Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, Jorge Luis Borges
Launching The Leftovers' Reading Clinic, June 29, 7pm (GMT+1)
Greetings, reader. Hope you are well, wherever you are. So, it seems we’ll give this new premium section a go.
As I mentioned before, the idea is to work with short fiction (short stories, novellas, short novels) and non-fiction, picking apart the texts to see what they authors are doing and why. This will be a place to think together about what other writers are doing, so that we can apply that awareness to our own practice, or to just to think creatively about literature, for those of you clever enough not to call themselves “writers”. I will be choose some of the texts — expect a lot of Latin American literature, contemporary and classic1; but I’m open to suggestions. I’ll convene and coordinate the sessions but don't expect a lecture. The frequency with which we meet will depend on how popular the first meeting is.
For the first session, so that we can start with a bang, we’ll read and discuss Jorge Luis Borges’ “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”2. There’s a lot going on in this story, from a point of view of the composition and the themes — I feel it’s a good example of theory applied to fiction, and very interesting for that reason. If you can read it in its original version, please do, since that’s always better3. Otherwise here — in this collection — there is a translation by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni. I rate this translation above all others because it was done in collaboration with Borges himself4. The whole collection is worth checking out — we might read some other stories from it.
Please register below. I look forward to seeing you in late June.