‘Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ – Jorge Luis Borges

full text pdf //      11/21/2018, 7:30am

“The noun is formed by an accumulation of
adjectives. They do not say “moon,” but rather “round airy-light on dark”
or “pale-orange-of-the-sky” or any other such combination. In the
example selected the mass of adjectives refers to a real object, but this is
purely fortuitous. The literature of this hemisphere (like Meinong’s
subsistent world) abounds in ideal objects, which are convoked and
dissolved in a moment, according to poetic needs. At times they are
determined by mere simultaneity. There are objects composed of two
terms, one of visual and another of auditory character: the color of the
rising sun and the faraway cry of a bird. There are objects of many
terms: the sun and the water on a swimmer’s chest, the vague tremulous
rose color we see with our eyes closed, the sensation of being carried
along by a river and also by sleep.”