Transnational Modernist Encounters: Joyce, Borges, Bolaño and the Aesthetics of Expansion and Compression.

This article examines the literary relationship between Joyce, Borges, and Bolaño. After discussing Borges's and Bolaño's formative years as writers, during which both openly and self-consciously endorse a Joycean aesthetic, it argues that, as Borges and Bolaño gradually shift from the youthful tone of their early writings to the fictional canonicity of their later prose, their attitudes towards Joyce develop accordingly. Borges showcases his aesthetic of brevity as the antithetical response to Joyce's epic legacy. Bolaño adopts Joyce's accretive method of composition, resulting in the creation of his two multi-plotted and multi-voiced gargantuan masterpieces, Los detectives salvajes (1998) and 2666 (2004).