Experiments in Style: A Borgesian Story

A tale of mystery and imagination

Introduction

One of the things I’ve been trying out is reworking a piece of text into a completely different style. A full exposition and explanation are given here:

Experimenting with styles

In today’s experiment I’d like to tell the story in the style of a story by Borges. First, though, here is the original text on which these experiments or transformations are based:

The original (template) text

In the middle of the night, I woke up (if you can call being semi-conscious being awake), walked purposefully towards the door to go to the bathroom — and almost knocked myself out.

The reason was that in the twin states of entire darkness and semi-somnambulance I was facing in a different direction from the one I thought I was facing. As a result, instead of walking through the door, I tried to walk through the wall.

The next few days brought nausea and headaches. After much prevarication I went to Accident and Emergency, where I waited petrified among people for whom “social distancing” means not quite touching you, and who wore their masks as a chin-warmer.

An hour and a half later I emerged into the twilight, secure in the knowledge that I had nothing more serious than mild concussion. I failed to do much writing, but I was pleased to have read a further 17% of my book.

Borgesian story version

While sitting in my local café, staring at my laptop screen, hoping to be graced by a visit from Calliope, a stranger came to my table.

The Stranger. Picture created in Ideogram.

“I perceive you are a writer”, he intoned. “I knew a writer once.”, and sat opposite me.

He called out for drinks. “Ho, please furnish my friend with another glass of his preferred beverage, and a chai latté for myself.” The waitress brought a tray.

“His name was Yerret Manfreed”, he continued. “Permit me to relate his story.” He then proceeded thus:

My narrative takes place during the onset of winter, perhaps in November. The year, let us say, was 2021. He had been working on a new translation of The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, applying the principles of gematria to this ancient tome. In so doing he discovered a hitherto hidden text revealing yet more arcana.

Yerret Manfreed. Picture created in Ideogram.

After many hours he arose from his table in order to perform his ablutions. It was the dead of night, yet he lighted no lantern nor troubled to find a candle. Whether he was tired from his hours of study, or inebriated from the elixir of his findings, he walked into a wall by mistake.

For several days he wandered around the house, trying to recall the key he had found that would unlock the mysteries which have been sought after by scholars for millennia. Yet he was unsuccessful, being plagued by nausea and headaches. Eventually, he visited his local hospital.

There he saw men and women who had been waiting for so long that they had forgotten what had ailed them in the first place. Nobody observed the rules of social distancing, and nobody attempted to enforce them. Some wore masks, incorrectly, and others not at all. One man shouted, “My face shall be as naked as the day I was born. Thus do I refute these rules!”. And with that, he tore off his mask. Others did the same.  

After an interminable wait, Manfreed was seen by a physician, who declared him to be healthy, and assured him that he would remain so if he took some rest for a week or two.

Although relieved at this diagnosis, and at the fact that he had managed to read much of the book he had taken with him, he was devastated by his loss of memory regarding ‘the key’. After that, gripped by Phthonus, he filled his days and nights writing scurrilous and anonymous reviews of books he had never read.

He paused to take a sip of his now lukewarm chai latté.

I told you this story in the way I did so that you would hear it to the end. I am Yerret Manfreed. Now despise me.

I stared into my glass for a long time. When I looked up, he had gone.

Notes

I hope you enjoyed that version of the story. Here are some background notes you may find interesting.

The subtitle is a nod to the collection of stories by Edgar Allan Poe called Tales of Mystery and Imagination.

Calliope is the muse of epic poetry. As it happens, I have been working on a version of this story which might be called an epic poem, in the style of the Elizabethan Verse Romance. I haven’t completed it yet, and may never be able to complete it, but here’s how it begins:

In London, towards the north and east

Lived a knight called Terry — a handome beast…

I daresay that will have whetted your appetite for more.

You may have recognised that the passage in which the stranger calls for drinks is based on A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harem:

We called out for another drink;

The waiter brought a tray.

I think that’s a great part of the song. There’s nothing mysterious about it in itself, but given the context of the rest of the lyrics, and the melody (thanks, Bach, for inspiring it!), it conjures up for me the picture of an esoteric story about the situation, or the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, that sort of thing. Indeed, the song mentions The Miller’s Tale. Plus, of course, there’s the monk-like appearance of the organist in the original video on Britain’s Top of the Pops:

The start of the stranger’s narrative is based on at least one of Borges’ stories which he opens along the lines of “Let’s say this took place in…”, which I think is great example of metafiction or, in plays and films, breaking the fourth wall.

The Book of the Secrets of Enoch is a real book. I wanted to use a title like ‘The book of the secrets’, and very quickly discovered that one.

Gematria is the practice of assigning numerical values to letters and words, much like numerology, and is associated with the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kabbala.

Phthonus is the personification of jealousy and envy in Greek mythology.

As for the ending, or rather just before the ending, that is based on Borges’ story The Shape of the Sword (sometimes translated as The Form of the Sword).

Usually I put these extra bits in a paid-for section called Experiments in Style Extra, but I was feeling so excited by all this background that I wanted to share it as soon and as widely as possible!

Over to you

I’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s version.

For more experiments, please see the index.