Borges Mirror

Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos
Wor(l)ds Through the Looking-Glass: Borges's Mirrors and Contemporary Theory Author(s): BEATRIZ URRACA Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Otoo 1992), pp. 153-176 Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27762982 . Accessed: 28/04/2013 00:55
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BEATRIZURRACA
Wor(l)ds
Through the Looking-Glass: Borges's Mirrors and Contemporary Theory

la figura del espejo en dos cuentos de Borges, "Tl?n, a trav?s de teor?as Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" y "La biblioteca de Babel" contempor?neas sobre el espejo, la duplicaci?n, y la representaci?n en literatura y filosof?a. En particular, se utiliza el concepto de mise en abyme de Lucien D?llenbach, el "reverso" del espejo en el pensamiento de Derrida seg?n lo desarrolla Rodolphe Gasch?, y la semi?tica del espejo, la enciclopedia y el laberinto de Umberto Eco. Este marco conceptual, cuyo origen se encuentra en Este estudio examina la obra misma de Borges, nos permite una relectura del espejo como un instrumente que duplica fielmente, sin invertirni deformar, una realidad que nuestra propia mente es incapaz de percibir como id?ntica a si misma. Como si fuera la otra cara de una misma moneda, el lenguaje se pr?senta como un medio que inevitablemente desfigura la realidad. Ya que ?ste es el ?nico medio, de que los seres humanos disponemos para el conocimiento aunque imperfecto, del mundo, la "diferencia" se introduce como una b?squeda de significado.
Mirrors
should reflect a little images. Jean Cocteau
before throwing back
The figure of themirror in Borgess writing has inspired not only the work of critics inside and outside Latin America, but also the conceptual systems elaborated by many contemporary U.S. and European literary theorists and philosophers concerned with the problems of duplication, reflexivity,and new perspectives for the reading representation. These have, in turn,provided of Borges's stories.We will base our argument on two stories, "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "La biblioteca de Babel." Here, the mirror gathers the innerworkings of the narratives into one symbolic motif, according towhich or reflection. a everything can be read as result of duplication, multiplication, An analysis of the two stories based on an exploration of the multiple functions of themirror figure as mise en abyme will serve a twofold purpose: to reconstruct Borgess theories of perception and representation, and to read
Vol XVII, 1 OtofiO 1992
REVISTA CANADIENSE DE ESTUDIOS HISPANICOS
154
Borges's stories in the light of some of the contemporary work on mirrors in literature, of which his own writings are the point of departure.1 First, it is important to clarifywhat ismeant by the termmise en abyme and the different kinds of structures that it involves. Lucien D?llenbach defines it as "any aspect enclosed within a work that shows a similaritywith the work that contains it" (8). He distinguishes three elementary types of mise en abyme, according to whether they function at the level of the utterance, the enunciation, or the whole code. The first has two sub-types: fictional - "an intertextual r?sum? or quotation of the content of a work" - and textual, which reflects the narrative "in its literal aspect as an (55) organization of meaning" (94). The function of the mise en abyme of the enunciation is to "bring into focus the agent and the process of production itself" by making present any aspect of the production and/or reception of the text (75). The third type, also called metatextual, "reveals [the text's]way of functioning - but without being mimetic of the text itself* (98, my emphasis). These types rarely occur in a pure form, though often one will predominate over the others.
and One Nights, among others. The work within the work, the character reading about himself, the storyteller telling her own story inwhat can lead to the infinite regression ofmirrors facing each other, themirror in the text itself are narrative strategies whose endless possibilities Borges drew upon time and again. But we must not lose sight of the fact that Borges is primarily a writer, whose objectives differ from those of a literary theorist (Mignolo 297). D?llenbach's work, based on texts by this and other authors who have used mise en abyme, allows us to reread those texts from an abstract perspective, to distinguish the types and functions of each type of mise en abyme, and to reconstruct the theoretical assumptions behind them.
D?llenbach's typology, the most comprehensive of the uses of mise en is abyme, inspired by much that Borges wrote on the subject.2 This literary device fascinated Borges to the point of employing profusely all three types in isolation and in combination in his fiction, and of devoting some critical reflections to the topic in his discussion of Don Quixote and The Thousand
The theme or concept that designates the text en abyme is also discussed by Derrida as an illusion that refers only to the text's representational function and "not to its representation of something outside the text or its self-representation." For him, the mirror embodies the image of the representation of a representation,which "keeps the difference endlessly open and thus prevents any ultimate self-representation or self-presence of the text" (Gasch? 291). We shall return later to this notion of the functioning of reflection,which is not incompatible with D?llenbach's, and which is found in Borges's use ofmirrors not merely as a duplication of thework, but also as an illustration of his theory of representation.
155
D?llenbach distinguishes a fourth type, which, although also a mise en abyme of the utterance, determines the ways in which all the other kinds function within the text. This transcendental mise en abyme, or "fiction of
origin," reflects "what simultaneously originates, motivates, institutes and unifies [the narrative], and fixes in advance what makes it possible" (101), standing in reciprocal mimetic relationship with the narrative. In these two stories by Borges this pivotal point, which exercises the utmost control over meaning and every function of meaning, is realized in the mirror. "The mirror in the text,"D?llenbach's other name for mise en abyme, acquires a a figure that indicates special meaning in these two stories. Rather than reflectionmetaphorically, what we first encounter when we start reading is indeed a looking glass. The controlling role of themirror begins with its strategic placement in the opening page of each story as a "threshold" that must necessarily be crossed ifwe are to enter Borges's fantastic, imaginary worlds. In "La biblioteca de Babel" themirror is symbolically located in the doorway into the Library,which is also the entrance into the story; in "Tl?n" themirror ismentioned in the very first line, and its presence, through a process of association of ideas, triggers the narration. But the passage through the mirror not only takes us into a fictional world; it forces us to observe the laws thatmake reflection work. In this respect, Rodolphe Gasch?'s concept of the "tain" of themirror develops what idea of is only suggested in Borges's fiction, and complements D?llenbachs mise en abyme insofar as both terms indicate theways inwhich the technique of reflection functions within the narrative: mirror is to look at itsreverseside, at the dull side doubling the To look throughthe
mirrors outside specular surface play, in short, one at the can tain of the mirror read the "system" ... On this lining of the that of reflection, of the infrastructures
mirrors play and determines the angles of reflection.(Gasch? 238) commands the According to Gasch?, the tain of themirror exposes the imperfections and limits of reflection because itallows an inside vision ofwhat makes reflection possible. To read Borges always demands a skilful exercise in looking at both sides of themirror. Its effectsdazzle us, yet its innerworkings are also in full view. However, themagic of Borges's mirrors will not be diminished by the uncovering of the functional pattern inscribed on their tain, for this is precisely what opens up the endless possibilities ofmeaning and what lends coherence to theworlds on either side of the looking-glass. The threshold mirror, then, forces the reader to transgress its surface. In "La biblioteca de Babel," once we have transgressed the doorway mirror, the
"biblioteca" and "universo" are used
words
longer sure what ismeant. A similar confusion of wor(l)ds
interchangeably
so we
are
no
on either side of
156
themirror takes place in "Tl?n," where a double transgression complicates we cross the line between our reality and things further.On the one hand, on the other, between Borges's fictional world - the framing Borgest fiction; scene inwhich Borges and Bioy Casares are discussing a nonexistent country - and the embedded narrative constituted by the description of that country. The effect reaches total confusion when transgression becomes possible in reverse. Borges makes his readers cross from one side of themirror to the other, until we do not know which side we are on. Our world3 is first reflected in the form of Tl?n, and at the end of the storywe are led to believe that it is beginning to resemble Tl?n. Does thismean that our world has become an image of an image of itself?JaimeAlazraki's answer is that H?n es al comienzo de la narraci?n un planeta ficticio;hacia el finalentendemosque
es nuestra nuestra realidad, realidad, e inversamente, no es menos que nuestra realidad, (Alazraki lo que 1976: hemos 195) como ficticia que H?n.
su realidad definido
The need to explain this image of our world resembling its own double as found in Borgess work - particularly in his discussion of the "self - iswhat prompts swallowing" structure of The Thousand and One Nights Katherine Hayles to invoke Baudrillard's concept of the simulacrum: no longer serving to anchor the At some point the original disappeared altogether, Then the chain of theseproliferating signifiers. copies "imploded" into a new order
of non-referential tion. Baudrillard signification calls and this the that operated "hyper-real," as real as anything else. by displacement a theatre where (262)4 rather than representa everything is at once
non-referential
Yet, rather than merely indicating the disappearance of the reality that inspired the copy, Borges is pointing toward the fictional, illusory character of both. Umberto Eco uses the phrase "threshold phenomenon" to describe the mirror in Lacanian terms as the boundary between the imaginary and the symbolic, and to explain mans experience with mirrors as one "on the threshold between perception and signification" (203, 210).5 The latter explanation illustrates what is happening in Borges's stories, since at this point in the narrative, the doubling leads us to believe thatwe are someone else, that the world we live in and the world we read about have traded places on either side of themirror. This property of themirror as threshold, which allows us to cross back and forth between reality and its fictional representation, is also the primary function of the transcendental mise en abyme, insofar as it raises the. question of how the work "thinks of its
157
relationship to the truth and behaves with regard tomimesis" (D?llenbach 101). The fictional mise en abyme, which duplicates the narrative at the referential level, provides thework with a guide to its structure and meaning: a means of interpretation. According to D?llenbach, when it occurs at the beginning of the narrative, it reflects the story to come, which is in turn limited to playing out that initial reflection. This technique, of course, "programs" theway inwhich the story is read and interpreted by the reader, and affords the author the utmost control. Control is precisely what Borges with a mirror, and immediately afterwith is afterwhen he opens "Tl?n" first the description of an imaginary novel that the narrator is discussing with his
