Parallel Realities in the Writing's of Jorge Luis Borges

Upon reading "The Garden of Forking Paths," I was very confused.  At first, I did not know how to react.  I was not quite sure what had happened to be frank.  I re-read the story to find I had a little more understanding of what I had read.  The approach to magical realism that Borges takes is quite different than that of Julio Cortazar or Gabriel Garcia Marquez.  Borges seems to take a more indirect approach to his magical realism.  This was the source of my confusion when reading all of his stories.  "The Garden of Forking Paths" gave me the feeling of being a time warp.  After reading, I was not sure whether or not what I seemed to be comprehending made any sense.  After discussing in class, I did indeed understand what I had, but I did need the confirmation of Professor Benander to clarify what I had read, which I did not necessarily need with our other readings.  It is always nice to talk about stories that I read amongst a group to bounce ideas off of one another, however in this case, it was an absolute necessity.  Borges uses "The Garden of Forking Paths" as a metaphor for the paths we take in life.  There are literally millions of choices that we make in our lives, and this story suggests that in each alternate reality we have made a different decision which will lead us down another path unique to itself.  In each alternate reality that we may or may not perceive we are walking down a "forking path."  A forking path to me is a path that each of us creates that we recognize as our lives.  Whether this is choosing what we had for breakfast, or choosing who we should marry, each choice in our life can have a "butterfly effect" on the outcomes of our lives.  Borges suggests that in our alternate realities we made different choices which lead us to different outcomes.  I could not help but relate this "garden of forking paths" to the internet.  I had a hard time at first relating this sensation Borges describes to anything in our culture in the present day.  Then, when the internet was brought up in class I couldn't stop thinking about the significance that it plays in this metaphor.  The internet is nothing but a giant garden of forking paths.  There are an unlimited number of paths that you can take when navigating through cyberspace, each step you take along the way will open another new path that you maybe would have never discovered had you not taken the path you did.  And also along the same lines, we talked about the creation of hypertext, which is an internet sensation, especially on websites like Wikipedia, where words are highlighted, and when clicked lead to new websites, with different information pertaining to the new topic.  Borges is credited with starting this idea of hypertext as we discussed in class.  Hypertext can be considered an extension of "The Garden of Forking Paths" as it would be a method to choosing the things that will pave the new path you have chosen.  Hypertext is just a much more literal translation of the garden.  Suggesting that parallel realities exist, and that what happens in the reality that we are a part of can be described as a garden of forking paths is a very unique perspective.  After evaluating "The Garden of Forking Paths" and relating it to something in my life, this existence of another reality that we are not aware of does not seem so farfetched.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Gabriel Garcia Marquez does a great job of showing us his forms of showing us great examples of magical realism in both of his short stories, "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," and "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World."  His sense of magical realism is much more subtle than that of Julio Cortazar who often leaves us with a gut-wrenching, I just found out my dog has cancer sort of a feeling.  Whereas, Marquez uses a much more subtle style of writing.  After reading these stories it seems to me that Marquez tries to make references to what he thinks should change in our society through subtle hints to the reader.  A good example of this was in "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings," Marquez seems to tell the reader indirectly that when you read a story, you should not just be reading the story for the ending.  In his subtle manner, Marquez relays this to the reader by simply ending the story without a "fun" ending.  The ending to this story seems to be Marquez's way of taking a stab at a problem with humanity as a whole.  I think he is trying to tell us as a people to enjoy the story, as well as the ending.  I very much enjoyed this story and thought that it provided an interesting change in point of view.  I felt like this was a refreshing change from the ordinary short story where all I typically look for is what is the ever important ending.  Marquez does a nice job of not letting this happen in his short story.  After discussing this story in class, I found it to be intriguing that Marquez pokes at humanity to get his point across. For me, this was a very effective way in which to get his point across.  I have always been a rather sarcastic person, and as I see this way in which to get your point across rather effective for myself in particular.  By mocking humanity for their simple needs, like being satisfied by the ending of a short story, he seems to show how much he actually cares about us as a whole.

I found the story "The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World" to be very different from the first story we read by Marquez.  The most interesting part of this story to me was the publication in which it was printed.  Being that this famous short story was meant for Playboy, this changed how I read and understood this short story.  Because Playboy is meant for men in the 60 plus region, I thought that this story had quite an interesting message, as subtle as it may have seemed.  From what I gathered Marquez wanted the message of this short story to mock the way in which older gentlemen who read Playboy think.  Marquez subtly wants these gentlemen to realize that what they are seeking is unobtainable.  That in "real life" there are not women who look like Playmates.  In "real life" people do not have perfectly airbrushed faces and bodies, do not walk around scantily clad, waiting for the next snapshot to take place, and return to their perfect dream world's.  No, not in any world does this happen, and that is what Marquez relays to us through his short story.  He wants to let the reader know that when they set these ridiculous expectations for women in their lives, they will always fall short, as Playmates do not exist in "real life."  The irony of this story being put into one of the most popular smut magazines of all time must be seen as very amusing by a man like Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The Writing's of Julio Cortazar

After reading the three works that we did by Julio Cortazar, I found his style of writing and his use of magical realism to be fascinating.  To me, his works were extremely original, and interesting beyond belief.  It has been a long time since I personally have done a lot of reading because I have not been in school for about two years and I am very glad that I am getting my school career back on track by beginning with these readings.  I am not usually someone who is very interested in what he reads for class, however, I found these readings, although short, to be quite captivating.

