The concept of the universal book and its affect on both character and reader in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "The Garden of Forking Paths" from Ficciones by Jorges Luis Borges.
The concept of the universal book and its affect on both character and reader in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "The Garden of Forking Paths" from Ficciones by Jorges Luis Borges.
Since the birth of literature, writers have sought to define the enigma of time in such a way that it can be encompassed by the human mind. Over the years, authors have developed a myriad of ideas concerning this topic, not the least of which is the metaphor of the universal book; a book that contains all time: that which has happened, is happening and will happen. In One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and "The Garden of Forking Paths" in Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges, both authors develop this concept of the universal book and explore its effect on character and reader.
In each novel, the universal book serves as an extension of the influence of the character that penned it; Melquiades in One Hundred Years of Solitude and Tsui Pen in "The Garden of Forking Paths". In Marquez' work, Melquiades is introduced as the initial external force to reach the Eden of Macondo, and it is from this point that his influence extends over the Buendia family and thus the entire town. At first, his influence is direct as he and his gypsies introduce the town to technological marvels from the outside world and befriend the Buendia clan.
In March the gypsies returned. This time they brought a telescope and a magnifying glass the size of a drum, which they exhibited as the latest discovery of the Jews of Amsterdam. They placed a gypsy woman at one end of the village and set up the telescope at the entrance to the tent. For a price of fives reales, people could look into the telescope and see the gypsy woman an arm's length away. "Science has eliminated distance," Melquiades proclaimed. "In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his house."1
The introduction of new technology fuels Macondo's advancement through the development of civilization, and forces Macondo out of its initial state of innocence and purity. The direct influence of Melquiades links the town to the outside world. However, Melquiades foreshadows the progression of his influence, from direct to indirect, in the last lines of the quotation. "Science has eliminated distance" and "In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his house."2 In the middle of the novel, Melquiades will lock himself in his room and ...
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The introduction of new technology fuels Macondo's advancement through the development of civilization, and forces Macondo out of its initial state of innocence and purity. The direct influence of Melquiades links the town to the outside world. However, Melquiades foreshadows the progression of his influence, from direct to indirect, in the last lines of the quotation. "Science has eliminated distance" and "In a short time, man will be able to see what is happening in any place in the world without leaving his house."2 In the middle of the novel, Melquiades will lock himself in his room and see across time, thus foretelling the fate of the Buendia clan in his books. One could almost change the quotation to say that science has eliminated 'time' and in a short time, man will be able to see what is happening at any point in 'time' without leaving his house. The reason for Melquiades' voluntary omission of the word is, coincidentally, best found in "The Garden of Forking Paths":
"Philosophical conjectures take up the greater part of his novel. I know that of all problems, none disquieted him more, and none concerned him more than the profound one of time. Now then, this is the only problem that does not figure in the pages of The Garden. He does not even use the word which means time. How can these voluntary omissions be explained?"
I proposed various solutions, all of them inadequate. We discussed them. Finally, Stephen Albert said: "In a guessing game to which the answer is chess, which word is the only one prohibited?" I thought for a moment and then replied:
"The word is chess."
"Precisely," said Albert. "The Garden of Forking Paths is an enormous guessing game, or parable, in which the subject is time. The rules of the game forbid the use of the word itself."3
Melquiades' influence changes after he completes his books and dies. He is the first person to die in Macondo and so introduces death to the Buendia family and the town. His death marks the transition of his influence from the physical, through technology and his physical being, to the metaphysical, through his books and his ghost. Furthermore, with the death of Melquiades, we reach the transition point in the novel where the Buendia family begins its descent towards ultimate destruction in the final chapters.
In "The Garden of Forking Paths", the books act as a continuation of the influence of another rather enigmatic character, the ancient governor Tsui Pen, over his descendants, specifically a certain Yu Tsun. However, unlike Marquez who has an entire novel in which to develop the nature of the influence of Melquiades, Borges is restricted in his development of this theme through the structure of his story. Since Borges chose the form of a short story to discuss his ideas, it is not clear who or what is the motivator of Yu Tsun's imagination until the introduction of the books of Tsui Pen, approximately half way through the story. However, by observing Yu Tsun's thoughts in the initial pages of the tale, it soon becomes apparent that the idea of universal time is a central theme. As Yu Tsun moves towards Albert's house, he explores this idea, in relation to his ancestor's work:
I reflected that all things happen, happen to one, precisely now. Century follows century, and things happen only in the present. There are countless men in the air, on land and at sea, and all that really happens happens to me.4
...I thought of a maze of mazes, of a sinuous, ever growing maze which would take in both past and future and would somehow involve the stars.5
When Yu Tsun reaches Albert's house, he encounters the books of Tsui Pen, and it is at this point that Tsui Pen's influence becomes more direct. Albert interprets the books as a unification of time of past, present and future, and this parallels Yu Tsun's image of Tsui Pen's "mythical labyrinth"6. In fact, both interpretations demonstrate what is happening in the overall story as penned by Borges. The introduction tells us that we are reading a manuscript of a dictation taken in the past, and therefore, we can interpret this story as being read in the future compared to the time the manuscript was written. The manuscript is in the present tense, and since we are looking at it from the future, this unifies the future and the present. Within the manuscript elements of past, present and future are united as well. Yu Tsun tells us that his ancestor Tsui Pen was "assassinated by a stranger"7 which parallels his assassination of Albert. Past and present are unified within the unification of present and future. It becomes clear that all elements of time become focussed on the present. Ultimately, Yu Tsun explains this concept most clearly:
"The future exists now"8
This phrase is intrinsic in defining what happens at the end of the story. Ultimately, Yu Tsun kills Albert. According to the philosophy of Tsui Pen, there are a number of ways this could have happened; however, the path by which it arrives is itself unimportant, only that the event occurs. This concept makes Albert's death inevitable and the quotation "The future exists now" marks the point where the inevitability of this event is realized by the central character, Yu Tsun.
In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the destruction of the final Buendia, Aureliano, is as inevitable as the death of Albert in "The Garden of Forking Paths." Like Borges, Marquez also uses a similar phrase to mark the point where the inevitability of the destruction of Macondo, and the Buendia line, dawns upon Aureliano. In Chapter 18, Aureliano, through Melquiade's ghost, discovers the key to deciphering the gypsy's parchments. The result is the phrase:
"Everything is known"9
which parallels "The future exists now" from "The Garden of Forking Paths". The line draws all things together ("everything" being all time within in the novel) to a state of certainty. This marks the enlightenment of Aureliano to his ultimate and ultimately unchangeable path to destruction. An important observation is that both characters, upon realization of their destinies as outlined in the universal books, do not make attempts to change them. Thus both Borges and Marquez neatly sidestep the potential for paradox because in both cases, inevitability is the ultimate conclusion to both stories.
"Everything is known;
The future is now; and
All roads lead to Rome."
-D. Laughton-
Works Cited
Borges, Jorges Luis. "The Garden of Forking Paths." Ficciones. Trans. Emecé Editores, S.A., Buenos Aires. Ed. Anthony Kerrigan. New York: Grove Press, 1962.
Márquez, Gabriel García. One Hundered Years of Solitude. Trans. Gregory Rabassa. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 1998.
2, Ch. 1, Marquez
2 3, Ch. 1, Marquez
3 99, Borges
4 90, Borges
5 94, Borges
6 94, Borges
7 93, Borges
8 101, Borges
9 402, Ch. 18, Marquez
Nicholas Laughton 0162034 Page
