The Mumpsimus

In my latest Sandman Meditations column, I tackled the prologue of Season of Mists , and ended up spending a lot of time talking about Jorge Luis Borges and his first appearance in English: "The Garden of Forking Paths"  in the August 1948 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine : The EQMM “Garden of Forking Paths” appeared in a translation by Anthony Boucher, which means that Boucher was not only a well-respected writer of mysteries and science fiction, not only an important and influential reviewer of mystery fiction, not only the man whose name is honored by the annual World Mystery Convention (Bouchercon) and its awards (the Anthonies), not only the man who co-founded The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction , not only an important mentor to many writers, including Philip K. Dick — he was also the man who first brought Borges’s work to the United States. Later translations would become the standard ones (as far as I know, Boucher’s has rarely been reprinted),...

If The City & The City is not my favorite China Miéville novel, that is only because I encountered Perdido Street Station at exactly the time I was ready for the riches it offered, and so the powerful, unforgettable experience of reading it will forever overshadow the experience of reading anything else Miéville writes. I think Iron Council possesses many virtues Perdido Street Station does not, but the latter is the novel that lives deep in my heart. It would simply be impossible for me to love a China Miéville novel more than Perdido Street unless I didn't think of it as a China Miéville novel. And it is almost possible to think of The City & The City as not a China Miéville novel. For one thing, there are no monsters -- at least not in the sense that we are used to monsters from his previous books. This is a great surprise -- what Miéville fan, after all, doesn't know that he loves creating monsters? For another thing, the writing is lean and straightfor...

My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges. -- Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) "El informe de Brodie" ("Dr. Brodie's Report") Some Borges links in honor of this fine day: The Borges Center at the University of Iowa Modern Word page of Borges resources Another Borges site Wikipedia entry Borges site with English translations of some stories, poems, and essays Borges's poem "Heraclitus" translated by Thomas Frick Borges's story "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" in English and Spanish Audio excerpts of Borges's Norton Lectures at Harvard in 1968 A lovely HTML version of Borges's story "The Garden of Forking Paths" Borges's very short story "The House of Asterion" provided by Mr. Waggish "The Analytical Language of John Wilkins" by Borges A 1980 interview with Borges Video: Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man John Barth on Borges and Calvino NYT article on Borges's ...