Wow - that indeed is close. And the sentiment is aligned with what I recall. Perhaps he honed the idea further in a subsequent work. Or perhaps that is what I saw and I’m not remembering it precisely. Thank you, thank you! 🙏

Bit the bullet and picked up a couple of Robin Hobb books from the library. Assassin's Apprentice has me intrigued.

I haven't read any of her books written under the Robin Hobb nom de plume, but I was very impressed by Wizard of the Pigeons, written back in the day under the Megan Lindholm name.  I thought it was one of the better early urban fantasy stories before the sub-genre degenerated into sparkly vampires and others of that ilk.
 

My current re-read of Borges' Labyrinths is going to be a work-in-progress for some time, I suspect.  Likely to be measured in weeks or even months.  Even though the individual stories and pieces are not long, the older version of myself that I am now is noticing the density and layered depths that they each contain. I'm sure this is something my younger self would likely not have noticed.

And I wonder is there a philosophical issue here.  As we grow older and have read and absorbed much more in our lives along the way, does that aggregation of literary input and lived experience combine to both filter and channel what we are likely to absorb from future input and experiences?  Does it help contextualise what we then are pre-disposed towards or repelled from? 

And for some strange reason, my brain is now trying to link Labyrinths with both Vandermeer's Annihilation and Graham Joyce's Indigo.  Why?  I have no idea.
 

I just finished a fast read of Richard Power’s’ Orfeo, which if irrc KSR recommended. My read was fast because the library loan was expiring. I liked it, the descriptions of music were interesting and have inspired me to expand my listening list. But I wasn’t wild about the book.  I disliked the ending exceedingly for several reasons and the whole thing seemed pretentiously self-consciously aiming at being a tour de force. Maybe the ending was compelled by the story Power wanted to tell but I think that means I just don’t like the story much at all.