El texto de Borges, escrito a mano y firmado por él, saldrá
en un precio en torno a las 20.000-30.000 libras (27.870-41.810 euros), Francisco Porrúa, editor y traductor de la
edición española de la novela Crónicas Marcianas encargó a Borges (1899-1986)
que escribiera el prólogo.
Lote 130
BORGES
(JORGE LUIS)
Autograph
manuscript, signed ("Jorge Luis Borges"), of his Prologue to Ray
Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, ʻWE ARE THE TRUE ANCIENTS, NOT THE PEOPLE OF
GENESIS OR HOMER. WHAT HAS THIS MAN FROM ILLINOIS CREATED... THAT HIS EPISODES
OF THE CONQUEST OF ANOTHER PLANET FILL ME WITH SUCH TERROR AND SOLITUDE?', 1955
£20,000 - 25,000
€28,000 - 35,000
BORGES (JORGE LUIS)
Autograph manuscript, signed ("Jorge Luis
Borges"), of his Prologue to Ray Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, headed
"PRÓLOGO" and opening: "En el segundo siglo de nuestra era,
Luciano de Samosata compuso una Historia verídica, que encierra, entre otras
maravillas, una descripción de los selenitas, que (según el verídico
historiador) hilan y cardan los metales y el vidrio, se quitan y se ponen los
Ojos, beben zumo de aire o aire exprimido a principios del siglo XVI, Ludovico
Ariosto imaginó que un paladín de[scubr]e en la luna todo lo que se pierde en
la Tierra, las lágrimas y suspiros de los amantes, el tiempo malgastado en el
juego, los proyectos inútiles y los no saciados anhelos; en el XVII, Kepler
redactó un Somnium astronomicum, que finge ser la transcripción de un [l]ibro
leído en un sueño, cuyas páginas prolijamente revelan la conformación y los
hábitos de las serpientes de la luna, que durante los ardores del día se
guarecen en profundas cavernas y salen al atardecer. Entre el primero y el
segundo de estos viajes imaginarios hay mil trescientos años y entre el
segundo, y el tercero, unos den; los dos primeros son, sin embargo, invenciones
irresponsables y libres y el tercero está como entorpecido por un afán de
verosimilitud. La razón es
dara..." [ʻIn the second century of our era, Lucian of Samosata composed a
True History that includes, among other marvels, a description of the
Selenites, who (according to the truthful historian) card and spin metals and
glass, remove and replace their eyes, and drink air-juice or squeezed air; at
the beginning of the sixteenth century, Ludovico Ariosto imagined a hero who
discovers on the moon all that has been lost on earth, the tears and sighs of
loves, the time wasted on games, the fruitless attempts and the unfulfilled
desires; in the seventeenth century, Kepler wrote a Somnium Astronomicum that
purports to be a transcription of a book read in a dream, whose pages reveal at
great length the appearance and habits of the lunar snakes, which take shelter
in deep caves during the heat of the day and venture out at nightfall. Between
the first and second of these imaginary voyages these is one thousand three
hundred years, and between the second and the third a hundred; the first two
are, nevertheless, free and capricious inventions, and the third is dulled by
an urge for verisimilitude. The reason is clear...'; translation by Eliot
Weinberger]; and, through the evocation of John Wilkins and his universal
language, Archytas the Pythgorian and his wooden dove, Macbeth and Raskolnikov,
and other Borgesian tropes, pondering the nature of North American science
fiction and Bradbury's Martian Chronicles in particular ("...Ray Bradbury
ha preferido (sin proponérselo, tal vez, y por secreta inspiración de su genio)
un tono elegíaco... Otros autores estampan una fecha venidera y no les
creemos, porque sabemos que se trata de una convención literaria; Bradbury
escribe 2004 y sentimos la gravitación, la fatiga, la vasta y vaga acumulación
del pasado – el dark backward and abysm of Time del verso de Shakespeare. Ya el
Renacimiento observó, por boca de Giordano Bruno y de Bacon, que los verdaderos
antiguos somos nosotros y no los hombres del Génesis o de Homero... ¿Qué ha
hecho este hombre de Illinois me pregunto, al cerrar las páginas de su libro,
para que episodios de la conquista de otro planeta me pueblen de terror y de
soledad?...") [ʻ...Ray
Bradbury has chosen to (without, perhaps, attempting to do so, and through the
secret inspiration of his genius) an elegiac tone...Other authors stamp a
future date, and we don't believe them, for we know that is merely a literary
convention; Bradbury writes "2004," and we feel the gravitation, the
fatigue, the vast and shifting accumulation of the past – Shakespeare's
"dark backward and abysm of Time." As the Renaissance observed,
through the words of Giordano Bruno and Bacon, we are the true ancients, not
the people of Genesis or Homer. What has this man from Illinois created – I ask
myself, closing the pages of his book – that his episodes of the conquest of
another planet fill me with such terror and solitude?...'], 3 leaves written on
one side only, on squared paper perforated at the left-hand edge and with two
ring-binder holes in the left margin, paper-clip stains, first leaf with some
old smudging and light dust-staining, 4to, 1955
Notas a pie
de página
ʻWE ARE THE TRUE ANCIENTS, NOT THE PEOPLE
OF GENESIS OR HOMER. WHAT HAS THIS MAN FROM ILLINOIS CREATED... THAT HIS
EPISODES OF THE CONQUEST OF ANOTHER PLANET FILL ME WITH SUCH TERROR AND
SOLITUDE?' – Jorge Luis Borges's celebrated Prologue to Ray
Bradbury's Martian Chronicles.
This manuscript was first published as the
prologue to the Spanish translation of the Martian Chronicles, Crónicas
marcianas. Prólogo de J. L. B., Buenos Aires, Ediciones Minotauro
(1955); and first collected in Prólogos con un prólogo de prólogos (1975). Weinberger's English translation is
printed in the selected edition of Borges's non-fiction, The Total Library:
Non-Fiction 1922-1986, Eliot Weinberger, editor (2000), pp. 418-9.
The manuscript belongs to the family of the
late Francisco (ʻPaco') Porrua, the publisher who gave the world Julio
Cortázar's Rayuela and Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
He was also founder of Ediciones Minotauro, pioneering publishers of science
fiction; being responsible for practically all aspects of the press, including
finance, sales, and even graphics and layout. In the case of foreign authors
such as Tolkien, Ballard and Bradbury, he also acted as his own translator,
although under a pseudonym. His translation of Bradbury's Martian Chronicles,
with Borges's accompanying prologue, was the press's first publication; for
which Porrua used his mother's maiden name, Francisco Abelenda.
Fuente : Bonhams
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