To begin with, "The continuity of Parks" was a read that left me wanting more as soon as I had finished it. It is amazing to me that with a little more than 500 words, Cortazar can sway the emotions of the reader as much as he does.  His changing on tenses seems to be one of the main reasons that I felt as though I had been through a time machine at the end of the read.  In my opinion this was an excellent Cortazar story for us to begin with.  Cortazar is never direct with what he is making you feel, but you (the reader) feel it nonetheless.  Cortazar shows how capable he is of changing emotions quickly when at the end of this story the reader has become the one in the chair who has been plotted against and is now dead.  I do not know that I have ever read anything quite like this, but I found the first work of Julio Cortazar's that I have read intriguing.

In the second story we read, "Our Demeanor at Wakes" Julio Cortazar confuses me just as much as he did in the first story we read of his.  After reading this story one time, I was left in utter confusion as to what had happened and had to then re-read the story.  After the second time I had a much more clear version of what had just happened.  I found this story to be quite perplexing at first, but after breaking it down both in class and at home by myself, I think I understand it a little bit more.  This story struck home with me just because I have been to a fair amount of wakes in my life, and several in the recent past.  I find it interesting when authors write about social situations and how people can react differently and why when in them.  This is a particularly "touchy" topic to write about, as most people do not have a huge interest in death, and discussing it regularly.  I think that is why I found Cortazar talking about how people act when they are mourning the death of someone to be as interesting as it was.  He examines how people behave, why they may do so, and in what capacity.  The family that he writes about has a lot of pride in their ability to mourn and they want to show that to everyone that they encounter in this story.  This seems like a very odd practice to me, but I suppose in some cultures this may be something that is to be proud of.  I just found the way in which Cortazar depicts these people was quite entertaining.  Essentially these people are insane and take over someone else's wake.  If you were to write a story like that on your own, I don't know if you could write one better than what we read from Cortazar.  He seems to nail it on the head.

I found "Axolotl" to have a very different mood than the other stories.  The first two stories that we read seemed to have a much more serious tone than this story about salamanders did.  First of all the major difference which is quite obvious is that the topic is very different than the other two.  However, all three of these stories do have a abundant usage of magical realism.  In Axolotl the person who loves watching the salamanders in the end becomes one who wishes that someone would write a story telling everyone else about Axolotl.  Funny that he wishes that, because that is actually what happened when Cortazar wrote this.  I found this story to be a lot easier to comprehend than the first two.  I only had to read this one once through whereas the first two stories both needed to be re-read to be fully comprehended.  I think that this story seems to be much more playful and more fun than his other two.  Again, Cortazar makes significant use of his changing of tenses and possessives in this story to relay his magical realism.  He switches back and forth from salamander to observer of salamander tank several times.

After reading and reflecting about all of these stories, I would say that I have learned a lot about magical realism through the readings of Julio Cortazar.  I found his short stories to be not only very interesting, but also sort of eye opening for me in particular.  I haven't had much experience at all with magical realism, but hopefully these readings will make me did even deeper into this world of magical realism.

Bregger reader response to Popol Vuh

I found the Popol Vuh: the dawn of life to be a fascinating story in which I saw one main connection to something I have prior experience with.  The first thing that I immediately compared this story to was the Bible.  We talked about a few of these comparisons in class, and I found the stories to be similar in a lot of ways.  They both seem to convey fairly similar messages about being a good person, not being greedy or boasting about your greatness.  I see a lot of similarities in the messages that are trying to be conveyed by both texts. How they go about teaching similar lessons turns out to be the most interesting part of this story.  Growing up in a Cristian household and being subject to the teachings of the Bible I am very familiar with the stories in this book, and a lot of the teachings that the Bible is supposed to convey.  Personally I feel that the Popol Vuh does a much more efficient job of conveying a very similar message to the reader.  Also, I think it is worth noting that, to me, the Popol Vuh also is much more interesting than hearing about stories of Jesus.  I think this is worth noting mostly because of the fact that these stories are meant to form morals for a young person so that they can live their entire life with this set of morals or codes.  Now, if this is the case then it would seem to me that the Popol Vuh would be a much more efficient means of communicating to children what you want communicated simply because they will find it much more entertaining than they would the Bible, which at times presents itself as unrealistic, when it in fact uses living people as its characters.  The similarities that I see between the Bible and the Popol Vuh are not the only similarities that this text has to other religious writings, however I do not know enough about other religious writings to compare them in an intelligent manner, so I will not.  I also found the Popol Vuh to be fascinating in the way that the God's were very flawed in things that they did.  They also admitted to these faults, which seems to be a very human characteristic.  This I would say reminded me most of my readings of Roman Mythology where the gods all where very flawed.  I think this is a much more interesting and realistic way to present gods to readers because they appeal more with their human qualities of imperfection.  The way that the gods admit to their flaws and even have flaws is very different to what I am used to thinking about God as.  Being brought up Christian it seems that God was always thought of as perfection, plain and simple.  A person with no flaws, no wrong-doings, nothing bad at all.  And, simply put, that is not what the God's in the Popol Vuh are like.  And, simply put, that is why I enjoyed this story as much as I did.

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