After three series focusing on a central author, Short Stop is taking a bit of a turn for the next run. Sometime last year, I found a copy of “The Vintage Book of Amnesia” that was compiled and edited by Jonathan Lethem. The theme is simple. He looks at authors throughout time and explores how they approach the subject of memory. Whereas previous series focused on exploring a writer finding their voice, I thought that it would be interesting to try and find something more thematic across the centuries. It’s a lengthy ordeal and one that will probably have more highs and lows than ever before. The hope though is finding a few diamonds in the rough that are worth committing to memory.
When considering the biggest reasons why I picked up this anthology, it would be the authors whose work piqued my interest. I previously covered Shirley Jackson who delivered one of the rare standouts. While Jorge Borges is far from the last name on that list, he is one who jumped to the front of the line. I first encountered Borges’ work in community college and found his work to be revolutionary. Any literary scholar has their work cut out for them when perusing those pages. Is what we’re reading biography? Fiction? Maybe it’s a mix of both. While I’d argue his work has a particular dryness that takes beginners some effort to appreciate, it is among the most rewarding prose out there. Entertainment value may vary, but few authors understood the playfulness of the written word quite like him.
Borges’ work, titled “Funes, His Memory” in this anthology, is a great pivot from a recent run of underwhelming works. Whether it’s an excerpt taken out of context or playing into amnesia gimmicks, this has been an exhausting journey that is only occasionally rewarding. This is one of those weeks where Borges creates a story that reminds you that it is possible to discuss the value of memory in a way that is contrary to absence. If anything, the titular Funes has the burden of remembering with rich clarity almost every day of his life. Articles online compare him to an autistic savant while others suggest it’s closer to hyperamnesia or mnemonist.
I think there’s an unknown struggle with knowing everything about your life. While it would seem like a blessing to recall the greatest days of your lives, I have to imagine it also impacts the contrary. Image the heartache that comes with recalling every tragedy. While it helps to make for a clear and full portrait of life, are we better off having this information wandering through our brains? Maybe we form greater skills interacting with the world, or maybe it just makes it scarier.
Something to consider when reading Borges is how banal his prose reads while hiding details that become more absurd the more you think about them. Despite Ireneo Funes being a character with fantastic memory, the author has chosen to reflect the story from his own standpoint. By painting him as the protagonist, it already adds some faultiness in the recollection. Given that the reader is made aware that this is an event decades in the past, one has to believe that there’s an element of fantasy reshaping everything to fit a more conventional narrative. After all, Funes is the mnemonist, not Borges.
Ultimately, this is a narrative of contrast. If you were able to recall your entire life, there’s a good chance that certain things would be valued less. For Borges, he is as faulty as most readers. The fact that this precedes the author’s birth, the fantasy is at best an assumption of what life was like based on stories likely told to him from faulty memories. Even if he writes with clarity, it’s clear that leniency should be provided around accuracy.
With that said, I think that Borges’ has an interesting difference from Funes in how they view the world. The most noteworthy way is that he’s an academic. Throughout the text, he discusses the idea of collecting books to give to Funes. Outside of the fact this was adapted from Spanish, an interesting subtext is that Borges is an intellect who has spent his life studying the written word. He not only can process Spanish texts, but knows multiple languages that gives him access to information such as Pliny the Elder’s “The Natural History.” He is able to envision worlds that he may never encounter. He is a creative type who, by virtue of how this text is written, has his flights of fancy.
Meanwhile, Funes is a complicated figure. Even if he likes the challenge of readings Borges’ hand-me-down texts, it’s clear that they don’t share a similar fascination. Funes isn’t as quick to translate foreign languages. Part of me is convinced that this is Borges’ way of adding even more faulty memory to a text about perfect memory. It reveals how social structures ultimately shape how we see the same reality. Small things could be interpreted as good or harmful, and Borges is interested in determining how it impacts the mood of the characters. Because of his intellect, he tends to have a less black and white view of the world. He takes in the majesty and curiously moves forward, wanting to learn more.
