It was Carol Emshwiller (herself represented in the 4th and 5th Annuals) who called Peter Redgrave’s prose-poem, “Mr. Waterman,” to my attention, two years ago. Her post card referred me to the Paris Review, and almost timidly assured me that she knew it was not quite what I usually used, but she thought it was awfully good.
She was right on both counts. It was very good, and it was not what I usually used: Not what I usually found. I find more of it these days: there is more, and I’m beginning to know where to look. And writers write to tell me about the good new things I often have not seen myself. Like Carol Emshwiller, like Ballard, like Disch. Or like Redgrove. Some excerpts from a much folded, carried, opened, and reread letter:
My complaint about much s-f has been that the writers seem to have kept to a pulp magazine lingua franca in the interests, perhaps, of getting their insights published and known, and have neglected what you could call the known means of expression.
He goes on to discuss several writers, and one in particular: . . . some of whose stories have invented ,parts of my own mind, but whose mode of expression I believe is often conventional in the extreme. I admire his invention so much . . . but when I think back to his stories and listen to them I can usually say, “That’s like so-and-so, or he’s using such and such as a vehicle, to get that wonderful thing across, instead of coming, in his own person.”
And by way of pointing up his meaning, comes at last to: . . . Jorge Luis Borges, who tells the most appalling mathematical jokes with sad humility ... In my opinion he’s the greatest link between s-f and so-called humane studies, in, for instance, his magnificent “library of Babel” about the people who wander in an infinite library of books containing, not sense necessarily, but all the possible permutations of letters (like the monkeys who, given long enough, would randomly strike out Shakespeare on typewriters).
He went on to quote, stopping sometimes to repeat and relish some treasured phrase—a paragraph from the “Library,” another from “Funes the Memorious” (who could remember everything).
Others had told me about Borges. He was “on my list.” It’s a long list, and its priorities are always in upheaval. After Redgrove’s letter, I went out and found the book. From which—
THE CIRCULAR RUINS
JORGE LUIS BORGES
And if he left off dreaming about you...
—Through the Looking Glass, VI
No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe sinking into the sacred mud, but within a few days no one was unaware that the silent man came from the South and that his home was one of the infinite villages upstream, on the violent mountainside, where the Zend tongue is not contaminated with Greek and where leprosy is infrequent. The truth is that the obscure man kissed the mud, came up the bank without pushing aside (probably without feeling) the brambles which dilacerated his flesh, and dragged himself, nauseous and bloodstained, to the circular enclosure crowned by a stone tiger or horse, which once was the color of fire and now was that of ashes. This circle was a temple, long ago devoured by fire, which the malarial jungle had profaned and whose god no longer received the homage of men. The stranger stretched out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by the sun high above. He evidenced without astonishment that his wounds had closed; he shut his pale eyes and slept, not out of bodily weakness but out of determination of will. He knew that this temple was the place required by his invincible purpose; he knew that, downstream, the incessant trees had not managed to choke the ruins of another propitious temple, whose gods were also burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was to sleep. Towards midnight he was awakened by the disconsolate cry of a bird. Prints of bare feet, some figs and a jug told him that men of the region had respectfully spied upon his sleep and were solicitous of his favor or feared his magic. He felt the chill of fear and sought out a burial niche in the dilapidated wall and covered himself with some unknown leaves.
The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though it was supernatural. He wanted to dream a man: he wanted to dream him with minute integrity and insert him into reality. This magical project had exhausted the entire content of his soul; if someone had asked him his own name or any trait of his previous life, he would not have been able to answer. The uninhabited and broken temple suited him, for it was a minimum of visible world; the nearness of the peasants also suited him, for they would see that his frugal necessities were supplied. The rice and fruit of their tribute were sufficient sustenance for his body, consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming.
At first, his dreams were chaotic; somewhat later, they were of a dialectical nature. The stranger dreamt that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which in some way was the burned temple: clouds of silent students filled the gradins; the faces of the last ones hung many centuries away and at a cosmic height, but were entirely clear and precise. The man was lecturing to them on anatomy, cosmography, magic; the countenances listened with eagerness and strove to respond with understanding, as if they divined the importance of the examination which would redeem one of them from his state of vain appearance and interpolate him into the world of reality. The man, both in dreams and awake, considered his phantoms’ replies, was not deceived by impostors, divined a growing intelligence in certain perplexities. He sought a soul which would merit participation in the universe.
After nine or ten nights, he comprehended with some bitterness that he could expect nothing of those students who passively accepted his doctrines, but that he could of those who, at times, would venture a reasonable contradiction. The former, though worthy of love and affection, could not rise to the state of individuals; the latter pre-existed somewhat more. One afternoon (now his afternoons too were tributaries of sleep, now he remained awake only for a couple of hours at dawn) he dismissed the vast illusory college forever and kept one single student. He was a silent boy, sallow, sometimes obstinate, with sharp features which reproduced those of the dreamer. He was not long disconcerted by his companions’ sudden elimination; his progress, after a few special lessons, astounded his teacher. Nevertheless, catastrophe ensued. The man emerged from sleep one day as if from a viscous desert, looked at the vain light of afternoon, which at first he confused with that of dawn, and understood that he had not really dreamt. All that night and all day, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia weighed upon him. He tried to explore the jungle, to exhaust himself; amidst, the hemlocks, he was scarcely able to manage a few snatches of feeble sleep, fleetingly mottled with some rudimentary visions which were useless. He tried to convoke the college and had scarcely uttered a few brief words of exhortation, when it became deformed and was extinguished. In his almost perpetual sleeplessness, his old eyes burned with tears of anger.
He comprehended that the effort to mold the incoherent and vertiginous matter dreams are made of was the most arduous task a man could undertake, though he might penetrate all the enigmas of the upper and lower orders: much more arduous than weaving a rope of sand or coining the faceless wind. He comprehended that an initial failure was inevitable. He swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had misled him at first, and he sought another method. Before putting it into effect, he dedicated a month to replenishing the powers his delirium had wasted. He abandoned any premeditation of dreaming and, almost at once, was able to sleep for a considerable part of the day. The few times he dreamt during this period, he did not take notice of the dreams. To take up his task again, he waited until the moon’s disk was perfect. Then, in the afternoon, he purified himself in the waters of the river, worshiped the planetary gods, uttered the lawful syllables of a powerful name and slept. Almost immediately, he dreamt of a beating heart.