LITERATURE: Ficciones – Funes, the Memorious

The opening line intrigues:

I remember him (I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb; only one man on earth deserved the right, and he is dead), I remember him with a dark passionflower in his hand, looking at it as no one has ever looked at such a flower, though they might look from the twilight of day until the twilight of night, for a whole life long.  (p. 107)

It is not until the end of this story that we realize how much information this sentence holds of the story, the characters, and the theme.  The plot that follows the introduction is of the narrator meeting a strange young boy, Ireneo Funes, who seems to be uncommunicative, perhaps antisocial, but who oddly always knew the exact time.  The narrator goes away for a while, comes back to the area and inquires about the boy–both are now young men.  He is told that Funes suffered serious, paralyzing injuries in a fall from a horse.  There is a communication from Funes that he wishes to borrow the narrator’s Latin texts, and the narrator obliges. 

When the narrator is called away, he visits Funes to retrieve his books and here is the Borges seed of wonderment: Funes has the capacity to remember everything in his own experiences as well as everything he reads and so, sees all at one time:

We, in a glance, perceive three wine glasses on the table; Funes saw all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine.  He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines of spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebracho. (p. 112)

Funes then, absorbs all men’s experiences and in remembering them, allows that they happen simultaneously. The reference in the opening paragraph of the story is of course to Funes himself as being the only one who truly has the right to remember.  A nice twist too, the tie-in with Funes’ former ability to know the exact time is transformed into a one-time-fits-all in his new capacity.

One more nice poke from Borges to think about things:

The truth is that we all live by leaving behind; no doubt we all profundly know that we are immortal and that sooner or later every man will do all things and know everything. (p. 113)

I love that first part: "The truth is that we all live by leaving behind."

I am fascinated by the rest of that phrase.  It begs exploration.  Does t hint at reincarnation?  Does it instead simply say that forever is constant, and that time in our scientific definition of it, means nothing at all.