In this first person narrative, Borges, while enjoying a night with his friends, hears of an obscure nation called Uqbar. Fascinated and curious by this strange new nation, Borges attempts to research it further, but without success. Apparently, the only indication of Uqbar’s existence occurs in a single edition Encyclopedia Britannica.
Some years later, Borges happens by chance onto a book entitled A First Encyclopedia of Tlon. Vol. XI. (Tlon being a planet from Uqbarian mythology, and Orbis Tertius being one of its regions.) Further intrigued, Borges and his friends study this volume in its entirety, learning all about the completely foreign (more info) world of Tlon. They postulate that perhaps some secret society of all sorts of intellectuals in fact created Tlon, each man contributing a minuscule amount of information.
As more time passes by, Borges begins to find more and more evidence about the existence of Tlon, by hearing of it in a passing reference, or finding a trinket apparently made in Tlon.
Meanwhile, while Borges tried to reconcile the existence of Tlon internally, the rest of the world begins to discover about the "imaginary" planet as well. The study of Tlon becomes very popular in Academia, and eventually children are able to learn the language of Orbis Tertius in school! As a conclusion to the story, the practices and customs of the fabricated Tlonians become so popular on Earth that one is no longer able to discern the differences between these new ideas and the original Earthling beliefs—in essence, Earth becomes Tlon.
Many of the details about Tlon are quite fascinating
and intellectually stimulating. For example, some languages there consist of no
verbs, but instead long strings of adjectives and nouns. In another language
there, there are no nouns other than those constructed by joining two or more
adjectives (and as a result, most poetry consists just one extremely long word.)
The most important discipline on Tlon is philosophy, since they believe that
every reality is an absolute truth. No book is complete without providing both a
thesis and antithesis since both are equally true. Every aspect of life from
math to biology to communicating is completely different on Tlon that on Earth.
To go into further detail on the examples however, would defeat the purpose of
summarizing the work, since it is a short story to begin with. If you’re
interested, pick up a copy!
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Other Stories With Theme of Infinite Interpretation
Averroes'
Search (Summary)
The Garden of Forking Paths
(Summary)
The God's Script (Summary)
The Immortal (Summary)
The Library Of Babel (Full Text)
The Library Of Babel (Summary)
The Theologians (Summary)
Criticism With Reference to this Story
E. R. Monegal
The
Other Borges Than the Central One
Michael Wood Borges’s
Surprise!
Sharon Spencer
Space,
Time and Structure in the Modem Novel
E. R. Monegal
The
Other Borges Than the Central One