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Borges' gnomic stories have, of course, earned him a worldwide following, and he and Bioy-Casares (a long time friend and disciple) are up to some thing a bit more ambitious than a parody of a hapless critic. The real target of their often uproarious gibes is modernism — or the part of it that zealously pursues theories of "pure" form into Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. The result, which Domecq never perceives, is invariably monstrous: novels and poems that can not be read, art that cannot be seen, architecture — freed from the "demands of inhabitability" — that cannot be used.
Donnish Humor. Things have not quite come to the unpretty pass that Domecq praises. But it is all theoretically plausible—and sometimes a bit more than that. Antarctic A. Garay earns Domecq's admiration by inventing "con cave sculpture"—i.e., setting up several pieces of junk and inviting spectators to contemplate the spaces between them.
Londoners were recently surprised and angered to discover a rectangular pile of stacked bricks exhibited in the Tate Gallery. With donnish humor and un failing intelligence, Chronicles of Bustos Domecq thrusts a rapier into such gargantuan posturing. As the enemies of sense and sensibility invade and occupy the citadels, Borges and Bioy-Casares are leading a bloodless coup.