Menard (perhaps without wanting to) has
enriched, by means of a new technique, the halting and rudimentary art of
reading: this new technique is that of the deliberate anachronism and the
erroneous
attribution. This technique, whose applications are infinite, prompts
us to go through the
Odyssey as if it were posterior to
the
Aeneid, and the book
Le jardin du Centaure by Madame Henri Bachelier as if it were by
Madame Henri Bachelier. This technique fills the most placid works with
adventure. To attribute the
Imitatio Christi to Louis
Ferdinand Celine or James Joyce, is this not sufficient renovation of
its tenuous spiritual indications?
-- Jorge Luis Borges "Pierre Menard, Author of the
Quixote" (1939) (tr., James E. Irby)