friend:
Bioy Casares sobre
habia
cenado de una
conmigo novela en
esa
noche
y nos persona,
demor? cuyo
una
vasta
pol?mica omitiera o a unos o banal.
la ejecuci?n los hechos lectores -
primera -
narrador
desfigurara pocos
e incurriera pocos
en diversas
contradicciones, de una
que permitieran realidad atroz
a muy
lectores
la adivinaci?n
(Borges 1974:T, 431)6 This passage functions as a mirror, not of glass but of words, that produces a condensed image of the story and prepares us forwhat is also a first-person narrative, whose narrator is unreliable, and whose contradictions are the key to the understanding of the reflected reality.
such as the proliferation of incredible philosophies, Contradictions, impossible sciences, and nonexistent substantives, are the basis of Tl?n. The fictional mise en abyme mentioned above is echoed in a metatextual one, which reveals the text'sway of functioning and operates as "instructions" to enable us to read the work "in the way itwants to be read" (D?llenbach 100). The following passage thus allows us to see, through the contradictions and chaotic description of "Tl?n," the laws of a world that ismeant to reflect
ours:
Al
imagination; ahora se sabe que es un cosmos y las intimas leyesque lo rigenhan sido
formuladas, aparentes siquiera del Onceno en modo Tomo provisional. son la piedra B?steme recordar que las contradicciones los otros: tan fundamental de que existen
principio
se crey?
que
Tl?n
era
un mero
caos,
una
irresponsable
licencia
de
la
lucido y tan justo es el orden que se ha observado en ?l. (T, 435)
wants to be read as a "cosmos," not merely as a work The story, therefore, of the imagination; yet, insofar as it is a product of the imagination, it constantly directs our attention toward its inner rules and its coherence. The passage also seems to corroborate the idea that contradictions contain the
158
with themirror image. By basic clue for the identification of the referent opposing Tl?n to earth immediately after having said thatTl?n is based on contradictions, Borges draws attention to the fact thatwhat appears as an We must count on the narrators inversion is in fact an identical reflection. unreliability and read between the lines, applying to the story only its own rules and not those of our world. Similarly, the doorway mirror of "La biblioteca de Babel" offers us a sophisticated clue for the understanding of the story as a mirror in itself, which casts an identical reflection of our own universe: En el zagu?n hay un espejo, que fielmente duplica las apariencias. Los nombres suelen de ese espejo que la Biblioteca no es in inferir finita (si lo fuera realmente ^a qu? esa sonar que las superficiesbrunidas figuran y duplication ilusoria?); yo prefiero ... el infinito (B, 465) prometen textual mise en abyme is usually represented by an "emblematic - a - of the text; in Borges's case, it fabric, a work of art metaphor" coincides with the transcendental mise en abyme: themirror in the text is, simply, a mirror (D?llenbach 96-97)7 The The critics of Borges s work have explained themirror phenomenon in two classic ways. There are those who believe themirror inverts the original: "So many things are identical between, say, a person and its reflected image, that one is inclined to consider that all points are identical. Yet, face to face, as Kant makes clear, there is always an inversion" (Agheana 246). A very common reading is also to consider mirror images not only as inverted,but
distorted reflections of reality.For example, JaimeAlazraki has written that "La narration se estructura como un espejo concavo que proyecta una imagen aberrada del objeto reflejado" (Alazraki 1977: 81).8 These readings are all based on the fact that if the reflected image does not correspond to the original, then themirror must be imperfect. Let us for a moment observe the effect of concave mirrors in a well known episode of Valle-Inclans Luces de Bohemia. The "esperpento," a vision
of absurdity and grotesque deformation of Spanish life, is not produced by the concave mirrors as much as by a combination of the protagonist's drunkenness and near-death hallucinations. The deformation is in Max Estrellas mind, and it represents in itselfa kind of world order rather than chaos: "La deformation deja de serlo cuando esta sujeta a una matem?tica perfecta.Mi est?tica actual es transformar con matem?tica de espejo c?ncavo las normas cl?sicas" (Valle-Incl?n 253). Borgess stories also provide clues to the fact that even if themirror were concave - which it is not - it is the human mind, not themirror, that produces the distortion or the reversal necessary tomake sense of theworld.
159
However, there is also enough evidence to suggest that Borges's mirrors are plane. He never says that they are curved; instead, what we have is a statement that they faithfully duplicate appearances.9 Even though there might be a distortion anyway, the plane mirror underscores the role of the perceiving subject in the construction of the reflected image. In Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language, Umberto Eco makes the distinction between plane and curved mirrors thatmany critics of Borges seem to have over looked. Only curved mirrors - and we could add that the human retina works like one - produce a distorted, disfigured image of the referent,but plane mirrors do not even invert it:
Vertical mirrors themselves do not reverse or invert. A mirror reflects the right side
exactlywhere the right side is, and the same with the leftside. It is the observer ... man inside themirror and, looking at who by self-identification imagineshe is the wrist. But itwould be so only himself,realizes he iswearing his watch on his right
if he, the observer I mean, were the one who is inside the mirror (Je est un autreX).
On the contrary,thosewho avoid behaving as Alice, and getting into themirror, do not so deceive themselves.(Eco 205) Yet, as Barrenechea and Molloy have pointed out, we cannot avoid getting into Borges's mirrors. Both critics single out the following passage, from mirrors are supposed where Borges illustrates the sensation that InquisicioneSy to produce:
Hay que manifestar ese antojo hecho forzosa realidad de una mente: hay que mostrar
un individuo que se introduceen el cristaly que persiste en su ilusorio pais (donde hay figuraciones y colores, pero regidos de inmovible silencio) y que siente el
de no ser m?s que un simulacro que obliteran las noches y que las
bochorno
vislumbrespermiten. (Barrenechea 175;Molloy 1979: 147) Even then, there is no apparent indication within these two stories that anybody is deceived by the reflection phenomenon, or even that the lack of or identitybetween a mirror image and its original is produced by inversion ofmirror reflections distortion. While I agree with Agheana that "the infinity ... multiplies endlessly a similar but not entirely identical image" (Agheana 246), all duplications are based precisely on the fact that exact identity is case of impossible because, as the inhabitants of Tl?n demonstrated in the the nine copper coins,10 people - not the mirror - are unable to see the as identical to itself. original
The example of the nine copper coins prefigures Derrida's insistence on the exclusively representative function of the mise en abyme discussed above. He denies the existence of an originary unity, because "the reflected or
160
is also split in itself* (Gasch? 226). The double, that is, themirror reflection, brings to light the fact thatwhat we think of as an "original" cannot be apprehended except through an Other that is its representation. Human beings are unable to see the original as identical to itselfbecause there is no such identity, there can only be repetition. If "Tl?n" and "La biblioteca" appear to be distorted reflections of our own universe, we must doubled
human weakness lies in thatwhen people believe that things appear in the mirror as they really are, theydelude themselves;when things seem different, - that the distortion is they think mistakenly produced by themirror, so the image is considered untrustworthy.This way of reading the stories as an affirmation of the impossibility of self-identity is deeply embedded in their which should be imagery and in the statements made throughout the texts, understood as the rules that govern the narratives' inner workings. The inhabitants of Tl?n explained the difference between "identity" and "equali ty," the latterbeing possible through repetition which implies a doubling, and therefore a difference , the former absurdly implying that things that look alike are one and the same (T, 438). In "La biblioteca de Babel" this becomes clearer, for the library contains no two books that are exactly the same, since minute differences of even one letter,period, or comma keep repetition from becoming identity. The mise en abyme of the enunciation contributes to the reinforcement of the ideas illustrated through the textual and fictional mises en abyme. This type involves "the 'making present' in the diegesis of the producer or receiver of the narrative" (D?llenbach 75), most often through a character who is a writer or a reader. The narrator of "La biblioteca" is both a writer and a reader of his own story, who understands that there is no truthon either side of the mirror that humans are able to see.11 The fact that lamps in the Library cast an insufficient light, and that the narrator's eyes are almost
look elsewhere for the source of the distortion. According to the beginning of "La biblioteca de Babel," themirror does not reflect reality,but appear ances. Therefore, what is inside themirror is an appearance of an appear ance; what is outside is already an illusion that themirror does not distort. On the contrary, itduplicates faithfully what is already distorted by human not that which does exist except as different from itself.The perception,
incapable of deciphering his own writing, stresses the notion thatmirrors and the distorting effectsare produced by the duplicate the referentfaithfully, human eye. Being human, therefore, seems to entail the impossibility of knowledge of the world we live in. The narrator is, like the inhabitants of Plato's Cave, a prisoner of his own limited perception. From inside the mirror, we deceive ourselves into believing his vision is distorted by the dimness, yet we have no assurance thatwe ourselves are not being blinded by the light.
161 It is our eye that is interpreting th?mirror image, but themirror neither distorts nor interprets reality for us. Mirrors arouse a fear that causes us to fabricate the distortion effect as a defense. Borges says that the mirror "inquietaba" (unnerved) and "acechaba" (spied on) him and Bioy Casares,
and that theydiscovered that "los espejos tienen algo monstruoso" (T, 431). These characteristics of mirrors can now be understood in the light of the above discussion: mirrors are unnerving and monstrous precisely because they duplicate appearances faithfully,and in doing so they split the original - or its - from itself. Mirrors are also unnerving and imagined appearance monstrous because theymark the uncanny separation between the human sphere of activity and consciousness and something unfathomable, uncontrol lable, with its own laws that challenge our means of knowledge and What Borges and Bioy Casares see in themirror is an image interpretation. of themselves, so exact that they are afraid of not being able to tell the copy
from the original, afraid that theymay not be unique, or afraid that, like Herbert Ashe, they may be in fact only a mirror image without an original:12 Alg?n recuerdo limitadoymenguante de HerbertAshe, ingenierode los ferrocarriles madreselvas y en el fondo del Sur, persiste en el hotel de Adrogu?, entre las efusivas ilusorio de los espejos. En vida padeci? de irrealidad,como tantos ingleses; muerto,
no es siquiera el fantasma que ya era entonces. (T, 433)
