Ficciones

1 Pages 350 Words

Uqbar, Tlon, Orbis Tertius

Deception is the central idea of this piece. Had the doubtful quote of “mirrors and copulation are abominable for they multiply the number of mankind” been said by Bioy Casares, the quest to seek the truth of Uqbar would have never existed. This and many other mirror imagery throughout the piece contributes to the deception of reality topic symbolically. “Mirror troubled the far end of a hallway” because it creates an illusion that the hallway is twice as long as it should be. Deception causes the obscurity of truth—thus the truth that we seek might not be trust worthy. Therefore in attempt to do away with the deception caused by science, the Tlonians “presuppose idealism” by seeking “not truth, or even plausibility” only an enlightenment toward an ideally monistic universe. Yet to an even greater degree, the speaker realizes as he describes in the Postscript the creation of Tlon was a deception in itself. The nihilistic Ezra Buckley attempts to “deceive” God by theoretically playing God in the creation of Tlon—Buckley envisions that “mortals could conceive and shape a world”. Ultimately, the world of Tlon replaces the world as we know it because “reality ‘caved in’” in the face of the nonexistent deception of truth known as Tlon.

Approach to Al-Mu’tasim

Borges continues to explore the idea of monism in this piece, but more specifically toward the monism of religion and spirituality. The piece is a “commentary” of a nonexistent mystery story which explores the religious strife of India—to an extent spiritual and religious strife of the world. The protagonist began his quest after “he reflects that he has shown himself capable of killing an idolater, yet incapable of knowing…whether the Muslim possesses more of truth than the [Hindu] does.” The novel ends with encounter of the protagonist and his quest: Al-Mu’tasim. The ultimate result is the realizat...