Borges and the Eternal Orangutans [Paperback]

Luis Fernando Verissimo (Author), Margaret Jull Costa (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 21, 2005

Jorge Luis Borges is the hero of this literary whodunit by one of Brazil's most celebrated writers.

Vogelstein is a loner who has always lived among books. Suddenly, fate grabs hold of his insignificant life and carries him off to Buenos Aires, to a conference on Edgar Allan Poe, the inventor of the modern detective story. There Vogelstein meets his idol, Jorge Luis Borges, and for reasons that a mere passion for literature cannot explain, he finds himself at the center of a murder investigation that involves arcane demons, the mysteries of the Kaballah, the possible destruction of the world, and the Elizabethan magus John Dee's theory of the "Eternal Orangutan," which, given all the time in the world, would end up writing all the known books in the cosmos. Verissimo's small masterpiece is at once a literary tour de force and a brilliant mystery novel.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brazilian author Verissimo's delightful novel simultaneously caricatures the complicated codes that comprise detective stories and spins a whodunit of paternity, academic intrigue, 16th-century occultism and orangutans. The action occurs at the annual meeting of the Israfel Society, an eccentric organization devoted to the study of Edgar Allan Poe, which Vogelstein, a sheltered teacher and translator, decides to attend in the hopes of meeting his hero, Jorge Luis Borges. When Vogelstein discovers the unlikable Rotkopf, another conference attendee, stabbed to death in front of a mirror, it falls to Borges and Vogelstein to solve the crime. Is the murderer Professor Ikisara, who was angry at having to travel to Buenos Aires for the conference and at having been trampled, twice, by Rotkopf during the welcoming cocktail party? Just as suspicious is Oliver Johnson, the humiliated butt of an elaborate scholarly joke perpetrated by the victim. But maybe it was Hastur, "a malign spirit" rising from the Necronomicon, a list of every evil being on Earth. Will the amateur sleuths uncover the motive and the murderer, or will they accuse someone based on potentially fruitful "literary possibilities"? Borges claims that one "write[s] to remember," but Verissimio (The Club of Angels) demonstrates that one also writes to pay homage, to provide pleasure and to have fun. (May 31)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

This is, above all, a clever book. Literary references—not just to Poe and Borges, but also to the Bible and to the titular monkeys who might produce a Shakespeare play if sat for an eternity before a typewriter—abound. Verissimo blends mystery, highbrow literary commentary, and philosophical speculation while spinning a suspenseful, believable plot. The characters are equally ingenious; you’ll be willing to follow them anywhere. Fans of A. S. Byatt and Iain Pears will particularly enjoy the literary mysteries the novel offers, but it will appeal to a wide audience as well.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation (May 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081121592X
• ISBN-13: 978-0811215923
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #560,132 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Solutions can always be found in libraries.", May 3, 2005

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (Paperback)

One of the most original and delightful novels of the year, Borges and the Eternal Orangutans is simultaneously a literary thriller, a parody of the detective story, and an anti-detective story. Taking its title (and one of its primary images) from Elizabethan writer John Dee, who wrote that if an orangutan were given enough time, he would eventually produce all the books in the world, the novel takes place in Buenos Aires, where an international group of Edgar Allan Poe specialists gathers for a meeting of the mysterious Israfel Society.

The narrator, Vogelstein, a 50-year-old man who has led a cloistered life, "without adventures or surprises," believes that he has been called to the conference by destiny--"some hidden Borges"--and the convenient death of his cat confirms this belief. For years Vogelstein has wanted to meet author Jorge Luis Borges, who is attending the meeting. He once translated a Borges story for "Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine," creating and tacking on a new conclusion--a "tail"--to "improve" its inconclusive conclusion. He has been trying to make amends with the horrified author ever since.

Addressing the novel to the blind Borges, Vogelstein describes how, during the conference, he discovered the bloody body of Rotkopf, the most argumentative speaker, in Rotkopf's hotel room. Two other speakers wanted Rotkopf dead. Borges and Vogelstein eventually team up, applying their talents to solving the cryptograms Vogelstein believes are hidden within the murder scene and in the position of the victim's body. Throughout the investigation, Vogelstein and Borges study the tales of Poe for help, while they simultaneously explore the origins of language, the work of John Dee and the "Necronomicon" (publicized by H. P. Lovecraft), the Kabbala, the occult, the Gnostic gospels, apochrypha, and the "eternal orangutan." "Everything is a message," Vogelstein declares, "even the shape made by the hairs in your bar of soap."

