Borges and His Fiction: A Guide to His Mind and Art, A Revised Edition

6. Ficciones II: The World Within a Book

6 Ficciones II the world within a book W ith characteristic understatement, Borges points out in his preface to Ficciones that ‘‘The Lottery in Babylon’’ is a piece ‘‘not entirely free of symbolism.’’ It is curious that Borges should so single out this one story, since all his narrative writings from this period have the symbolic aura ordinarily associated with his kind of fantasy . Indeed, close to one-half of the stories in Ficciones are symbolic parables that evoke human problems and situations. Some pieces do this by sketching before our eyes imaginary antiworlds, whose rituals, arts, and history are variously suggested; others hint at a larger reality by focusing upon the smaller but denser intellectual space of an invented book or the invented writings of a concocted author. The most impressive story of them all—‘‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’’—fuses a fabricated book and a fancied antiworld into a single entity: an imaginary encyclopedia that deals with an imagined planet. These fictional devices, mined by Borges for all their suggestive potential, are at the basis of his reputation as narrative innovator. The small gem entitled ‘‘The Sect of the Phoenix’’ provides a striking instance of an imagined world that obliquely represents our own. Borges himself termed the story an ‘‘allegory.’’ It deals with a mysterious sect with a single bond that unifies its members: an unmentionable ‘‘Secret,’’ a ‘‘simple ritual’’ that is ‘‘trivial, momentary, and does not require description ’’ (L, 103; F, 183). The narrative opens with a formidable barrage of learning, an erudite mock controversy that considers purported allusions to the sect in sources as diverse as ancient Egyptian inscriptions, medieval chronicles, and nineteenth-century philology. Borges soon drifts into a more descriptive vein, with seeming recollections of talks about the ‘‘Secret ’’ with Swiss artisans. This sect differs from the Jews or gypsies, we are told, in that its members do not stand out in any way; their looks and language resemble those of everyone else. Hence the sectarians are never singled out for attack; but, because the people of the Phoenix are found among all possible nationalities and groups, they share in whatever misfortune befalls their compatriots. At one time their ‘‘Secret’’ had religious significance; now it is only a received tradition, varyingly interpreted as punishment, pact, or privilege. The story ends with Borges observing that he has met followers of the Phoenix on three continents, sectarians who at first were shocked by the ‘‘Secret,’’ but for whom it is now instinctive. ‘‘The Sect of the Phoenix’’ can puzzle first-time readers; after one has guessed the rather banal identity of the ‘‘Secret,’’ however, the story comes to life as one of Borges’s most accessible, refreshing, and even amusing works. Borges here constructs a seemingly vast enigma, an exotic but lighthearted fable, a sophisticated literary puzzle about the sex act. (In case there are doubts, Borges once told Ronald Christ, ‘‘the act is what Whitman says ‘the divine husband knows, from the work of fatherhood ,’’’ adding that as a child he was shocked upon realizing that his own parents had done it.1 ) The sectarians, in turn, are no less than the entire human race, from artisans to lawyers, ancient Egyptians to Uruguayan settlers. They resemble all the men in the world for the obvious reason that they are all men in the world. The first references to the so-called sect logically would appear in Egyptian inscriptions, the oldest extant literary writings known to man. Of course, in that remote era, the ‘‘Secret’’ was invested with religious significance (as it still is in certain societies), but to the modern, secularminded , more shallow sectarians, it has become rather ordinary, something clinical or simply hedonistic. Temples are unnecessary for the ritual since ‘‘a ruin, a cellar or an entrance hall’’ (L, 103; F, 183) will suffice for privacy (Borges prudently shuns mention of a bedroom). For devout Christians, who think of the sex act as Adam and Eve’s original sin, the ‘‘Secret’’ is God’s ‘‘punishment’’; on the other hand, for couples who agree to perform the ritual, in or out of wedlock, it is in some measure a ‘‘pact’’; and for Don Juans, polygamous sheiks, and other comparably highly placed or able individuals, the ‘‘Secret’’ is an enjoyable ‘‘privilege,’’ one of those perquisites of power. In the end, however, all sectarians who practice the rite can achieve ‘‘eternity’’ by the obvious avenue of procreation . Borges in this regard inserts a...