Sold Out
Book Categories |
Title: Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover
Random House
Item Number: 9780517526743
Number: 1
Product Description: Full Name: Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover; Short Name:Man's View of the Universe
Universal Product Code (UPC): 9780517526743
WonderClub Stock Keeping Unit (WSKU): 9780517526743
Rating: 3/5 based on 2 Reviews
Image Location: https://wonderclub.com/images/covers/67/43/9780517526743.jpg
Weight: 0.200 kg (0.44 lbs)
Width: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Heigh : 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Depth: 0.000 cm (0.00 inches)
Date Added: August 25, 2020, Added By: Ross
Date Last Edited: August 25, 2020, Edited By: Ross
Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
$99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub (9296 total ratings) |
James Enderle
reviewed Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover on February 25, 2013Many of the stories collected here (not to be mistaken with the collection The Aleph) involve one character coming face to face with another, who is a version of himself, a mirror reflection of sorts; the stories turn on the ability of the character to recognize his alter ego, or his failure to do so. Similarly, they also rest on the ability of the character to see that just as he can appear in the form another man, so can God (and to treat these other people who may be versions of himself as God as well as he might treat himself); stories often pivot on the realization that the action of a character has been more or less a direct action of, or for, God. (In one story, a particular judge is selected "so that God's wisdom might speak through his mouth and shame human prideâ€; this denial of pride is another key motif for Borges, who never fails to punish the proud, even as he emphasizes the cultural significance of the trait for Argentinians, who in his stories often seek elegance and courage as the end of their lives, their stories, or both, approach.) Likewise, many of the objects that appear in the book seem to contain their own stories within them, as if events are linked more to them than to characters; when these objects are changed or destroyed, so too can be the past, or memories, which may or may not merge into the same mutable course of events. It is Borges’s open engagement between surface and subsurface, between symbol and referent, that characterizes the narratives throughout this book.
Many of the stories are framed as stories within their own text, allowing Borges to self-consciously explore their effectiveness and their technique within them. This malleability to the way a story can be told reflects the way that memories can blur, altering the past, or vice versa, and the way that the future can be avoided, but only if properly interpreted and so desired. We see attempts to return to or recreate previous states or events, but it’s rendered more or less impossible not because of the nature of the task itself, but because of all the intervening events that would render the recreated or reproduced circumstances different, even if they were seemingly the same on the surface; events are not limited to themselves, but include the whole scope of history that led up to them and extends beyond them as well. Many of the characters in The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 have a common desire to forget that which has occurred to them, as if the erasure of the memory will extend to the actuality of the occurrences, and evidence suggests it might; the downside is when they find themselves repeating their past but not having recognized it due to the potential repression of their own memories, until suddenly a memory comes back to mind with sharp clarity, for never having been previously accessed. On the flip side, there are those who desperately try to hang on to memories against the natural course of forgetting, but just the same, once the memories disappear or are altered, so does the reality seem to do likewise.
Just as one memory or event is inseparable for Borges from the string of all others in which it exists, so too are objects inseparable from their past and future histories, and the visions on display in something like the Aleph; though infinitudes of possibility are often construed as wondrous, expansive, and promising, they are always signs of danger in a Borges story, just as immortality is. (Similarly, when a path or solution seems to be too easy, it should be cause for caution, as it inevitably results in a character being lured somewhere as opposed to determining his own path their as he thinks he is. The plans that characters think are theirs are often those of others, and that which they believe to be the right place at the right time often ends up either being the wrong place at the right time.) When one’s life is reduced to the fact of one’s immortality, the value of that life becomes hard to quantify; likewise, when exposed to hard enough to hold on to the finite set of memories and objects we hold dear; just as it is impossible to render in words an infinite series without an infinite series of words, a limited memory can fail to grasp an endless reality. One of the most poignant moments in this book is the narrator’s shrinking, in “The Aleph,†away from the vision (and memory of the vision) found in the inch-diameter Aleph, choosing to call his remembrance of it into disbelief and instead merely trying to sink back into his past and his fading memories of Beatriz, wanting them alone to be his entire existence, and even they are infinite (like a transfinite number) and so can’t all be retained. (It’s worth noting, too, that before he returned to the solace of Beatriz, he feared never erasing the unimaginable and interminable immensity of what he saw in the Aleph, preferring oblivion when that is the first thing to .)
