Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths and Libraries | Worlds of Speculative Fiction (lecture 23)

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This is the twenty-third session in a new series of monthly lectures and discussions, featuring Dr. Gregory Sadler, and hosted by the Brookfield Public Library. The series focuses on philosophical themes in the works and world of selected classic and contemporary fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other speculative fiction genre authors.
We continue the series by focusing in this session on the classic fantasy and magic realism genre author, Jorge Luis Borges, looking at a number of his short stories
Here are books containing Borges' stories that we reference during this session, and where you can get them:
Labyrinths - amzn.to/2r0xrsU
The Book of Sand - amzn.to/2r3kqPj
Collected Fictions - amzn.to/2D4BXZi
Authors we have covered in the series so far are J.R..R. Tolkein, A.E. Van Vogt, C.S. Lewis, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Roger Zelazny, Ursula K. Leguin, Michael Moorcock, Philip K. Dick, Mervyn Peake, George R.R. Martin, Philip Jose Farmer, Madeline L'Engle, Douglas Adams, Anne McCaffrey, Orson Scott Card, Iain Banks, H.P. Lovecraft, William Gibson, C.L. Moore, Octavia Butler, Jorge Luis Borges, Fritz Leiber, Robert Heinlein, L. Sprague de Camp, Andre Norton, Arthur Clarke, Robert Howard, Gene Wolfe, C. J. Cherryh, Jack Vance, Edgar Allan Poe, G.K. Chesterton, Lewis Carroll, Tanith Lee, Gordon Dickson, August Derleth, Karl Edward Wagner, Aldous Huxley, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, China Mieville, Walter Miller, Cordwainer Smith, Liu Cixin, R. Scott Bakker, Stanislaw Lem, Neal Stephenson's, Philip Pullman, Olaf Stapledon, Veronica Roth, J.G. Ballard, Dan Simmons, Andrzej Sapkowski, Kim Stanley Robinson, N. K. Jemisin, Terry Pratchett, and Steven Erickson
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#Philosophy #Worldbuilding #SpeculativeFiction #Literature #Analysis #Books #Borges #ScienceFiction #Time #Chance

Пікірлер: 43

  • @Jose-ur7jz
    @Jose-ur7jz Жыл бұрын

    I love that you choose to talk about Borges. I wonder how yo manage to upload this amounts of knowledge. Thank you for making our lives better.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    Жыл бұрын

    You're very welcome. I just keep at it

  • @HippieChick9
    @HippieChick96 жыл бұрын

    I loved The Library of Babel and The Book of Sand the most. Well, The Zahir too. But, The Library, with using books to signify multi-universes--how there are never-ending books, it just seemed so brilliant to me. I've listened to that one a-many times now. The Book of Sands got to me in an eerie sense. 'Neither the book nor the sand has any beginning or end.' 'None is the first page; none is the last.' 'I lost The Book of Sand on one of the basement's musty shelves.' Just with the last sentence made me have to re-listen to it a-many times as well. As a matter of fact, when first listening to it, the statement of the book being lost almost seemed abrupt to me. I don't know, it just did. But really, using books as metaphors for the infinite universes captivated my attention.

  • @mattgilbert7347
    @mattgilbert73476 жыл бұрын

    These are such a treat. Thanks, Dr. Sadler.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    You're welcome!

  • @anthonyoftheoneills2175
    @anthonyoftheoneills21753 жыл бұрын

    Thank you. Extremely well explained .

  • @anthonyoftheoneills2175
    @anthonyoftheoneills21753 жыл бұрын

    Thank you. Really clear lecture and great questions from and interaction with the class. On to further reading now 👍👍

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    3 жыл бұрын

    You're welcome!

  • @laseryohanna
    @laseryohanna6 жыл бұрын

    Borges is on my bucket list; you moved him way up. Thanks. Off to library. :)

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    I think you'll enjoy him!

  • @havefunbesafe
    @havefunbesafe3 жыл бұрын

    I have a fairly comprehensive home library...I read JLB Fictions and then his Non Fictions alternately...then I’ll re-read them. One man creating a world for us to discover and learn from is the greatest understatement of the year when speaking about JLB.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    3 жыл бұрын

    Yes, his works are eminently rereadable

  • @dustmemory9891
    @dustmemory98916 жыл бұрын

    Fascinating, thanks for posting this!

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    You're very welcome!

  • @blainethemono7622
    @blainethemono76226 жыл бұрын

    Thank you very much for the video. You are a god among petty teachers.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    Well I don't know about that, but I'll take the compliment - thanks!

  • @nancycollins4014
    @nancycollins40142 жыл бұрын

    This was a delight! I've just been rereading Labyrinths, and was wishing I was in a class or a book group so that I could have someone to talk to about it. (My husband assures me he will get around to reading it any day now...) This video was a lot of fun to watch, and looking at the list of authors listed in this series, I might have to check out some of the others. Thank you for posting! :)

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    2 жыл бұрын

    You're very welcome! I'll return to Borges again in the series eventually

  • @davidlee6720
    @davidlee6720 Жыл бұрын

    two distinct minds weren't they? The philosophical fiction and the emotional poetry, a great man.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    Жыл бұрын

    Indeed, though I'll admit I'm much more interested in the stories

  • @davidlee6720

    @davidlee6720

    Жыл бұрын

    @@GregoryBSadler thanks for replying Prof, that is what is great about internet. A bit torn myself, but overall drawn towards stories as well. Emotion evanescent , quickly passing, but also universal as well. His mind dualistic: both sides needing to find expression. a great achievement.

