They are very different writers, but I think it might be interesting to compare their minds. That is what you engage when you read.
Borges's mind is like an infinite palace of countless rooms. Some rooms are libraries filled with unforeseen books by myriad authors. Other rooms hold chests of jewels, like those you imagine pirates once buried in the Caribbean.
All in all, Borges is a magical and transcendent experience. How did one man contain so many mysteries?
It is impossible to conceive of such a writer, to understand him all at once. Reading him is like living in New York City. You could live there a thousand years and go out every day and every night and still not see everything.
Cormac McCarthy, on the other hand, is different. He is like going on a long voyage by ship. He reminds me most of Herman Melville. Reading him is like living "Moby Dick" over and over again. You become the whale, and you become the harpoon. And you die over and over.
I don't know how to explain what I mean.
Both writers offer profound experiences of the imagination. At the moment, I prefer Borges. Perhaps that is because I am stuck in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," an annoying and tedious story that is apocalyptic, episodic and bleak, to say the least.
Both are great writers, and I recommend them both. But not every book by each.
-- Roger
© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle
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