Books that need to be written, vol. 2

A full-length novel by Jorge Luis Borges, who has, of course, already died. It is not enough to simply say that the short story was his trademark. He was opposed to writing a novel on moral and aesthetic grounds. Why write in 400 pages what can be summarized in one? Why waste the reader's time? Had he been born in 1970, Borges would have been the quintessential blogger.

But long books allow the reader to fall in love with some characters, out of love with others. Borges held a clinical relationship with the men he created. And I use the masculine in both its inclusive and exclusive forms.

The easy answer? Publish an exact duplicate of Don Quixote and sign his name to it. Easy, but uninteresting. The answer is obliged to be interesting.

Umberto Eco, the most cultured man in the world, may think that he has already written a full-length Borges novel, but he has not. The Name of the Rose is boring. Again, obligations.

Pan's Labyrinth is said to bear the old librarian's mark, and the title alone confirms this. But you take one look at this guy and the matter is finished.

The only solution is to systematically and convincingly disprove that Borges even wrote at all. Find a fictional way to credit Manuel Puig with "Emma Zunz," credit Friedrich Nietzsche with "The Circular Ruins," credit me with "Borges and I." Establish that many of his works are actually posthumous Kafka, Poe, and Chesterton publications. This would not take 400 pages, it would take several thousand. It would begin to represent "The Garden of Forking Paths." It would be pure fiction, a masterpiece, and I think the old man would approve.