The Intersection of Eight

On the day he turned eight, his grandma gifted him a book. It was called “The Intersection of Eight”. He couldn’t understand the title. And therefore, it became all the more elusive to him. And although warned against being too curious it took him in like the eternal magic charm. He turned the book and read the description on the back cover. It said – “The adventures of a comic hero who can’t remember what his missions are. An almost epical life story of a man who voyages through many a town and rescues many a princess from the evil hands of many a villain but can’t remember any of it.” He loved that description. But that didn’t explain the title for him. He went on to the contents page. The book boasted of fifty-two chapters. And still none of it had anything to do with the title. Hence, he started reading the book. Chapter One describes the birth of our hero. He is a farmer’s son. He starts growing up in the countryside playing along with horses. Then a tragedy strikes when he is just eight years old. Chapter Two begins with the author telling us that our hero is yet to be born. The lady who shall bear the child is the wife of a rich merchant. Our hero is born and starts growing up in all his aristocratic delight. The day he turns eight his father hires a martial arts trainer for his son. Chapter Three reads more like a personal diary entry of the author himself where he shares with us the dilemma he was in when he woke up from a dream this morning. In his dream his life had stopped. The time had stopped. He had stopped growing up beyond the eighth year of his life. In his dream he was in a vague battle with the forces that wanted to annihilate his present. He woke up at eight in the morning. In the Fourth Chapter, we meet our hero, who is still a child, living the life of a tramp on the sidewalks of a big town. He meets a person one day who tells him that his life is too absurd to be compared to that of a hero whose adventures are to be read by an eight year old. That person tells him that one day his adventures shall be captured in a book and it will be presented to a child by his grandma on his eighth birthday. Chapter Five is by far the simplest to follow. It gives eight tips on how to write a good novel. As the eighth tip, the author tells us – “The Author’s personal voice and/or bias and/or philosophies shall best remain untold or hinted at implicitly both to keep in with the pace of the novel and encourage an active involvement of the reader as he passes from one passage to another and from one chapter to another.” In the Seventh Chapter we find the author sitting on a table directly opposite to the child, our hero. The author goes into long, philosophical monologue-like discourse on his obsession with the number eight and why it is always so elusive and potent of changing people’s lives in ways they had neither thought of nor wanted. Our hero, on the other hand and at the other side of the table simply keeps looking at him as children always do in such cases – dumbfounded. At the end of the discussion, the child asks the author – “do we have readers too?” to which the author replies, “I wish there weren’t a single one after this chapter ends, but I know there shall be more. There has always been.” Chapter Eight begins with you finding the great circular book that Borges had created in one of his tales. You find that the entire book is a single passage describing eight chapters. You know that this passage is called “The Intersection of Eight”. You cannot understand the title. And therefore, it becomes all the more elusive to you. And although warned against being too curious it takes you in like the eternal magic charm. You know you cannot stop now until you’ve reached the end. The description to the eighth chapter in The Circular Book begins by saying: “Chapter Eight begins with you finding the great circular book that Borges had created in one of his tales…”

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Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899 and was educated in Europe. One of the most widely acclaimed writers of our time, he published many collections of poems, essays, and short stories before his death in Geneva in June 1986. In 1961 Borges shared the International Publishers' prize with Samuel Beckett. The Ingram Merrill Foundation granted him its Annual Literary Award in 1966 for his "outstanding contribution to literature." In 1971 Columbia University awarded him the first of many degrees of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa (eventually the list included both Oxford and Cambridge), that he was to receive from the English-speaking world. In 1971 he also received the fifth biennial Jerusalem Prize and in 1973 was given one of Mexico's most prestigious cultural awards, The Alfonso Reyes Prize. In 1980 he shared with Derardo Diego the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish world's highest literary accolade. Borges was Director of the Argentine National Library from 1955 until 1973.

To learn more about Borges, go here.

The reference to the great circular book is from the short story The Library of Babel. Read it, if you haven't already.

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