nothing because they are inconceivable within the limits of the human mind. The Library - and the story itself- is repeated in the books it contains: one book is "a labyrinth of letters"with one "reasonable line," another contains "notions of combinatory analysis" - the story is also the combination of twenty-five symbols of language, in another the lettersMCV are, like the same form. Yet because difference is hexagons, a regular repetition of the what accounts formeaning exact repetitions of the lettersMCV do not have one, and this book "cannot correspond to any language" (B, 467). All the suggested explanations of the meaning of these letters imply allowing for different values, cryptography, or anything thatwill introduce a difference.
Fear and the limitations of human perception cause us to imagine the distortions of mirror reflections as a defense from the terrible truth that is our inability to see the absolute truth.But these negative traits also equip us with the necessary baggage tomake sense of our world through difference. By means of a series of textual and metatextual mises en abyme in "La biblioteca de Babel," Borges dismisses exact duplications as meaningless and impossible; even though the mirror may achieve them, they count for
This unreality of themirror reflection, as we will discuss later, corresponds to a function of language that Jaime Rest has called "esa aptitud que tienen los nombres personales de borrar la realidad de los individuos a quienes designan, para convertirse en ficciones verbales aut?nomas" (97).
162
The Library only makes sense because in its seemingly identical hexagons it contains no two books which are the same. Ifwe think of the fear that Borges and Bioy Casares feltabout mirrors duplicating appearances faithfully, meaning, rather perhaps we can consider distorted reflections as a search for than a disability. The "mirror of words" that opens "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" acquires a new significance when we consider mirrors as a symbol for the human search formeaning. Borgess mirrors in the text are all of words, and words are our (imperfect) way ofmaking sense of theworld. This is the role of the figure of the encyclopedia, a "double" of the mirror as a textual mise en abyme. The encyclopedia is a work of language, and a reflection of the totality of the universe throughwords.13 Similarly, the story is an attempt to frame the infinite inside themirror of its few pages.14 The encyclopedia is the organizing principle of the story, since Borges presents the data about Uqbar and Tl?n according to the same divisions that we could find in any encyclopedia about our world, such as geography, history, language,
At the literature, zoology, typography, philosophy, psychology, geometry ...15 same time, as Eco suggests, there are other things to be found in an encyclo pedia, and Borgess story,with its inclusion of all the possible philosophies and theories of the universe to be found in Tl?n, does not fall short here either: what has been said about but, rather, [The encyclopedia] does not register"truths" the truthor what has been believed to be true as well as what has been believed to or legendary, be falseor imaginary provided thata given culturehad elaborated some
discourse about some subject matter. (Eco 83)
Like the encyclopedia, the Library is also a double of themirror, for it contains books which are also made ofwords. There is even a suggestion that the Library contains a circular, cyclical book that isGod (B, 465), or that the Library itself could be a book: Letizia Alvarez de Toledo ha observado que la vasta Biblioteca es in util; en rigor,
bastaria mente un solo volumen (B, 471 )'6 ... que constara de un num?ro infinito de hojas infinita delgadas.
If the encyclopedia can reflect a universe, the library can be one, for it contains all the books.17 Two of themost frequentmotifs in Borges's works - the encyclopedia and the labyrinth are used here as symbols of totality contained within a limited linguistic space, and they are the only earthly alternatives to the ultimate goal achieved by the poets of Tl?n, who can
163
transcend the limits of language and make poetic object. "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and "La propose similar ideas and employ the same each other in a number of ways. From duplication and multiplication emerges as a single word integrate an entire biblioteca de Babel" not only techniques, but also complement both of them the principle of one which linksmirrors, men,18
and books as reflections of one another. The mirror in "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" suggests to Bioy Casares a sentence about mirrors and men found in an encyclopedia: "Los espejos y la c?pula son abominables, porque multiplican el n?mero de hombres" (T, 431). The mirror in the room is
almost human, personified through verbs like "inquietaba," "acechaba;" in "La biblioteca" books are personified through the superstition of "el Hombre del Libro" (B, 469).19 In both stories,what we find is not a multiplication of men can multiply the number of books as well as the men, but of books, for number ofmen, and books are written having other books as pretext. In the first page there is The Anglo-American Cyclopedia, which is an imperfect reprint of The Encyclopedia Britannica.20 Only one copy of thisAnglo-Ameri can Cyclopedia contains the article about Uqbar, because, according to the laws of the Library - which apply throughout the stories in Ficciones - "hay siempre varios centenares de miles de facsimiles imperfectos: de obras que no difieren sino por una letra o una coma" (B, 469). The article is finally found in a volume whose alphabetic notation does not include it; similarly, the Library contains a book whose cover does not prefigurewhat is inside. The forty-volume First Encyclopedia of Tl?n will be rewritten in one of the languages of Tl?n as Orbis Tertius, and as The Second Encyclopedia of Tl?n,
which has not been found yet; finally, "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" stands as a storywritten about all these books. Even this storymasquerades as a modified version of an earlier one:
el articulo anterior en la de Antologia una met?foras y que que algunas especie tantas cosas desde esa ocurrido frivolo. Han tal como apareci? la literatura de resumen fecha
Reproduzco fantdstica, burl?n que
1940, sin otra escisi?n ahora r?sulta
... (T,
440)21 a "ghost editor" who Similarly, "La Biblioteca de Babel" is attributed to its and it changes typographical style (B, 466).22 In this story, too, reproduces in order to find a book one has to consult other books, and books engender other books:
... la historia fiel de esos minuciosa de los arc?ngeles, las autobiografias del porvenir, de la demostraci?n de miles miles y falsos, cat?logos de la falacia del cat?logo verdadero, el cat?logo de
la Biblioteca,
la falacia
cat?logos,
la demostraci?n
el evangelio
164
gn?stico muerte, en todos de Bas?ides, el comentario libro a todas de ese evangelio, la relaci?n veridica de cada de tu de cada
la version los libros
las lenguas,
las interpolaciones
libro
... (B, 467-68)
This is in turn analogous to the books of Tl?n, all ofwhich also include their symmetrical reflection: the counterbook. It is as though these books were mirrors, always framing and containing others which are reflections of
themselves.
To think of these two stories as mirror reflections of each other entails the admission that the worlds they represent function according to the same laws. Uqbar's geographic points of reference are exclusively internal,which prevents the location of that country in a map, and the referents of the language of the Library are also internal and do not allow us to be sure of
understanding the narrator.23The paradox of these two stories is that each contains the other, as well as much more.24 The Library contains one of the languages of Tl?n together with many others, and its books enclose the theories proposed by Tl?n's schools of thought. For example, the idea that all time has already passed and we are living a memory (T, 437) is analogous to the one that everything has already been written. This is one of the principles of the Library (B, 470), and the indication thatTl?n contains it as one of the possible explanations of the universe. In Tl?n every book contains its counterbook, in "La biblioteca" we are told that "esta epistola in?til y ... y tambi?n su refutaci?n" (B, 470). The "hr?nir" of palabrera ya existe
m?s arriba es incomprensible" (B, 467). Ultimately, it is possible to under stand both Tl?n and the Library as "hr?nir," products of Borges's imagin ation - and of a multiplicity of readers' imaginations - repeated in a number of copies of themselves. Tl?n is a human labyrinth (T, 443) that appears chaotic and disordered; the Library is a divinely created labyrinth with strict laws that humans spend their lives trying to decipher. This connection between the two stories,which allows us to read the Library-labyrinth as a mirror image of Tl?n-encyclo written with pedia, is found in Eco's study of the encyclopedia as labyrinth,
Tl?n, those "secondary" objects thatmultiply according to the expectations of the imagination, and which engender distorted versions of themselves until they are unrecognizable, are analogous to the languages of the Library: "es verdad que unas millas a la derecha la lengua es dialectal y que noventa pisos
"La biblioteca de Babel" in mind. Of the three types of labyrinths he - the net describes, the third one corresponds to the encyclopedia:
feature of a net is that every point can be connected with every other point, are not yet the connections and and, where designed, they are, however, conceivable ... the abstract model A net is an unlimited of a net has neither designable. territory ... A structure that cannot be described a centre nor an outside can only be globally
The main
165
described describers as a can sum of local In a structure without descriptions. potential look at it only by the inside ... at every node of it no one outside, can have the the
global vision of all itspossibilitiesbut only the local vision of the closest ones: every local description of the net is a hypothesis, about its further subject to falsification, course ... blindness is the onlyway of seeing (locally), and thinking means to grope
one*s way ... This represents a model for an encyclopedia as a regulative semiotic
hypothesis. (Eco 81-82) "La biblioteca de Babel" can thus be considered an abstract way of describing a world through the encyclopedic method, not too different from the one used in "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." Goodman reminds us that "a world may be unmanageably heterogeneous or unbearably monotonous according to how events are sorted into kinds" (9). Like the encyclopedia described by
have no chance of finding, finding books theyhave no chance of understand ing. Like themirror distortion that humans fabricate, hexagons provide the reassurance that there is some order in the universe.25 Both stories conceive of writing as a divine method of creation, which humans unsuccessfully, but insistently, attempt to imitate. In Tl?n, "la historia del universo - y en ella nuestras vidas y el mas tenue detalle de nuestras vidas - es la escritura que produce un dios subalterno para entenderse con un demonio" (T, 437). The librarian describes the Library universe in similar terms:
... el universo, ser obra basta en con su elegante dotation de anaqueles, de tomos enigm?ticos, lo divino falible de
Eco, the Library's centre is any of its hexagons, and its description must be restricted to hexagons because they are the only thing that it is possible to but it is an infinite repetition of hexagons, know: "the library may be infinite, of something known" (Agheana 182).We will return later to a discussion of the hexagon as the only formwhich man can conceive, describe, and be sure of, in a Library where men grope theirway through, looking for books they
escaleras para el viajero y de letrinaspara el bibliotecario sentado, s?lo infatigables

