Borges - The Immortal

In his story “The Immortal” (from The Aleph ), Borges tells of a Roman soldier who drinks from a cursed river and stops dying. He wanders the earth for centuries, forgetting his own name, living among primitive troglodytes — only to realize, eventually, that those grunting creatures are the immortals. They have no need for language, for memory, for love. Why write a poem when you have forever to write all poems? Why love one person when you can outlast every face?

Not because he believed in an afterlife. He was famously skeptical. (“I am not an atheist,” he once said, “I am an agnostic. I am a man of doubt.”) No, Borges is immortal in the way a mirror is: he doesn’t die; he multiplies. the immortal borges

— For JLB, who is still dreaming us. Would you like a shorter version for Twitter/X or a Spanish translation of this post? In his story “The Immortal” (from The Aleph

There are writers you read to learn a story. Then there are writers you read to unlearn time. Why write a poem when you have forever to write all poems

The Immortal Borges: Labyrinths, Mirrors, and the Man Who Outlived Himself

So here is the secret Borges leaves us:

Borges understood what Hollywood action films never will: Immortality is not superhuman. It is subhuman.