Borges and the Eternal Orangutans

This is a very witty short novel about a Brazilian translator of detective fiction who loves the work of Borges. The man, Vogelstein (his family escaped the nazis and immigrated to Brazil when he was a small child -- only his mother remained in Europe and thus died), is given the opportunity to meet Borges since an international meeting of Poe experts is scheduled to be held in Buenos Aires. When an offensive, mean spirited German is murdered at the meeting (in a classic locked room case), Borges and Vogelstein join intellectual forces to solve the mystery. Secret meaning is ascribed to everything possible; is the necronomicon involved???; were Poe and Lovecraft onto something?? Even though I must say that I basically figured out the crime before it even happened, I laughed and enjoyed my way through this book. I assume the original is probably even better than the translation. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys literary references, hidden codes, and perfect revenge.

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

I picked this book up out of pure curiosity, and was richly rewarded. Others here have nicey summarized the novel, so this will be more of an endorsement than a review. Though I am very familiar with Poe, I have never read any Borges. My unfamiliarity with Borges was no impediment to a thoroughly pleasureable read. It was clever, well-paced, witty and accessible even as it moved into subject matter to which I had no prior exposure. I adored it. In fact, as soon I finished, I was torn between immediately reading it again, going back to Poe, and diving into Borges!

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 sto

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