Kyriakos
09-28-2013, 04:32 PM
El acercamiento a Almotásim, which is mostly translated to English as "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim", was the first short story that Borges created as part of his decision to move to prose from poetry, his original medium of expression. It was written in the early 1930s.
The story is interesting, and Borges himself noted in his self-biography that: "t now seems to me to foreshadow and even to set the pattern for those tales that were somehow awaiting me, and upon which my reputation as a storyteller was to be based".
A brief synopsis, which will not leave room to reveal the plotline in a crucial way, is that it is about a book whose main character decides to find a person he believes is called by the name of Al-Mutasim, the same name a noted chaliph of the 9th century muslim lands bordering the Byzantine Empire had. The actual name means "he who seeks refuge", and it seems to allude to god as the one the refuge will be given by.
Borges, in the final pages of the story (as is his usual style later on too) presents a more complicated explanation of the book he refers to. He speaks of a formation of the whole universe which might account for everyone seeking someone else, and in all the interconnected parts, thus (maybe) turning everyone to a god who grants refuge.
The story also has a minor allusion to the mathematic concept of infinite series, like some later works of Borges.
I wanted to ask a couple of things:
-Have you read this short story? What do you think of it if you have?
-Are you of the view that literature is a good medium for such ideas? In my view they are important, but in literature it possibly is more crucial to strike a balance between ideas and the actual iconic (mostly mean pictorial here) presentation of the work. However i always like Borges in his best stories, and i regard this one, which i read only four days ago, a notable creation of his as well :)
The story is interesting, and Borges himself noted in his self-biography that: "t now seems to me to foreshadow and even to set the pattern for those tales that were somehow awaiting me, and upon which my reputation as a storyteller was to be based".
A brief synopsis, which will not leave room to reveal the plotline in a crucial way, is that it is about a book whose main character decides to find a person he believes is called by the name of Al-Mutasim, the same name a noted chaliph of the 9th century muslim lands bordering the Byzantine Empire had. The actual name means "he who seeks refuge", and it seems to allude to god as the one the refuge will be given by.
Borges, in the final pages of the story (as is his usual style later on too) presents a more complicated explanation of the book he refers to. He speaks of a formation of the whole universe which might account for everyone seeking someone else, and in all the interconnected parts, thus (maybe) turning everyone to a god who grants refuge.
The story also has a minor allusion to the mathematic concept of infinite series, like some later works of Borges.
I wanted to ask a couple of things:
-Have you read this short story? What do you think of it if you have?
-Are you of the view that literature is a good medium for such ideas? In my view they are important, but in literature it possibly is more crucial to strike a balance between ideas and the actual iconic (mostly mean pictorial here) presentation of the work. However i always like Borges in his best stories, and i regard this one, which i read only four days ago, a notable creation of his as well :)