  • @RobWickline
    @RobWickline2 жыл бұрын

    you commenting that borges encourages you to experiment more with thought and play around with ideas more reminds me of what im seeing in shestov's all things are possible

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    2 жыл бұрын

    They both certainly are people who took ideas seriously

  • @sashafalcon6407
    @sashafalcon64072 жыл бұрын

    Wonderful as usual professor. I myself try to write fictions in the style of Borges. It would be a honor if, someday, you'd try a little piece of my authorship.

  • @Bereboot100
    @Bereboot1004 жыл бұрын

    I would have loved to read a collective story of Jorge Luis Borges and Philips Howard Lovecraft

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    4 жыл бұрын

    You mean a collaboration?

  • @Bereboot100

    @Bereboot100

    4 жыл бұрын

    @@GregoryBSadler Yes exactly. I think the symbolic, nameles universe of Borges and the nameles horror of Lovecraft are related, and they could very wel be connected by a writer with the right instinct and talent.

  • @redo88
    @redo886 жыл бұрын

    Borges makes you question what is reality, plus other things like what is great prose. Can short story be more complete than a big book? And other things.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    Well, if a short story is more complete, that's because Borges must trick the reader into doing all the "filling out" work

  • @nachoo9774

    @nachoo9774

    5 жыл бұрын

    Gregory B. Sadler ñor necessarily. Borges doesn’t leave space for the reader to manipulate meanings and events. Yes, his stories are complícated because what he talks about is a complicated matter; bit because he doesnt complete his narratives leaving “open endings” and all that.

  • @fc1984fc
    @fc1984fc Жыл бұрын

    10:15: "If anybody else had failed to show up, I don't think we would have found space for them". Where does this quote come from, exactly?

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    Жыл бұрын

    Macedonio Fernandez, quoted by Borges.

  • @initialsGS
    @initialsGS3 жыл бұрын

    Are you familiar with Cammell and Roeg’s Performance?

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    3 жыл бұрын

    Never heard of them. What’s the relevance to Borges?

  • @MegadethBetterThanMetallicope
    @MegadethBetterThanMetallicope6 жыл бұрын

    Library of Babel \m/

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    Those are two things I wouldn't have thought to see together!

  • @MegadethBetterThanMetallicope

    @MegadethBetterThanMetallicope

    6 жыл бұрын

    Internet of Babel lol

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    I meant the "Library of Babel" and the horns!

  • @lexly87
    @lexly873 жыл бұрын

    Circular Ruin is astral travel. Invocation. Journeying. Metaphors for creativity. Trance state. Borge is a magician. He believes in the power of words that modern civilization has eroded much like magic was eroded.

  • @Findeepoca
    @Findeepoca6 жыл бұрын

    I'm sorry, but Juan Domingo Peron was NEVER president under a dictatorship. All of his tenures were democratic. He started his political career as the Minister of Labor of a dictatorial government, but he was never a dictator himself. All his periods as president were won in fair democratic ellections.

  • @GregoryBSadler

    @GregoryBSadler

    6 жыл бұрын

    Happy to accept your apology. . .

  • @Findeepoca

    @Findeepoca

    6 жыл бұрын

    Hey Tim! I'm not sure if you mention this, but here's another tidbit for you: Borges not only made up books in fiction. When he was director of the UBA Library (or the National Library, I can't remember), he created an actual entry for the Necronomicon (from Lovecraft) in the library's catalogue. Another tidbit: Once he was giving a press conference and he said "Shakespeare", but he pronounced it phonetically in spanish (something like "Shaq-ehs-peh-ah-reh") which is technically correct in Spanish. When a journalist attempted to correct him on his pronounciation, he proceeded to deliver the rest of the conference in perfect english.

  • @luciano9755

    @luciano9755

    5 жыл бұрын

    @@GregoryBSadler Peron's was a Mussolini- inspired fascist government, which got caught up by the end of WW2 and had to pick the side of the Allies because they had no choice if they wanted to survive. So there's this dichotomy of a kind of peaceful, in some ways even progressive government, but also an ubiquitous, totalitarian (with a democratic facade) and populist one. There were children books distributed by the government which featured Peron and his wife as god-like beings who could do no wrong, as a mere example. Many catholic schools were burnt as a result of the conflict between Peron and the Church. Then there's the whole influence Peronism had on Argentine politics, and the infinite number of political movements that derived from it (from neo Nazi ideologies to fusionism). That's a whole different subject on its own. Great class, by the way! As an argentinian myself, it's always nice to see people like Borges get some well-deserved recognition.