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5. The Babylon Lottery
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Ficciones, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Investigation and Knowledge
Language and Human Consciousness
Perspective, Authorship, and Subjectivity
Infinity
Reality vs. Illusion
Summary
Analysis
In this fictional essay, Borges surveys the work of the fictional author Herbert Quain in the wake of the author’s death. Borges believes that Quain’s obituaries were insufficient in expressing Quain’s impact on literature. For example, one newspaper compares Quain’s work with Agatha Christie and Gertrude Stein. Borges does not agree with either of these comparisons and believes that Quain himself would not have been happy about them. Borges quotes a letter that Quain once wrote to him in which Quain declared that he doesn’t “belong to Art, but merely to the history of art.”
Like he did with Pierre Menard, Borges uses the work of the fictional Herbert Quain to discuss larger literary and philosophical ideas. In arguing that Quain did not receive sufficient praise as an author, Borges sets up the idea that Quain is brilliant in a way that was unrecognized. The idea that Quain belongs to the history of art shows that he sees himself as just one individual in a long line of larger human philosophical progress.
Themes
Borges gives a summary of Quain’s novel The God of the Labyrinth, a detective story. The novel did not receive commercial success at the time of its publication, a fact Borges attributes to chance and the “pomp” of Quain’s descriptions of the sea. Though Borges does not have the book anymore, he describes the plot from memory: in the first part, an assassination takes place. In the second, a discussion. In the third, the solution. What makes the story unique is the fact that the detective in the story actually comes up with an incorrect solution, and only close readers will understand the real solution.
In The God of the Labyrinth, Quain subverts the norms of detective stories. By making the detective incorrect and allowing for the reader to come to the correct conclusion themselves if they pay close attention, Quain elevates the position of the reader over the characters in the story.
Themes
Borges also explains Quain’s novel April March, a novel that moves backward in time. The title itself is a pun on this movement backwards in time. The novel actually contains nine novels, involving one beginning, three middles, and nine endings. However, Borges notes that after publication, Quain lamented that he had chosen this “ternary” order (stories existing in multiples of three) and not a “binary one” with one beginning, two middles, and four possible endings. “Demiurges and gods,” however, would choose an infinite scheme. In other words, he is attempting to break from typical form, but because he is simply a normal man he cannot conceptualize or write infinity.
April March also subverts literary expectations by choosing to move backwards in time rather than forwards (a choice reflected in its title, since the month April usually comes after March, not before it). Additionally, instead of following a single narrative, the novel follows nine of them. By remarking that “demiurges and gods” would choose an infinite scheme of stories, Quain acknowledges his limitations as a human author.
Themes
The third work Borges outlines is The Secret Mirror, which is a play in which the first act is the work of one of the second act’s characters. The first act of the play is set at the estate of a famous General Thrale. Also in the story are Thrale’s daughter, Ulrica Thrale, and a playwright named Wilfred Quarle, who is in love with Ulrica. In the second half, however, the characters of the first half reappear under other names. Quarles’s real name is John William Quigley, a man who is in love with Ulrica from afar. Thus, the first act is the work of Quigley, who imagines interactions with Ulrica.
In contrast to The God of the Labyrinth, The Secret Mirror highlights the interiority and potential for creation that fictional characters hold. Of course, the layers of interiority are all ultimately created by Quain himself, but by creating these layers he acknowledges the capacity for characters to have their own interiority and desires.
Themes
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Finally, Borges discusses Quain’s work Statements, which is “the most original, doubtless the least praised and the most secret.” Borges reveals that his story “The Circular Ruins,” which occurs early in the collection, is derived from Statements.
In stating that his own work comes from a fictional work of Quain’s, Borges further demonstrates the capacity for one writer (in this case, himself) to have layers of narrative.
Themes