puede humano, garabatea delicadas, de un dios. Para estos un percibir rudos las la distancia simbolos que hay del entre mi y lo mano comparar la tapa de tr?mulos que
libro, con
letras org?nicas (B, 466)
interior:
puntuales,
negrisimas,
inimitablemente
sim?tricas.
Because
symmetry is what we believe to be the rule of the mirror, the symmetry that fails between our world and Borgess worlds points toward the fact that there is a world order, even if it is one governed by laws that humans are incapable of understanding:
166
Inutil responderque la realidad tambi?nest? ordenada.Quiz? lo est?,pero de acuerdo
a Tl?n leyes divinas ser? un traduzco: laberinto, leyes inhumanas pero es un laberinto a que no acabamos nunca de percibir. un laberinto urdido por los hombres,
destinado a que lo descifrenlos hombres. (T, 443)
according to human laws. However, as in Borges's case, "la Obra Mayor de los Hombres" never turns out to be anything other than a book in the - or an Library encyclopedia, in the case of "Tl?n." Imitating a god only makes the world more imperfect. The "hr?nir" are Borges's figure for the way inwhich human representation and creation enhance imperfection and end up in decadence:
los hr?nir de segundo derivados son casi
antisemitismo, el nazismo" (T, 442). Like Borges, the characters in these two stories engage in this activity of writing, some to create, some to understand. Tl?n originates from Ezra Buckley's attempt to invent a planet because "in America it is absurd to invent a country;" the Library is full of men attempting to reconstruct it
Therefore, the apparent chaos of theworlds of Tl?n and the Library is the only way that humans can represent the "divine disorder." On the other hand, a distorted reflection of our world is the only possible way of avoiding the "simetria con apariencia de orden - el materialismo dial?ctico, el
und?cimo
peri?dico: el hr?n de duod?cimo grado ya empieza a decaer. (T, 440)26
los hr?nir, d?riva dos de otros hr?n, los hr?nir y tercer grado del hr?n de un hr?n las aberraciones del inicial; los de quinto exageran con los de se confunden en los de los de noveno uniformes; segundo; una pureza es no de lineas los tienen. El que proceso hay originales
This suggests that for Borges the principle ofmirror reflection complements that of language representation, like two sides of a coin. As I discussed above, Borges's mirrors lead us to believe we are contemplating a distorted image of the world when we are in fact creating the distortion ourselves. His concept of language reverses this effect, showing thatwhat we thought was a relationship of identitybetween an object and theword that represents it is in fact a disfiguring one caused by themedium itself:
r?sulta intolerable de ella se esperaba inocentemente reproduction porque y acaso con fe un En cambio orgullosa reflejo id?ntico o, por lo menos, aproximativo. nos enfrenta con la ineficacia de lo que procur?bamos convocar id?ntico, con la La
torpeza de "un ojald no fuera" (Molloy 1979: 151)
With
this statement, SylviaMolloy draws attention, among other things, to Borges's reservations toward "naming," which he considers always a
167
tautology. Language does not function likemirrors insofar as they throw back exact reproductions, but, as JaimeRest has pointed out, itdoes produce mirages "que se imponen por la eficacia de una simetria o proportion intrinseca, de un equilibrio primordialmente nominal" (90). According to him, Borges questions the human ability to understand reality through language. Although this is the only instrumentwe possess for that purpose, a fiction. Rest thus everything we express through it inevitably becomes to of the German that of relates Borges's concept language philosopher Mauthner; forboth, "el lenguaje es solo un juego, dotado de singular eficacia tal pero exento de cualquier aptitud para representar, conocer y entender adecuadamente la realidad" (84). Much like themirror, language is a game that we are forced to play without knowing how: "cuando denunciamos las limitaciones del lenguaje lo que estamos reconociendo no como
would normally belong to another. The two words have different external forms and produce different effects - the literal and the metaphorical yet they refer to the same thing. In the end, the slash disappears, meanings and all we have is a signifier- "biblioteca" - that reflectsanother signifier
"universo" and viceversa:
es su impotencia sino la nuestra" (94). On the other side of the doorway mirror of the Library, words do not mean. The Saussurean slash that separates mean anymore what we think they the signifier from the signified changes the relationship between reality and its representation in a way that suggests that for Borges all language is ... s?lo tiene un valor metaf?rico" (T, metaphorical. In Tl?n "todo sustantivo 438); in the Library, theword "biblioteca" is a metaphor for "universo," and as if theywere interchangeable by exaggerat Borges employs the twowords contrast that is the ing produced when a word appears in the context that
El universo (que otros llaman la Biblioteca) se compone de un num?ro indefinido,

y tal vez
he viajado enmi juventud ... (B, 465) As readers, we attempt to provide an interpretation by attaching these two our world in some form. By means of the signifiers to signifieds that reflect a universe composed of hexagonal between unequivocal interchangeability a library inwhich men live their lives and travel, books and full of galleries Borges exposes the process ofmetaphorical signification thatRicoeur calls "a semantic clash leading to logical absurdity:"
infinito, de galenas
hexagonales
... Como
todos
los nombres
de la Biblioteca,
A word receives a metaphorical meaning in specific contexts,within which it is

opposed to other words taken
a clash between literalmeanings, which excludes the literal use of the word in
literally. The
shift in meaning
results primarily
from
168
with the question and provides clues forfindinga newmeaning capable of according context of the sentenceand renderingthe sentence therein. (170) meaningful This kind of metaphorical play with incongruous images is a sign of the provisional and tentative character of language when it attempts to represent
reality.27
theory that illustrates the arbitrariness of language. According to this theory, a word has an unlimited number of meanings in an unlimited number of languages, which makes communication impossible.28The word "biblioteca" means "universo" in this story because it is a world with its own linguistic code, which reflects the reader's only in appearance:
Un num?ro n de lenguajes posibles usa el mismo vocabulario; en algunos, el simbolo
"otros" in the above quotation from "La biblioteca" suggests the impossibility of communication that results from the knowledge that language is private, that each person may have a different name for each thing. This use of metaphor is reinforced at the end of the story with a
The
biblioteca admite la correcta definition ubicuo y perdurable sistema de galer?as

