Perhaps this morning as you selected your preferred web browser on the desktop of your computing machine before plunging headfirst into the dizzying morass of information known to you as the Internet and the ancients as the Aleph – the point in space and time that contains within it all other points; perhaps you intended to persist in your quotidian mundanity, or seek knowledge of the hidden cities of Tlön, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius; perhaps as you giddily but with trepidation accessed your guide to this web the being called Google you noticed that something this time was different, and before confusion and madness could overtake you, clicked away.
Or, like, whatever.
Anyhow, Google’s doodle this morning honors the 112th birthday of Jorge Luis Borges. The image shows the famed Argentine writer gazing out at complex stairways, labyrinths, and “bifurcating paths.” Borges, born on August 24th, 1899, was known for the complexity of his writing and its “character of unreality,” and has been an undeniable influence on literature today.
Many of Borges’ stories are available for free right here on the good ol’ internet (or as Borges would call it, since he essentially invented hypertext, the “Garden of Forking Paths”) so you have no excuse not to celebrate by reading and getting lost in this brilliant author’s wonderful work.
What’s your favorite Borges story?