This deceptive endlessness of the apparently contained and containment of the apparently endless is a reflection of Borges’s stories themselves, which always both have the appearance of simplicity even as they clearly contain unmeasurable depths. Especially in the two stories included here which I recently revisited in Ficciones, I was reminded of how carefully constructed his stories are, even at the same time as they seem effortless. He explicitly notes in a majority of these stories his efforts to eliminate any extraneous language and flourishes, reducing the narratives to their barest elements; his narrators only provide, and sometimes are only able to provide, the barest outlines of the lives of the characters of the stories they’re telling. The relatively limited number of specifics provided implicitly amplifies the importance of the abstractions which often seem like the true frameworks of Borges stories. This technique deceives us as it does the characters, whose lives are reduced to a single moment, the reoccurrence of which (re)awakens them to the fact that they’re in a cycle. Borges goes one better in terms of diversionary techniques in the best story here, “Streetcorner Man,†one of the best short stories I’ve ever read (and amazingly what he considers his first “outright short storyâ€) but one of which Borges is dismissive at several points in this book; at a crucial point, Borges uses the very beauty of his writing to serve as the misdirection needed to provide cover for a central character’s actions.
After that one, the best stories here are, in descending order, “The Two Kings and Their Two Labyrinths,†“The Intruder,†“The Aleph,†and “The Meeting,†with “The Challenge†and “Rosendo’s Tale†(which reflects “Streetcorner Man,†deepening that story but also unfortunately making its themes and subtext more explicit, perhaps redeeming itself with its wonderful ending where the central character recognizes a key turning point as such, senses the branching of the decision tree, and gets to see his alternate ending as rendered upon another character) deserving mention as well. There are a number that leave me nearly completely cold, though--“The Maker†“the Immortals,†and “Pedro Salvadoresâ€--as well as some which I can at least connect to, but which leave no impression, notably “The Other Death,†“Borges and Myself,†and “Ibn Hakkan al-Bokhari, Dead in His Labyrinth.†Borges’s concern with pride comes to mind when I think about the stories, which I think can be thought of as demanding a lack of pride in their reader as well, a willingness to not understand, to not assume one knows the outcome, and to be wrong; after all, Borges, like his characters, constructs not a labyrinth of presumed complexity which only has one path and is thus more easily deducible, but a labyrinth of great simplicity (and great elegance) and yet tremendous difficulty. Also like his stories, and his characters who find themselves in them, events cannot necessarily be explained but can be believed false, as can conjectures as to the reasons and causes behind them (that which is false, or likely false--e.g. the false Aleph or the false god--is a much more tangible presence in Borges’s fiction than anything that can be considered indisputably true; part of the trouble is that these false facsimiles are indistinguishable except for the suspicion that they’re duplicates).
The Commentaries section certainly doesn’t aim to elucidate specifics of the preceding stories, but can nonetheless be interesting as supplemental information (see the note on one story’s epigraph being chosen specifically to misdirect the reader). The “Autobiographical Essay,†too, is more charming (after a dry family background) than informative, per se; those looking for an explanation of why Borges turns to his pet themes will not find that, but they will find his interesting of the progression of his career, from the readings of his youth to the writings of his adulthood, detailing his influences and his phases of imitation of various authors, intermixed with personal details like his feeling undeserving of love, his dislike of birthdays, his not liking Don Quixote as much in the original Spanish as in the English translation in which he originally read it (and beyond that, his attachment to a particular edition, with its particular engravings, footnotes, and errata). It’s a nice complement to two stories in particular, “The Maker†and “Borges and Myself,†which are more obliquely autobiographical in nature. Taken as a whole, The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 is nearly all worth reading at worst, even if scattered with some non-essential inclusions and even if “Autobiographical Essay†doesn’t quite seem to match the tone of the story collection; a good number of the stories showcase Borges at his most successful (especially when you include the two stories from Ficciones), and make up for the few that reflect him near his least.
(Note: It's a shame that this translation, completed by Norman Thomas di Giovanni in direct collaboration with Borges, is no longer in print, because of the Borges estate's desire to refuse the 50% share of royalties that Borges designated for di Giovanni. Also a shame is the fact that Borges was not permitted the rights to translate all of his own stories which he wished to include here, notably additional selections from both Ficciones and the original collection El Aleph.)
Login|Complaints|Blog|Games|Digital Media|Souls|Obituary|Contact Us|FAQ
CAN'T FIND WHAT YOU'RE LOOKING FOR? CLICK HERE!!! X
You must be logged in to add to WishlistX
This item is in your CollectionMan's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover
X
This Item is in Your InventoryMan's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover
X
You must be logged in to review the productsX
X
Add Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover, , Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover to the inventory that you are selling on WonderClubX
X
Add Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover, , Man's View of the Universe: Pictoral History - Gerald E. Tauber - Hardcover to your collection on WonderClub |