An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain
| "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jorge Luis Borges |
| Original title | "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain" |
| Translator | Anthony Bonner |
| Country | Argentina |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre(s) | Fantasy, short story |
| Published in | Sur |
| Media type | |
| Publication date | April 1941 |
| Published in English | 1962 |
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (original Spanish title: "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in the anthology Ficciones, part one (The Garden of Forking Paths). The title has also been translated as A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" is a fictional essay surveying the following works, written by fictional deceased Irish author Herbert Quain:
- The God of the Labyrinth (1933), a detective story in which the solution given is wrong, although this fact is not immediately obvious
- April March (1936), a novel with nine different beginnings, trifurcating backwards in time
- The Secret Mirror, a play in which the first act is the work of one of the characters in the second act
- Statements (1939), eight stories which are deliberately calculated to disappoint the reader; The Circular Ruins is supposedly an extract from the third story, "The Rose of Yesterday"
[edit] Style
The review of fictional books is a favorite device of Borges (see, for instance, his "pseudo-essay" The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim in Ficciones).
The fictional essayist's vanity, affectation, and hypocrisy "gives the story a satirical coloration" and, along with the reactions of the misunderstanding and unappreciative public, serve to, by contrast, emphasize Quain's "uncompromising purity."[1]
[edit] Influence
In his 1984 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Original Portuguese title O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis), José Saramago's protagonist, Ricardo Reis, spends much time considering the work The God of the Labyrinth by Herbert Quain.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ Lindstrom, Naomi (1990). Jorge Luis Borges: A Study of the Short Fiction. G.K. Hall & Co.. pp. 31–32, 64–65. ISBN 0-8057-8327-X.
- ^ Saramago, J, 1992, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, translated from Portuguese by G. Ponteiro, Harvill, London (Originally published 1984).
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
