‘But Borges was not interested in the Norsemen’s warlike wanderings as much as he was in their writing. In the Icelandic sagas, Borges found “realism in its most perfect form”. Perhaps it was their lack of allegory that appealed to him, their accounts of daily details, or the dry understatement of saga heroes. He seems to love the scene in Grettir’s Saga when Atli, surprised at his door with a stab to the belly, quips that broad blades are in fashion these days.
“In the twelfth century, the Icelanders discovered the novel”, writes Borges, “and this discovery is as secret and sterile, for the economy of the world, as their discovery of America.”’
June 25, 2024 at 10:02PM
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