imaginary to footnotes ,lnoi-fit literature' e real corPus of literature' tfr. t r .. - - all 13it r ErdLrt'' to. and relation i g gives resonance arlu This premise glves iu' i -i^ ^+^*i* in his stories i U f principal ima[.r. tn. facing mirrors,that recur characl?T^' his that f,oubles Th; are a dual ,igrrrrrr. 15:',,il.,,'', l':#t".

the vierv that intel;#11;t""t;;;;;;icul1, i; sussests been Baroque, and has pretty

',
,

;; ;ilr;*', i**ri[

that

gys.rv,ma$..

ixi-uq$*qdy*" I I
-l ^^^^ :Liac'carz

a literary Second, the 6oznd night imuno, and other almost all are as infinitum, in regressus the of illustration Scheherezade's : Borges's principrl -lr*uit,images and, motifs- Third, of the versions other Borges's li[e accidental -image or exhaustion' the of infinitum, is an
reqressus

1f,Ti tt#ffi ::i;,"T,,fffi :trfi;###ffi 'is folk.

a illusrrate Browne's poinirto call Browne ffiffid eotso- .Everv writer"' l-"]F,tt"11:"i: H:S:rll il;;";; precursors.') Borges's favourite il #ii;,"t;;3r-rrir Gwn t thg Histrio:es - I thlll:,,,l ;*rffi;;.,,i heretical t".i who believe thar repetition is them ;d;.'ilr.nred i- ,-l,Ao.t - --:^:^.,-I'. therefore.,live x'*ry','rrrurv i" 'i: ^1- history andffi;iur*' * -']:i',t-li' other in :f:: ;-:--:: .-iro. t commtl
a -^r .l-!--l^--l

,tL*pted exhaustion, of possibilities - in this case literary possibilities - and so we return to our main subject v{hat makes Borges's stance, if you like, more interesting premise with to me than, say, NJUotov's or Beckett's is the of one of his words the in hterature; which h" ;tpi*c6o in originality to claim editors , 'foi [Borgesl no one has
literature; of pre-existing of the spirit, translators and annotators brief comments to-write inclination archetypes'.' rn6 his overtly to on imaglnary books : for one to attempt to add

ii

^"-**^ the lices thelio'p,rtg" the future of r -t it/^\ ^-lJ to ^-rloin order the *-orld of possibilities the .-rraust ili'rr% bring its end nearerr--_ CervantS' r ls The writer he most often mentions, after the plal'lvright on his shakespeare; in one piece he imagines
deathbed asking God

all writers are more or less faithful

amanuenses

loriginal' literature by even so much as a conthe sum of stor/, not to mention a novel, would be too short ventional

presumptuous, too naive; literature has been {ol* ,lolg itself be since. A librarian's point of view I And it would pa-ssionately lively, a of part too presumptuous, if it weren't
against relevant *ltrpfrysical oirion and styty employed

from having been everyone and no one; God replies has dreamed the He either; one no is He that whirlvrind shakespeare' Homer's worl<i like shakespeare, and. including on the beach l{enelaus O-iyttry, ttr" it IV Book in story 2f to Borges : profouldly appeals at pharos, tackling Proteus, guises. of rgality' while ihe h; ; il is Proteus Bhe,rsts^ in on"1#ii-;zrgi' Achilles of "'rr', paradgx Zenc's f-ast. holds him order to ambush infinit'um which and the Tortoise embodies a regressus in pointing out history' philosophicat Borges carries through Hurne forms' of theory that Aristotle uses it to ,ffrt" Piato's Carroll Lewis effect' and cause of to refute the possibility to refute the io refute syllogistic deduction, william James the general refute to Bradley and' prrrrg*, notion of temporal

tt p".*it tii* to be one and himself' the

##i;ri-

feu-ffiffiiffititv

8z

The Novel TodaY

possibility of logical relations; Borges himself uses it, citing Schopenhauer, ai evidence that the world is our dream, our id.ea, in which 'tenuous and eternal crevices of unreason' can be found to remind us that our creation rs false, or at
least fictive. The infinite library of one of the most popular storie is an image particularly pertinent to the literature of exhausoi Bibel' houses every possible combination; ttre tiUr ^ry characters and spaces, and- thus every tion of alphabetical possible book and statement, including your and my ref'!'to* and yindications, the his tory of the actual future, the history of every possible future, and, though he doesn't

E5 The Literoture of Exhaustioti mot that shakespeare,s heroic metamorphoses culminate merely in a theophanl- but in an apotheqtt'

oth., *orrd - since, as in Lucretius's unithe number of elements, and so of combinations, is flnite'(though very large), and the number of instances of iike each eiement and .o*birration of elements is infinite, the library itself. That biings us to his favourite image of all lhe labyrinth' and to rny point. Labyrinths is the name of his most sub stantial translated volume, and the only full-length stud{-"i Borges in English, by Ana Maria Barrenechea, is called plaEe Bor"ges the Laiyrinth-irlaker. {_lr}ylinth, ,fter ,,LL..E a rectioE' frr
every imaginable

mention

it, the encyclopaedias not only of Tlon but of

the and Theseu, in the Cretan labyrinth beconres in the end is to aptest image of Borges after all- Distressing as the fact ui liberal b.*o.rats, the commonality, alas, will always lose their way and their souls; it's tkle chosen rernnant, the Virtuoso, the Thesean hero, who, confronted with Baroque reality, Baroque history, the Baroque state of his art, need tham not rehearse its possibilities to exhaustion, any more TIon Borges needs actually to write the E,ncyclopaedia of aware be only need FIe Babel. of o, th. books in the Library

Now,notjust,nl,oldbodyisequippedforthislabour,

,*rrl,

of their existence or pos-sibility, acknowledge thern' and as with the aid of very speciar gifts - as extraordinary New
through the ,nuru to the accomplishment of his work'

saint- or hero-hood and not likely to be found in The York Correspondence School of Literature - 80 straight

t freedom. ffiri-urities : illo*, in fact, the legendary Theseus is non-Baroque; thanks to Ariadne's thread he can take a shortcut through the labyrinth at Knossos. But Menelaus on the beach at Pharos, for example, is genuinely Baroque in the Borgesian spirit' and illustrates a positive artistic rnorality in the literature of exhaustion. Ho is not there, after all, for kicks (any more than Borges and Beckett are in the flction racket for" their

in thi, .ar*) .*tnrbpdi"3, .rrr-d ;}9I like Theseus's - must be exhausted before one reaches the

il]r't

defeat and death,

or victory and

health)

Sea
;;if:?t

world,

r"

H+glelaus ig .Iosr.

:"H]".-th"

O14,Me]1.

es-so

eXtOft d.1re-efl6lmfgm flI1-n Wllelr rruLcus rsLLrrrrr

one recalls that the aim of the Histriones is to get history done with so that Jesus may come again the sooner, and

tr, salvation as its object -

lEI-Ig-Pa{ ffiirue'

"i-

th*