However, a sign of how different Borges is from Funes comes in a scene where the author asks the man for the time. Without consulting a watch, Funes shares the time down to the right minute. He’s so in tune with the world around him that he could be perceived as the present. His antipathy for textbooks might come from the fact that the written word is a glimpse into the past. He ceases to be in the moment the minute he becomes transfixed in details that tie him to a greater legacy. Maybe this is a byproduct of being a 19-year-old who is in the prime of his life, but it’s also a topic that is given more serious discussion later on.
Then again, Funes is a man who lives off the land. When working agriculture, so much depends on the immediate. Every day will make a difference whether people will have food on their table, and it’s up to him to be ready for the consequences. While it can be argued that he also would need to notice patterns, Funes is young enough that he’s at best working on instinct. His body seems invincible. Borges, by comparison, may chronicle the past and give Funes any legacy after his death, but he’s not written as self-sufficient. If anything, he spends way too much of life questioning mortality and sentimentalizing history instead of making it. With his father in ill health, Borges would be a fool to not have these thoughts on his mind.
Which makes the contrast with Funes interesting. The reader isn’t made aware of his age until late in the text, so the idea of wasted potential isn’t fully clear until it’s almost gone. Funes’ inciting incident is that he has become severely injured in a horseback riding incident. Chances of him reaching his former glory are impossible. There’s something comic about this young man having his only friend being a literary nerd who doesn’t fully connect with his interests. While the notion is sweet from Borges’ perspective, it can also reflect how isolating their dynamic it.
The final stretch may be the most provocative. “Funes” ranks as the story to beat in this collection. For reasons not entirely clear, Borges spends the final encounter talking to him in the dark. It’s here where the real discussion of perfect memory comes into play. Borges is naturally curious and tries to inquire what it’s like to be a 19-year-old with access to that information. It’s true that there’s something tragic about it in light of his injury, but he can still remember the good days. However, as a 19-year-old it’s clear that the world was ahead of him. He could’ve matured and had an even greater life. Instead, he lost it on an unfortunate chance of fate.
Funes is a mythic figure in Borges’ eyes. He describes his appearance like Egyptian history. There’s something grander about his existence, and it only adds to the bittersweet undertones. However, the thing that fascinates me about Funes is how he finally unveils the tolls of having perfect memory. For starters, he hasn’t been sleeping because he can recall every detail in the room. He goes on to suggest that the way he thinks forces him to focus on the physical world. He can recall the placement of every object and how it changes. However, he struggles to place them to time because it would cause him to think. Funes doesn’t allow himself to process thought because of how he processes time. He is so in the moment that he seems removed from history. In that sense, he doesn’t fully have an identity.
I think what’s brilliant is how the story ends. Following a discussion of how this man is disconnected from time, Borges pulls one final reveal. As mentioned, Funes is only 19 years old and passes away by his 30s. There’s another decade of life that isn’t explored here. One has to wonder what his life was like. Maybe he learned to walk and move forward, but his physical peak would never come back. He was alone. Given that Borges paints him as weary before he’s 20, one has to feel like he lived many lives before it was all over.
The romanticization that Borges has for Funes makes this a powerful story that likely has more subtext that I haven’t fully explored. Here is the story of a man whose promise disappeared before it was really allowed to develop. Is it any better than allowing Borges to age and become his own student of history? Some could argue Funes could’ve done much more than the writer ever could. It’s a story full of hypotheticals, and a lot of them are about what would’ve happened had the horseback riding injury never happened. Maybe the two would’ve never met and the speculation wouldn’t have crossed Borges’ mind. It’s an example of life being stranger than fiction, even if this is obviously the same.
I hope that more stories reach this level of nuance. When I began this journey, I wasn’t sure I’d see stories that weren’t about memory loss. To me, it felt like it was right there in the title. However, it’s gone in some interesting directions and I’d argue this is the brightest example of where things can go. Memory loss isn’t just the act of absence. Sometimes it’s studying what’s still there, such as hyperamnesia. What other medical conditions are out there to challenge the potential of this anthology? I’m not sure if we’ll get many authors as accomplished as Borges to deliver something sublime, but I’m going to keep hope alive a little longer.
Coming Up Next: Cornell Woolrich’s “The Black Curtain”
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