An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain

"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain"
Author	Jorge Luis Borges
Original title	"Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain"
Translator	Anthony Bonner
Country	Argentina
Language	Spanish
Genre(s)	Fantasy, short story
Published in	Sur
Media type	Print
Publication date	April 1941
Published in English	1962

"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" (original Spanish title: "Examen de la obra de Herbert Quain") is a 1941 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was included in the anthology Ficciones, part one (The Garden of Forking Paths). The title has also been translated as A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain.

Plot summary

"An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" is a fictional essay surveying the following works, written by fictional deceased Irish author Herbert Quain:

The God of the Labyrinth (1933), a detective story in which the solution given is wrong, although this fact is not immediately obvious
April March (1936), a novel with nine different beginnings, trifurcating backwards in time
The Secret Mirror, a play in which the first act is the work of one of the characters in the second act (à la The Waltz Invention)
Statements (1939), eight stories which are deliberately calculated to disappoint the reader; The Circular Ruins is supposedly an extract from the third story, "The Rose of Yesterday"

Style

The review of fictional books is a favorite device of Borges (see, for instance, his "pseudo-essay" The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim in Ficciones).

The fictional essayist's vanity, affectation, and hypocrisy "gives the story a satirical coloration" and, along with the reactions of the misunderstanding and unappreciative public, serve to, by contrast, emphasize Quain's "uncompromising purity."^[1]

Influence

In his 1984 novel The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Original Portuguese title O ano da morte de Ricardo Reis), José Saramago's protagonist, Ricardo Reis, spends much time considering the work The God of the Labyrinth by Herbert Quain.^[2]

The fictional anthologist who curates Ana Menendez's Adios, Happy Homeland! (2011) is named Herberto Quain. He describes himself as coming from Roscommon in Ireland, and moving to Havana later in life, at which time he added the "o" to the end of his name.

Colin Wilson published a novel titled The God of the Labyrinth (1970) in reference to Borges.

References

↑ Lindstrom, Naomi (1990). Jorge Luis Borges: A Study of the Short Fiction. G.K. Hall & Co. pp. 31–32, 64–65. ISBN 0-8057-8327-X.
↑ Saramago, J, 1992, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, translated from Portuguese by G. Ponteiro, Harvill, London (Originally published 1984).

Jorge Luis Borges

Bibliography

Original
collections

A Universal History of Infamy	"On Exactitude in Science"

Ficciones	"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" "The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" "The Circular Ruins" "The Lottery in Babylon" "An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain" "The Library of Babel" "The Garden of Forking Paths" "Funes the Memorious" "The Form of the Sword" "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero" "Death and the Compass" "The Secret Miracle" "Three Versions of Judas" "The End" "The Sect of the Phoenix" "The South"

The Aleph	"The Immortal" "The Dead Man" "The Theologians" "Emma Zunz" "The House of Asterion" "Deutsches Requiem" "Averroes's Search" "The Zahir" "The Writing of the God" "The Two Kings and the Two Labyrinths" "The Wait" "The Aleph"

Otras Inquisiciones (1937–1952)	"The Analytical Language of John Wilkins"

Dreamtigers	"Borges and I"

Dr. Brodie's Report	"The Encounter" "The Gospel According to Mark"

The Book of Sand	"The Other" "Ulrikke" "The Congress" "There Are More Things" "The Disk" "The Book of Sand"

Shakespeare's Memory	"Blue Tigers" "Shakespeare's Memory"

Other works

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