"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” or “Random Psychological Evaluation for Professors”

I read Borges last year in my Creative Writing class, but not this particular piece. I read Borges and I. He’s pretty insane. I actually want to google “Encyclopaedia of Tlön” just to make sure. To make sure of what? I don’t know… I guess to make sure it wasn’t real because that is just too creepy. I mean, I know it’s fiction, but just the way it’s told, the way we’re eased into it gave me shivers. Had he continued in the same vein, without breaking the barrier between reality and magic realism, if he had just walked that line then I might’ve been climbing the walls right now.

And actually, that’s what I was thinking as I was coming to the midway point of this brilliant piece of fiction. I thought about Marcus, I thought about how he teaches this, maybe not year in, year out, but quite frequently. I started to think that if I were in his position and if this text continues in this manner, I think I may possibly have been driven mad.

That’s a lot of maybes and mays.

I suppose that comes with the territory of this piece. It talks about doubling, and spontaneous copying… fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.. this story is just wonderful in so many ways. All the details of the secret society… the details of the Tlön. I can’t help but wonder what it is, if it is a copy, a copy of?

I’m starting to wonder about this course? Are we to talk about the fiction, the piece themselves, or the ideas of sampling, plagiarism, and appropriation in the text?