Multiple Possible Futures

The title of the post refers to not only the various conflicting, nuanced or downright contradictory outcomes of specific events as narrated in the poem 'Saga', but of the final outcome of the work itself, as a material thing for August's assessment. 

Initial thoughts are still pushing towards a physical, authoritative, printed object - in traditional hardbacked book binding - possibly via these UK-based online printers. Since beginning this blog, however, I've started to think of the options provided by hyperlinking, in an online or at least electronic format (e.g., embedded within a PDF document). An electronic PDF is every bit as 'locked' to the reader as a printed page, but I still feel lacks the physical sense of authority conveyed by the materials of hard binding, gold leaf embossing, and other attributes which tend to distinguish 'serious', classical and authoritative texts from 'popular' ones. (That isn't to suggest that I consider this work to be élitist, superior or inherently worthy of such elevation at all - merely that it's that sense of standing that I wish to suggest, one that will be in a sense undermined by the degrees of disagreement inherent in the text within - the concept of fakery, or at best, differing viewpoints, presented as fact. A significant reference point: Dictionary of the Khazars (M) By Milorad Pavic, which has been suggested several times as a fertile source of ideas, and a copy of which is on its way to me now). 

Regarding the former notions of contradiction and 'multiple paths' trodden throughout the work, I took much from this analysis of the Garden of Forking Paths: 

        "Version is enclosed within version, each narrative with its own range of reference and association,         its own standards and horizons of “truth.” Borges’s fictional composition includes and comments            upon the confessions of a spy, the philosophical exegesis of an academic, the traditionally                        inscrutable joke of a complex mind. The interference of the narratives incites reference back and            forth, setting up analogies between contemporary historical events and cultural reflections, betwen         the various levels of personal existence of Dr. Yu Tsun, between nationalities, beliefs, and codes."

        "Borges mixture of genuine quotation and “spurious” scholarship. Uncertainty is produced                     whichever way you “read” the story, and principally if one manages to read it all ways at once—            which is what the labyrinth at the center of the story suggests. It is “a labyrinth of symbols.”

        "Yu Tsun tries, by recalling his murder of Albert, to construct around the event a narrative that                 gives it the status of irrevocability (all incidents seem restrospectively compelling and essential).          His “confession” is thus fundamentally spurious. Its format proposes an acquiescence that, in fact,          is quite the reverse of the confession’s purpose. His narrated version, like his act of murder, seeks          to impose a unique and dominant reading." (my emphasis)

        "At this point he becomes aware of the “living countryside” and of an “almost syllabic music,”             which he later realizes is Chinese. Here, as always in Borges, the topology is not realistic scene-            setting but directions to a mental state. Robbe-Grillet clearly works in a similar fashion in                     Topologie d’une Cite Fantome, but the parallel is not quite exact."

                                                                                                                                 (Ralph Yarrow)

There is one very big  'competing narrative' which runs the length of the entire poem - or rather, a "unique and dominant reading" of historical events which nonetheless turn out to be entirely incorrect, if not even propagandistic. I'm not precious about the giving away of 'spoilers' for a work that isn't being marketed as 'popular fiction', but will say that its purpose lies in the origins of belief, and how entire societies and ways of living may be created (and controlled) by what are, in effect, lies (or misunderstandings, or myths, which gather around a grain of truth and are thereafter perpetuated by vested interests and individual concerns).

Ultimately, as with the unfolding text itself, everything and anything written or alluded to on this very blog could itself be a work of fiction, metafiction, or pure fantasy. I may be developing a completely secret and different project for my MFAAH degree - I may be somebody else entirely - this blog may be a component of the entire metafictional 'metaverse' that I'm in the process of creating, smudging the boundaries between art, reality, truth, fiction, and total fantasy. On purpose, of course.