Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges
Analysis
I selected the short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges. It was originally published in 1940 in an Argentinian literary journal. The story involves elements that are both real and fictional. Borges speaks in the first person, while he attempts to uncover the truth of Tlön, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius. Through encounters with friends and scholars, research and reading, and a deep look into encyclopedia entries, Borges discovers that the region of Uqbar and the planet of Tlön is a fabrication. Orbis Tertius is a secret society that is committed to spreading the idea of Uqbar and Tlön. The main conspiracy is to create trust in the existence of the world of Tlön. Orbis Tertius carried this out by publishing a set of encyclopedias that were funded by a “reclusive millionaire Ezra Buckley” (Borges 79). The encyclopedias established trust in the information, so much so that the ideas were argued by scholars and the public has been influenced to “presuppose idealism” (Borges 72). Borges in the final section of the story stresses that because a conspiracy of lies is being widely accepted “we now know nothing certain—not even that it is false” (Borges 81).In the explanation of Tlön's creation, the millionaire Ezra Buckley is mentioned as an important financial supporter. He promised the secret society of Orbis Tertius access to “gold-veined mountains, his navigable rivers, his prairies thundering with bulls and buffalo" in exchange for organizing information about a world that was not influenced by God (Borges 79). The natural landscape has been reduced to a human possession (“his rivers”). It is seen as a source of potential riches. Buckley presents the land as the reward for the successful implementation of Tlön into common knowledge.
Buckley “wanted to prove to the nonexistent God that mortals could conceive and shape a world” and asked for the project to be kept a secret. Buckley keeping the project a secret is comparable to the omnipotent power of God. It allowed Orbis Tertius to operate as a higher power. The world of Tlön was real because its existence was real in the mind of the public and even in people whom Borges regards highly such as Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares. The diffusion of ideology from Orbis Tertius is an energy afterlife because it is an example of the potential that is gained from profiting from extraction, as in the case of Buckley. The ability to be able to manipulate published works and have credibility is possible because of backing from Buckley.
My project is a mixed media collage that includes elements from the text as well as a data visualization. I decided to focus on both how the world-building of Tlön and the creation of energy sources requires trusting the power of men and a belief in social constructs. Every time there was an account of a scholar (journalist, writer, historian) about Tlön, a mention of the distribution of the encyclopedias, or research on Tlön done by Borges it counted towards either believing in Tlön or not. I wanted to graph the exploration Borges embarks on. The pie chart shows the story has a 60% belief in conspiracies by Orbis Tertius and 40% doubt in the idea. After counting the appearances in the story on an Excel sheet I imported the data into a pie chart function on my Canva design. For the background I wanted to include elements that acknowledge the original publication in Spanish as well as the translation in English. Including both was to invoke the concept of distributing information to a wider audience as the story focuses on the ability of the encyclopedias to carry the idea of Tlön. There is also an overlay of the Encyclopedia Britannica logo as the story mentions it (Borges 69). The images are of Borges, and I wanted to include books and a globe near him to show the importance of geography and literature to his stories. The letters are in the style of magazine cut outs since the story involves Borges consulting many books to learn about Tlön. The ransom note-like style is to acknowledge the suspicious nature of the conspiracy. Within my graph I wanted to show how access to power, and knowledge can produce the ability to include personal beliefs into widespread information.
With the second portion of my visualization, I added definitions and evidence from the story to support my claims about the narrative. The phrasing of the categories refers to the two most noticeable actions in the story that contribute to the plot. Since Tlön is a fictional world, I wanted to represent how the idea was widely accepted and how Borges actively seeks to question misinformation. The second poster is a deeper dive into the data that is presented in the first poster. On the portion dedicated to “the belief in a man-made idea” the quotations show who spread the information, why it was created, and the extent of its infiltration in popular culture like magazines. On the other side appears the evidence to support Borges “questioning a man-made idea.” This includes the time he dedicated to research and a long-term commitment to finding the origins of Tlön.
Overall, the project is a simple representation of the extent of Tlön, a man-made idea accomplished by extraction, in Borges’s world that he pursues questioning because as a scholar he is constantly looking for new knowledge. The project is an experimental outcome to answering the prompt. Borges writes on the information he learns about Tlön and his interactions with other writers because it is closely related to his focus. Therefore, the project does not directly represent energy afterlives due to the lack of references to energy, transportation, or more obvious forms of energy afterlives. However, the project strives to show that the power to communicate ideas can be an energy afterlife as the funds and organization were possible through the benefits of extracting land.
Visualization
Bibliography
Borges, Jorge Luis. "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." sites.evergreen.edu/politicalshakespeares/wp-content/uploads/sites/226/2015/12/Borges-Tl%C3%B6n-Uqbar-Orbius-Tertius.pdf. Accessed 13 Nov. 2023.
“File:Encyclopædia Britannica.Svg.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 24 June 2022, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica#/media/File:Encyclop%C3%A6dia_Britannica.svg.
Projects, Contributors to Wikimedia. “Jorge Luis Borges.” Wikimedia Commons, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., 14 June 2023, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges.