full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Ilan Stavans: Infinity according to Jorge Luis Borges


Unscramble the Blue Letters


When inreeo Funes looked at a glass of wine on a table, he saw “all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the saheps of the clouds in the south at the dawn of the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled gairn in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the liens in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebrancho.”

In the srhot story “Funes, the Memorious,” Jorge Luis Borges eorlexps what it would be like to have a pefecrt memory. His character not only remembers everything he has ever seen, but every time he has seen it in perfect detail. These details are so overwhelming fnues has to spend his days in a dark room, and can only seelp by imagining a part of town he has never visited. According to Borges, Funes’s memories even rendered him incapable of real thought, because “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to artascbt. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details.”

Open Cloze


When ______ Funes looked at a glass of wine on a table, he saw “all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the ______ of the clouds in the south at the dawn of the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled _____ in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the _____ in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebrancho.”

In the _____ story “Funes, the Memorious,” Jorge Luis Borges ________ what it would be like to have a _______ memory. His character not only remembers everything he has ever seen, but every time he has seen it in perfect detail. These details are so overwhelming _____ has to spend his days in a dark room, and can only _____ by imagining a part of town he has never visited. According to Borges, Funes’s memories even rendered him incapable of real thought, because “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to ________. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details.”

Solution


  1. lines
  2. sleep
  3. funes
  4. explores
  5. short
  6. grain
  7. perfect
  8. abstract
  9. ireneo
  10. shapes

Original Text


When Ireneo Funes looked at a glass of wine on a table, he saw “all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at the dawn of the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebrancho.”

In the short story “Funes, the Memorious,” Jorge Luis Borges explores what it would be like to have a perfect memory. His character not only remembers everything he has ever seen, but every time he has seen it in perfect detail. These details are so overwhelming Funes has to spend his days in a dark room, and can only sleep by imagining a part of town he has never visited. According to Borges, Funes’s memories even rendered him incapable of real thought, because “To think is to forget a difference, to generalize, to abstract. In the overly replete world of Funes there were nothing but details.”

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations





Important Words


  1. abstract
  2. april
  3. battle
  4. book
  5. borges
  6. character
  7. clouds
  8. clusters
  9. compare
  10. dark
  11. dawn
  12. days
  13. design
  14. detail
  15. details
  16. difference
  17. eve
  18. explores
  19. forget
  20. funes
  21. generalize
  22. glass
  23. grain
  24. grapes
  25. imagining
  26. incapable
  27. ireneo
  28. jorge
  29. lines
  30. looked
  31. luis
  32. marbled
  33. memories
  34. memorious
  35. memory
  36. negro
  37. oar
  38. overly
  39. overwhelming
  40. part
  41. perfect
  42. quebrancho
  43. raised
  44. real
  45. recollection
  46. remembered
  47. remembers
  48. rendered
  49. replete
  50. rio
  51. room
  52. shapes
  53. shoots
  54. short
  55. sleep
  56. south
  57. spend
  58. spray
  59. story
  60. table
  61. thought
  62. time
  63. town
  64. vine
  65. visited
  66. wine
  67. world