Wildly imaginative, this literary detective story fully engages the reader with its tongue-in-cheek humor, its erudition, and its parallels with Poe. Like some of Poe's protagonists, Vogelstein proves to be an unreliable narrator, always saying what he believes will impress his idol, Borges. Acting like an excited child, Vogelstein serves as a blundering foil, both for the more august Borges and for the criminologist Cuervo, who wishes the dead man had "simply told [Vogelstein] the name of the murderer over the phone, instead of making such a complicated game of it." Scholarly in its allusions and in the concepts which underlie the investigation, the novel's earnest tone and enthusiastic pursuit of arcana create a fun-filled mystery/parody sure to delight lovers of literary fiction. Mary Whipple

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poe, Lovecraft, and others--with Borges starring in the Sherlock Holmes role, August 16, 2005

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D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (Paperback)

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" (considered the first true entry in the genre of detective fiction), Auguste Dupin and his unnamed narrator-sidekick investigate the double-murder of a mother and daughter, who are heard screaming and, almost immediately after, are discovered mauled to death in a fourth-story room that is locked from the inside. Eventually the sleuths uncover the truth: the "murders" were committed by a frightened orangutan, freshly escaped, who had scaled the building and then fled through the very window it had entered.

In this slim yet packed contribution to the genre founded by Poe, Brazilian author Luis Fernando Verissimo has taken this basic concept--a dead body discovered in a locked room--and added to it some new twists and a vortex of references to Poe's many literary successors.

The murder occurs, appropriately enough, during an international conference on Poe hosted in Buenos Aires. An obnoxious and hypercritical scholar, universally despised and feared, has threatened to demolish the theories of an American scholar. After he is murdered in the dead of night, there are no shortage of suspects: everyone knows how merciless academic rivals can be. The narrator, Vogelstein, also attends the conference and stays down the hall from the hotel room where the murder occurs. It is he who discovers the body against a mirror, apparently in the shape of a letter (Is it meant to be a V? Or does the double image formed by the reflection form an X, O, W, or M?) Before this grisly discovery, Vogelstein's claim to fame is a mangled translation of Jorge Luis Borges's work years earlier. Upon hearing of the murder, Borges steps into the Dupin-Holmes role, apparently forgives Vogelstein's previous crime of literary massacre, and accepts him as his associate.

That's the set-up, and into this concoction Verissimo stirs so many literary allusions that it's a challenge to tease them all out. In addition to Borges and Poe, readers will find references to Lewis Carroll, Conan Doyle, Walter Benjamin, Victor Hugo, Israel Zangwill (who wrote the famous "Big Bow Mystery," another locked-room detective story), and even Sophocles (perhaps the writer of the first murder mystery). The guest star of the book, however, is H. P. Lovecraft (and since I'm not as familiar with his tales as with those of Poe or Borges, I'm sure I missed out on some of the fun.)

Verissimo also throws into the mix the Elizabethan alchemists Edward Kelly and John Dee. It was Dee who Lovecraft clamed wrote his fictional "Necronomicon"; in this novel, Verissimo takes Emile Borel's theory (that a monkey hitting random keys on a typewriter would eventually type every book in Frances's National Library) and claims that Dee suggested first that an orangutan with a pen could do the same. (To my knowledge, he did not ever write such a thing; Verissimo is surely mirroring Lovecraft's invention here.)

You don't have to have read all these authors to enjoy the story, though: it's as transparent and accessible as an Agatha Christie mystery. Still, your satisfaction will be enhanced if you've experienced Borges's stories, which are short enough that one or two samples would require only a few minutes. A good place to start is "There Are More Things," which Borges dedicated to the memory of Lovecraft and which showcases a cursed house in Buenos Aires (and in which the narrator sees a "V of mirrors that faded into shadows above ")

Also important to this novel is "Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrinth," which boasts a pair of sleuths trying to solve a murder and includes the exchange that serves as Verissimo's epigraph: "Mysteries ought to be simple. Remember Poe's purloined letter, remember Zangwill's locked room." "Or complex. Remember the universe."

And, finally, in the one-page sketch "Borges and I," Borges writes about his alter-ego (who makes a cameo in Verissimo's novel as well), whose "tastes run to hourglasses, maps, seventeenth-century typefaces, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson." In fact, he is so like Borges, he's "not sure which of us it is that's writing this page."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely unique, February 24, 2006

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Antonio Acuna "diabulos energicus" (London, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Borges and the Eternal Orangutans (Paperback)

It is hard to try an capture in a few pages any portion of Borges' personality, but Verissimo manages to do just that, and in what way! The book starts simply enough, with the possibility of attending an Edgar Allan Poe conference and maybe seeing his ultimate idol; Jorge Luis Borges, the blind Argentinean writer/mythologist supremo.

The book ends up as a supposed murder mystery; an academic, vociferous and virulent in his views, is found dead in his room, and those who most likely would like to kill him had rooms in the same floor.

What happens then is a glorious use of Borges' own 'symbolism' paired with details from Poe's writing and a 17th century alchemist. The plot moves quickly, every step diving more and more into the ambiguity of interpretation of the fact that the doors to the murder room were found locked from the inside.

Verissimo is obviously quite comfortable not only with Poe, but with Borges' work and personality. The whole story appears almost as a schroeder's cat version of Borges' work.

A great read, not for those used to light stories, this requires thinking, and a love for a touch of the absurd at times.

Overall, a great book, good read at any time