Xul Solar & Jorge Luis Borges revisited

In a previous post I mentioned last year's exhibit Xul Solar and Jorge Luis Borges: The Art of Friendship at the Americas Society in New York City.

You can view the Slideshow and buy the exhibition catalogue.

Macedonio Fernández reviewed

Macedonio Fernández, The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel), translated from the Spanish with an introduction by Margaret Schwartz, preface by Adam Thirlwell (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2010).

In a previous blog post, I quoted briefly a couple of passages about Xul Solar. Here is a more extensive excerpt:

From “Prologue to the Never-Seen”

And here is my review of the novel, together with a table of contents I composed:

The First Good Meta-Novel?

Here is an excerpt from my review related to the prologue excerpted (see prior link):

He makes some tongue-in-cheek references to futurism. He jocularly ponders reader reception, the role of the audience. Without the seductive music of language and an audience, there would be more beautiful works of art, several Cervantes, Heines, etc. Again we find an attack on realism. I find this interesting, if unconvincing, not only for the reference to Heine and other great artists, but for my (and Borges’) interest in combinatorics. There is also an amusing musing about the creation of neologisms, with reference to the artist and language inventor Xul Solar. Invention for Macedonio precedes and supersedes what we call reality.

Jorge Luis Borges was greatly influenced by Macedonio, though I am not certain in what ways. What he thought about the multiplication of works of art as Macedonio indicates, I do not know. I can see how Borges used this idea, but I can also see how Borges would have found the mere manipulation of combinatorics wanting.  File this in The Twilight Zone under ars combinatoria.

Macedonio Fernández & Xul Solar

Also, there's a new German word in Spanish that I consulted Xul Solar about in his workshop "Languages in repair." It's an amended adjective, but new, not like mended boots. [ . . . . ]

[. . .] I give the book to the public just to turn around and put it through the linguistic workshop of that singular artist, Xul Solar, who will make it into one, definitive word.

*   *   *

. . . the only genuine way to practice futurism is to put it off for later.

— Macedonio Fernández, The Museum of Eterna's Novel (The First Good Novel), translated from the Spanish with an introduction by Margaret Schwartz, preface by Adam Thirlwell (Rochester, NY: Open Letter, 2010), pp. 40-41

Xul Solar

"Xul Solar was the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari (born December 14, 1887 – April 9, 1963), Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor of imaginary languages." He was also a friend of Borges. On his invented languages (from Wikipedia):

He invented two fully elaborated imaginary languages, symbols from which figure in his paintings, and was also an exponent of duodecimal mathematics. He said of himself "I am maestro of a writing no one reads yet." One of his invented languages was called "Neo Criollo", a poetic fusion of Portuguese and Spanish, which he reportedly would frequently use as a spoken language in talking to people. He also invented a "Pan Lingua", which aspired to be a world language linking mathematics, music, astrology and the visual arts, an idea reminiscent of Hermann Hesse's "glass bead game". Indeed, games were a particular interest of his, including his own invented version of chess, or more precisely "non-chess".

See also:

Alejandro Xul Solar

Xul Solar Museum

Xul Solar on Language as Unity

Do you know Xul Solar?

Borges and Xul Solar

"Borges’s Cosmic Ally" By LARRY ROHTER, The New York Times, April 18, 2013.