hexagonales, palabras que pero biblioteca la definen o es pan o otra cosa, y las siete pir?mide cualquier tienen otro valor. Tu, que me lees, ^est?s seguro de entender
mi lenguaje? (B, 470)
The "correct definition" of "biblioteca" does not correspond to themeaning we usually give it,but exclusively to the one it has in this story. In compli ance with this theory,Borges reverses themetaphorical process by writing of "frutas ...que llevan el nombre de l?mparas" (B, 465). They are lamps in our language, where "l?mpara" is understood as "an artifact that gives light,"yet the name "l?mpara" is only accessory, because in the language of "La biblioteca de Babel" they are fruits, and theword "l?mpara," which should be understood literally, is used metaphorically while themetaphorical name "frutas" isused literally. The relationship of identitybetween word and object thatwe often take for granted in our everyday lives is thus subverted, and confronts us with the impossibility of complete understanding, or even of knowing whether we understand. As Eco puts it, "in order to use a mirror we should first know thatwe are facing a mirror*' (207), and with correctly, is no way of knowing at all times on which side of themirror there Borges one stands. That is what makes language, like themirror, unnerving and monstrous. The fact that both words in each pair - "biblioteca" and
"universo," "frutas" and
able, illustrates the notion of the signifier that has lost touch with any signifier, and also Katherine Hayles's concept of themetaphor that has lost touch with its primary referent:
"l?mparas"
are
metaphorical,
though
interchange
169
A metaphor the grounding that self-reflexively mirrors itself in another metaphor threatens to lose that reassures us the comparison is not entirely It could free-floating.
be imagined as a compass with one legmoving freely and the other restingnot on on but the of another Postmodern writers have exploited this compass. ground leg lack of round to reveal the intrinsicreflexivity of all language. (Hayles 33)29 Another series of fictional and textual mises en abyme point out the fact that mirrors and language stand in a reciprocal relationship: the worlds through the looking glass are worlds of language on the level of storytelling as well as on the symbolic level, and they are at the same timemirrored by the language that constitutes them. As Ricoeur put it, "If it is true that the [work] creates a world, then it requires a language which preserves and
expresses its creative power in specific contexts" (180). Thus the illusion of order perpetuated in Tl?n is achieved through a perfect correspondence between its language and the principles that constitute Tl?n as a world. It is this correspondence, along with the fact that the written work is being duplicated in a series of written works, that ensures the functioning of the reflection.30 In the fashion of Russian dolls or Chinese boxes - what Carlos Fuentes likes to call "cebolla narrativa" (123) - Tl?n, a world found in a book, is the literaryworld of another literaryworld (Uqbar) of another literaryworld (the encyclopedia) of yet another literaryworld (Borges's story). Only an encyclopedia written in one of the languages of Tl?n would more adequately, though this isbeyond the limits of communica represent it tion between Borges and his readers.31Tl?n also has a literature that reflects it, for it consists of ideal, poetic objects. Furthermore, the language of Tl?n contributes tomaking this ideal world idealist: "Las naciones de ese planeta son - cong?nitamente - idealistas. Su lenguaje y las derivaciones de su - la presuponen el idealismo" (T, religi?n, las letras, lametafisica lenguaje are no Because there material in this planet, there is no need 435). objects to name themwith words that their material existence. Adjec might suggest are used instead of substantives, because adjectives sacrifice tives and verbs the material quality of substance to the idealism of attributes, and verbs denote acts rather than objects, reflecting the fact that "el mundo para ellos no es un concurso de objetos en el espacio; es una s?rie heterog?nea de actos independientes" (T, 435). In Tl?n, only what is in theminds of its inhabit ants exists, but Tl?n itself is only a product of themind. It is not surprising, either, that psychology is the basis of its culture.
The world of the Library is also determined by products of themind. Borges writes that the hexagon, the shape of all its rooms, is a necessary form because humans cannot perceive space in any other way: For the idealists, the universe is a geometric duplication of an archetype.The
asymmetry of a triangle or a pentagon is unacceptable because, seen from inside, one
170
facet would not be mirrored by another one. Ifman were to inhabit a pentagon, one
would be left of symmetry. without the reassuringreflection aspect of his existence The spheremay be a perfect geometrical form,but the difficultyin determining reduces considerably itsappeal. The mystics preferit as a formof points of reference
perfection, but their evidence, couched in ambiguous terms, is not trustworthy.
(Agheana 18) implies that the hexagon, as well as the encyclopedic construction of Tl?n, is a human construction based on the self-centred ways in which humans - and Borges among them - see and classify theirknowledge of the world. The hexagon is not only something known, but stands for something that can be reduced to a limit in a limitless universe. The Library, likeTl?n, is a world of language not just because it is a storymade out of Borges's This
words, but because its "raison d'?tre" is books, which are also made of written words. Since the Library is language, its laws are also those of language: it exists "ab aeterno," there are no two identical books, the same thing cannot be said twice, and it is infiniteand periodical, like the combina tions of the twenty-fivesymbols thatBorges takes into account (B, 466). This number is in fact finite, but so is the Library. What matters is that its finiteness, in either case, cannot be apprehended by the human mind:
Acabo de escribir infinita. No he interpolado ese adjetivo por una costumbre ret?rica;
Quienes lo juzgan limitado, digo que no es il?gico pensar que elmundo es infinito.
postulan que en inconcebiblemente los corredores y escaleras y hex?gonos lugares remotos pueden cesar - lo cual es absurdo. Quienes sin limites, olvidan lo imaginan
que los tiene el num?ro posible de libros. (B, 471) Because
theworlds of Uqbar, Tl?n, and the Library, as we have seen, are their existence can only be believable - and the mise en abyme can language, only work by finding themwritten (or reflected) in books. Borges's concept of language refers exclusively towriting, not speech, and, like themirror, is therefore two-dimensional, with an appearance of depth constituted by the fictional worlds it creates. The narrator of "Tl?n" seeks confirmation of the existence of Uqbar in several encyclopedias, not believing ituntil he sees the article before his eyes: "Conjetur? que ese pais indocumentado y ese heresiarca anonimo eran una fiction improvisada por la modestia de Bioy para justificar una frase" (T, 431). The universe of the Library, as well as the lives of its inhabitants, is also justified by the fact that all about them has been written: Cuando se proclam? que la Biblioteca abarcaba todos los libros,la primera impresion
fue de extravagante que en felicidad alg?n anaquel ... El universo estaba haya un justificado ... No me parece inverosimil del universo libro total; ruego a los dioses
171
ignorados aniquilado, que pero un nombre que en un ... lo ... Que y leido yo sea ultrajado y haya examinado en un enorme se tu Biblioteca ser, instante, (B, justifique.
468-70) If creation is performed by means of language - i.e., writing - then nothing can exist if it cannot be expressed through it.This idea is reflected materialism is impossible inTl?n because itonly has ideal in the notion that since the origin of the Library cannot be expressed in the and languages, one must be invented. Yet this is also contradic another existing languages,
is tory, according to the principles of Tl?n, because what is undocumented fictional and thereforeunbelievable, but if,as we have seen, what iswritten - literature- is by definition also fiction because language falsifies, then our as Tl?n. Thus Borges deconstructs the authority of the as is ideal world written word. Many of Borges's stories and theoretical writings could, in fact, be considered from the perspective that I have outlined here. I have tried to throw some light on two stories which seem to contain both theoretical and fictional assumptions and statements about reality and the representation of that reality applicable to much of the rest of his work. The figure of the
mirror not only encompasses the pessimism that is entailed by the belief in the impossibility of knowledge, but is also a vehicle for the search for meaning inwhich Borges, through his writing, was always engaged. Borges's writings represent the appropriation ofmany cultures.32Yet, upon the occasion of his death, SylviaMolloy expressed how even his voracious as a reading prefigured the reappropriation of his work byWestern culture sus a "Cre? of theoretical for the construction of systems: departure point se crear texts His fictional ellos" (1986: 804). propose por precursores y dej?
new ways of thinking about the production and transformation ofmeaning, and they are the kernel fromwhich much that comprises todays apparatus of postmodernism, deconstruction, and semiotics emerges, leaving behind forms of textual construction linked exclusively to other theories. Borges's own work by providing legacy in contemporary theory then reverts to his new perspectives for mutual illumination and understanding of different conceptual systems with different objectives.
University of Michigan
NOTES
I would valuable like to thank Walter comments and Mignolo, on Frances Aparicio, this paper. and Eric Rabkin for their
suggestions
172
1 The relationshipsof influence between Borges and currentliterary theory
have inspired much critical work. For instance, see Lindstrom's discussion specific examples Borges's about and Rodriguez-Monegals observations literary theory (833-84), as a source of Derrida's deconstructionist Borges s writing thought. He of them from "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis of a recent, Tertius." marginal some of the interaction between works of
and French traces
two epigraphs by Borges quoted inDerrida's "La Pharmacie de Platon," one

