Conceptual Literature in Conceptual Fiction
Conceptual Literature in Conceptual Fiction
It is strange but entirely natural that conceptual literature should so very frequently be the subject of conceptual literature. This meta position permits the fictional author to mirror the real author’s ideas in a book that we can both visualize and consider along with the actual book that we are reading.
The Garden of Forking Paths
TS’UI PÊN
Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1941.
Mentioned in Jorge Luis Borges’ Ficciones.
Ts’ui Pên was the governor of Yunnan Province when he renounced his post to write a huge novel whose intricacy would reflect the giant labyrinth he built at the same time. Unfortunately, Ts’ui was murdered before he was able to complete either task. His surviving manuscript was very chaotic, and the location of the labyrinth was never determined. His will read, “I leave to several futures (not to all) my garden of forking paths.” Snuff bottle (Qing Dynasty) belonging to the personal collection of Ts’ui Pên.
Snuff Bottle
Snuff bottle (Qing Dynasty) belonging to the personal collection of Ts’ui Pên.
Project for the Constitution of an Ideal State in the Trees
COSIMO, Barone RONDÒ
London: Bickers, 1930.
Mentioned in Italo Calvino’s The Baron in the Trees.
The life philosophy of Baron Cosimo Piovasco di Rondò, and his belief that humanity could only find reason, peace, and happiness by living, as our ancestors did, in the trees. The Baron had, as a child, a fight with his father over the boy’s disinclination to eat his snail soup, climbed into a tree to escape, and vowed never to come down to earth again, a vow he kept until his death.
The Oak Tree
ORLANDO
Manuscript of the autobiographical poem, .
First mentioned in Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.
Orlando’s life-poem. It tracks the changes in his life (and, later, hers) from the poem’s inception in the 1580s until she presents the published book to the eponymous tree itself on the grounds of the family manor in the year 1928. The work’s changes through the years follow and symbolize the changes in the writer’s life.
Don Quijote
Don Quijote
PIERRE MENARD
Paris: Libreria Europea, 1840.
First mentioned in Jorge Luis Borges’ “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.”
This is not a translation of Cervantes’ Don Quijote. It is, rather, an original work that is line-for-line identical with Cervantes’ effort. Menard, a twentieth century French writer, wrote it by completely immersing himself in the world of Cervantes (1547-1616).
Because of the perspective of the later time in which it was written, Menard’s Quixote, although employing the exact same wording, is much richer in allusion and meaning than was that of Cervantes’ original.
Sailing Shoes.
JASON MURPHY
San Francisco: City Lights, 1954.
First mentioned in Paul Fournel’s, Jason Murphy.
One of the early beat poets, Murphy was part of the San Francisco scene in the 1950s, a friend of Ferlinghetti, and an admirer of Allen Ginsberg. Sailing Shoes was his best seller, and he wanted it to be his Howl. At readings he was given to shouting it wildly, often to the distress of his audience.
Canvas Shoes
These canvas sailing shoes belonged to Murphy, but there is no certainty that they are the pair to which the poem refers.
Tidewater Tales
PETER and KATHERINE SHERRITT SAGAMORE
New York: Putnam, 1987.
First mentioned in John Barth’s Tidewater Tales.
This dazzling novel describes the efforts of a young author’s wife, Katherine Sagamore, to help her husband, Peter Sagamore, get over a severe case of writer’s block. Nine months pregnant and out sailing with Peter, she asks him to tell her a story, and, like Scheherazade, he obliges. This starts the narrative juices flowing, and story after story pours out in the jointly authored, mise-en-abîme novel that becomes the Tidewater Tales.
On the Use of Mirrors in the Game of Chess
MILO TEMESVAR
Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1932.
First mentioned in Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose.
This odd little book describes a complicated method for gaining the advantage in chess, making use of extensive quotations from the medieval manuscript of Adso of Melk on the one hand, and a contraption of mirrors and sailor’s cordage on the other.
Temesvar Mirrors in Use
Here the Temesvar contraption is strung to solve the problem WHITE TO PLAY AND MATE IN SIX. The black king is designated for attack. (The reader is advised not to try to solve the problem without carefully tuning the apparatus.)