In the first week of class, I was in the group that said that they were overwhelmed and nervous by literature. This book gave me those feelings on steroids. This book reminded me a lot of a similar book that I read a few years ago called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (which funnily enough also has a labyrinth theme). Both books gave me a sense of trying to piece together what was happening while trying to deduce a deeper meaning through the metaphors. To me, this book embodied the theme of a game more than most of the others readings so far due to it's puzzle-like nature that left me trying to piece together Borges' writing to deduce what he was trying to say and why. It felt like I was reading riddles, which was certainly a challenge. I actually thought the description of "The Garden of Forking Paths" could have easily described this book where "it is an enormous riddle or parable, whose theme is time [...] to omit a word always, to resort to inept metaphors an obvious periphrases, is perhaps the most emphatic way of stressing it. That is the tortuous method preferred in each of the meanderings of this indefatigable novel" (27-28). This book truly is a "plan of chaos" (28).
The most compelling (and I'll admit the least confusing) of the stories to me was "The Lottery of Babylon". This may sound a little out of left field, but what I was thinking while reading this was the similarities between this mysterious lottery and the internet. The idea that it controls people like "slaves" (30), it is not often "based on reality" (30), it is "secret, free, and general" (32), and how it supersedes class with the incentive of money. However, I can also see how the lottery could metaphorically be compared to people's lives (perhaps with the Company be a metaphor for a god or higher power). Given this, the lack of communication and indirectness from the Company by only answering in scriptures when questioned speaks to how cryptic religious messaging can be to those who ask for it. The ending statement where "the company has not existed for centuries" (35), is also interesting as it is speaking to the age of enlightenment, progress, and revolution, where societies shifted their control from outward to inward. By stating that the lottery is nothing but an "infinite game of chance" (35) also details how little control we truly have in our lives and how no one is controlling it.
Questions for the class: What metaphorical message did you get from The Lottery of Babylon? Is it wrong to compare modern examples within these metaphors to writings of the past?
"This book reminded me a lot of a similar book that I read a few years ago called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski"
ReplyDeleteFor sure. And I think Danielewski slips in at least a few references or allusions to Borges. House of Leaves also takes seriously an apparently absurd or illogical situation (the idea of a house that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside) and tries to see that idea through to its conclusions. This is what Borges does often.
Hi Julia,
ReplyDeleteI thought that the Lottery of Babylon was a metaphor for the ever-present threat of increasing totalitarianism and the risk of giving into small concessions to a larger power - only giving into the larger power out of hope, in this case a hope stemming from selfish desires. It is fascinating to me that, despite the innumerable punishments that must be suffered if your ticket is drawn unfavourably, so many people clamour to have their names entered into the draw. Countless people yearn for something better, for something greater, and it seems they will incur hefty penalties for simply the hope of a better future coming their way.
Yet, I believe that the people themselves are capable of changing their own lot in life. They do not need to give themselves over mindlessly to the Company, but can rather construct a desirable future on their own accord. They just aren't acquainted with that self-determination, and the carving out of their own story.
Take care,
Curtis HR