is "the representative For Rodriguez-Monegal, Borges ...within the central literature
2
3
tradition,corroding ityetmaking itpossible" (1986: 232). D?llenbach quotes Borges extensivelyin TheMirror in theText (1989:
171-72). What become ismeant our here by "our world" is no more than a "version" that has we inhabit: "We to accustomed of the world way referring
might, though, take the realworld to be thatof some one of the alternative rightversions (or groups of thembound together by some principle of or translatability) and regardall others as versions of that same reductibility
world
[of the man-in-the-street],indeed, is one of themost often taken as real; for , realityin a world, like realism in a picture, is largelya matter of habit" (Goodman 20).
4
differing
from the standard
version
in accountable
ways
... This
world
A different aspect of Borges s use ofmirrors in this story is developed in

Nancy Kasons Orbis "The Mirror Uqbar, nated Tertius" reverses of Utopia," where she explores the Lacanian stages. de Babel," "B." how "Tl?n,
For Hayles's
more
detailed
discussion
of Borges,
see 260-61.
6
7
All quotations from"Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"will subsequently be desig

"T," and as those from "La biblioteca earlier, Because, occur I mentioned isolated the different types of mise en ahyme rarely the transcendental mise en ahyme
is also a formof the textual,there is no contradictionin the statementthat the figureof the mirror functionsas both types at the same time. Other readingsof themirror image as an inversion or distortionof the original can be found in Rodriguez-Monegal 1973: 338, Irby413,
Barrenechea 175, Bell-Villada on "Las 130, and De Man 23.
in a pure,
form, and because
This statementis consequentwith the influence of Berkeley's idealist

philosophy que un
creemos sustancial y concreto no es m?s que una apariencia, tal vida y solidez que de rechazo que adquiere objeto sonado orden terrestre" (Barrenechea 170). "to lose" and "to find" la identidad
adoptar dos formas:o hacen resaltarque la realidad es un simple sueno y lo

o producen disuelve el
Borges:
imaginaciones
derivadas
de esta
idea pueden
10
verbs
I am referring, forexample, to the impossibility ofmaking sense out of the

monedas y de "porque presuponen las ultimas" (T, 417). de las nueve
11
12
primeras these
Perception,though not reduced to sight,is overwhelmingly representedin

stories through visual analogies and metaphors. writes that Borges, "as a child in a room which contained ... had one a terror of mirrors, ...One is never
Rodriguez-Monegal and he refused to sleep
173
man alone in a room if there is a mirror" (1973: 338). This feelingthat the
in the mirror is someone else reflects the insecurity about one's
13
was "orbis," which explains part of the titleand links thebook, the reflection 14 of exhaustion" in his essay of the This iswhat JohnBarth calls "literature same name (Alazraki 1976: 170-82). By anticipatingthathe will be buried in as well, therebeing no other possible worid. The framing include the afterlife also suggeststhe effect of two opposed mirrors,which has of the infinite been Barrenechea (36). already developed by doomed to failure: Yet this organizingprinciple, as we will see later,is itself "... the realityofTl?n, thoughpresentedby Borges as thatof 'un planeta
ordenado' with its own 'intimas the Library, the anonymous narrator of "La biblioteca de Babel" makes it phenomenon, and the universe into an intricate web (Echavarria 168n).
"mirror," was
illustratedthrough theHerbert Ashe example. I use theword "reflection" here noting that "speculum," the Latin word for
also a medieval Latin term for "encyclopedia" another one
self-identity
15
16
13). This image of the cyclicalbook is repeated almost identicallyin "El jardin de los senderos que se bifurcan" (Borges 1974: 477). This book has also inspired a deconstructionistreading, its middle page without a reversebeing the (Merrell33). possibility of every-thing* was called "La biblioteca total" (Borges In fact,the precursor of this story 1939).
Borges stories uses are "los nombres" significantly the fictional throughout; devoid of women. worlds of these two equivalent of zero, of the void, that "is at once no-thing and ... Contains' the
we know it our own world. Its appearance of order is createdby the fact that a like the human man-made which, mind, only through encyclopedia order on the realwhich itpurports to catalogue" (Shaw imposes an artificial
leyes,' is actually
no
less chaotic
than
that of
17
18
19 20 21
Yet, as discussed above, the similarityis not complete, and the inhuman
element of mirrors
(24) for a more detailed analysisof thispoint. The "Posdata de 1947" actually appearedwith the story in itspresent form in 1940. Irbysees in it a mirroring of the revision of the FirstEncyclopaedia as ofTl?n (417). For a deeper analysisof Borgess concept of literature See De Man
reformulation 23-24). and rereading of previous literature see Alazraki (1977: 16,
is also precisely
what
makes
them
unnerving.
22
This reinforcesthe idea that the same thingcannot be said twice. Both
stories as Derrida
23
Arturo Echavarria has studied theways inwhich the language of "Tl?n,

Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" follows this same
an earlier edition, which as are falsely destroys, reprints of presented of an original. the possibility of existence would later propose, pattern, calls in what he calls or "a ciphered
language" (169). See also Irby (417).

is an example stories, of what D?llenbach
24
This
work. In of a similar duplication, inwhich mise en abyme is a reflection

Borges's this function complements the other types of mise en abyme
resemblance,
simple
174
discussed
- infinite itself duplication (110).

according to Lindstrom,
above, which
represent
the same work
- mimetism
- or the work
25
However,
"The
26
in the have no vested interest unlike thatof the librarians,in that the former the makes sense" that (33). library proposition Friedman explains this lack of identityin repetitionthroughthe functioning
of memory: informe "La desconcertante de ella
perspective
of the story's readers
is
but the image lamemoria" (222).What is rememberedis not the thing itself, was kept in ourmemory: "El peri?dico deterioroy reparoque los that
'hr?nir,' en sus diferentes la suerte memorias autor de recordar
entre una cosa falta de correspondencia un en en contexto texto recalca el equivoco el que surge
y el de
las distorsionesque las de algo experimentado en el pasado y rectifican

primeras Menard, han introducido" indicate (224). De Man's comments "For on del Quijote" the opposite result:
nos puede experimentan, grados de derivation, aten?an la imagen alternativamente las memorias que
"Pierre
each mirrored
image is stylistically superior to thepreceding one, as the dyed cloth ismore beautiful than the plain, the distortedtranslationricher than the original, of all things,subtlytransformed picture of realitythatcontains the totality
and enriched this process more Quixote aesthetically complex to its limits, the poet can achieve by the imaginative process than Cervantes'. ultimate success By carrying - an ordered
Menard's
27 28
29
See Gertel (319) for a further developmentof thispoint. See also Ricoeur (169, 176).
Echavarria referent but imagination imprenta corroborates itself: "Sacamos this point when he talks about language nuestra ideas de los libros, nutrimos de esos aspecto extranos del that has no
that engendered
them"
(25).
referente que ?lmismo, no nos puede permitirdistinguirentre lo falso y lo

verdadero. podemos traicionar 30 Nos servimos del lenguaje para para comunicar enganar sabiduria; y enganarnos, with a nos servir del tambi?n, lenguaje, (186-87). y traicionarnos" in order to 'take off,' has para
y nuestra memoria un y que constituyen
son letra de signos que Pero el sin m?s lenguaje. lenguaje,
31 32
a work of art" (D?llenbach 71). similar to that which it is reflecting: Echavarria has analyzed "Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in detail as this type of structurein the fashionof Russian dolls or Chinese boxes (163). writer. Traditionally,thishas led to a criticalview of Borges as a universalist
In recent years, Latin American. same this has
"... reflection,
to work
in alliance
reality
forwhom the act ofwriting ... ismore like the act of reading" (47). In the
vein, Alazraki "He quotes Ernesto S?bato describing Borges as an Argentine is is a typical national Even his Europeanism by-product. A European is not a Europeanist but simply a European" (1988:
a debate about sparked Retamar labels him Fern?ndez
Borges's "a typical
own
status
as a
colonial
writer
...
writer: national.
149).
175
WORKS CITED ION. The Prose of Jorge Luis Borges.Existentialismand the AGHEANA, Dynamics of
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Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispnicos

Through the Looking-Glass: Borges's Mirrors and Contemporary Theory

should reflect a little images. Jean Cocteau

before throwing back

REVISTA CANADIENSE DE ESTUDIOS HISPANICOS

longer sure what ismeant. A similar confusion of wor(l)ds

Bioy Casares sobre

pol?mica omitiera o a unos o banal.

la ejecuci?n los hechos lectores -

que permitieran realidad atroz

lucido y tan justo es el orden que se ha observado en ?l. (T, 435)

Reproduzco fantdstica, burl?n que

1940, sin otra escisi?n ahora r?sulta

la version los libros

... (B, 467-68)

escaleras para el viajero y de letrinaspara el bibliotecario sentado, s?lo infatigables

letras org?nicas (B, 466)

destinado a que lo descifrenlos hombres. (T, 443)

peri?dico: el hr?n de duod?cimo grado ya empieza a decaer. (T, 440)26

torpeza de "un ojald no fuera" (Molloy 1979: 151)

El universo (que otros llaman la Biblioteca) se compone de un num?ro indefinido,

A word receives a metaphorical meaning in specific contexts,within which it is

biblioteca admite la correcta definition ubicuo y perdurable sistema de galer?as

mi lenguaje? (B, 470)

que los tiene el num?ro posible de libros. (B, 471) Because

and French traces

two epigraphs by Borges quoted inDerrida's "La Pharmacie de Platon," one

from the standard

A different aspect of Borges s use ofmirrors in this story is developed in

All quotations from"Tl?n, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"will subsequently be desig

form, and because

This statementis consequentwith the influence of Berkeley's idealist

adoptar dos formas:o hacen resaltarque la realidad es un simple sueno y lo

I am referring, forexample, to the impossibility ofmaking sense out of the

Perception,though not reduced to sight,is overwhelmingly representedin

Rodriguez-Monegal and he refused to sleep

Arturo Echavarria has studied theways inwhich the language of "Tl?n,

language" (169). See also Irby (417).

work. In of a similar duplication, inwhich mise en abyme is a reflection

- infinite itself duplication (110).

the same work

of the story's readers

las distorsionesque las de algo experimentado en el pasado y rectifican

referente que ?lmismo, no nos puede permitirdistinguirentre lo falso y lo

y nuestra memoria un y que constituyen

son letra de signos que Pero el sin m?s lenguaje. lenguaje,

a debate about sparked Retamar labels him Fern?ndez

Borges's "a typical

El escritor y la cr?tica. Madrid: Versiones. en los cuentos Inversiones. de Borges. Madrid:

Semioticsand thePhilosophyofLanguage. Bloomington: Indiana ECO, UMBERTO. UP, 1984.

Fundamentos, CARLOS. Valiente

Mirror. Derrida and thePhilosophyofReflec GASCH?,RODOLPHE.The Tain of the

Utopia y mito ?pica, 1990.

III. Ed. Cedomil

Critica, GOODMAN, and

HAYLES, N. KATHERINE. Science. Ithaca IRBY, JAMES E. "Borges Convention

Orderly Disorder Cornell UP, 1990.

KASON,NANCY."The Mirror of Utopia." Paper delivered at the 1990MLA

the Idea of Utopia."

hispanoamericana, SYLVIA. Las

"Jorge Luis Borges, 801-08. REST, IAIME. El laberinto

del universo. 1976. and

Borges y el pensamiento Sciences.

Aires: RICOEUR, 1981.