Borges' Dilemma and Symbolic Reflections

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The speaker examines a section of Borges' story where he faces the choice of asking someone to write the forward for his book. Borges reflects on his decision to avoid confrontation and discusses the symbolic meaning of change, highlighting the significance of the olive in his poetic inspiration. The chapter concludes with Borges asserting that no one will take his olive from him, as he mentions his lawyer, Zuni, who will protect its importance through the law.

An episode interesting from every point of view, we train our eyes on Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Aleph.” The first segment wins the kudos of the learned, the academician, the Hellenist, as we talk about the favorite things we saw this year. The second segment — baroque? decadent? the purified and fanatical cult of form? — dives into the philosophy, comedy, satire, and poignancy of this classic story. Once again, we show our awareness that truly modern podcasting demands the balm of laughter, of scherzo. The finicky will want to excommunicate our discussion without benefit of clergy but the critic of more manly tastes will embrace this episode as he does his very life.

"The Aleph" by Jorge Luis Borges [wikipedia.org]

Version we read: Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Andrew Hurley) [amazon.com affiliate link]