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Jorge Luís Borges

Borges and Myself

Jorge Luís Borges (1899–1986), Argentine poet, short-story writer, essayist, critic, and univer­sity professor, was best known for his esoteric short fiction. He received little recognition in America until the publication in 1968 of English translations of Ficciónes, Labyrinths, and The Aleph and Other Stories. In this very short piece the writer speaks of his dual nature, the self who surrenders everything to the creative Borges so that he can weave his tales and poems.

      It's to the other man, to Borges, that things happen. I walk along the streets of Buenos Aires, stopping now and then—perhaps out of habit—to look at the arch of an old entranceway or a grillwork gate; of Borges I get news through the mail and glimpse his name among a committee of professors or in a dictionary of biography. I have a taste for hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-cen­tury typography, the roots of words, the smell of coffee, and Stevenson's prose; the other man shares these likes, but in a showy way that turns them into stagy mannerisms. It would be an ex­aggeration to say that we are on bad terms; I live, I let myself live, so that Borges can weave his tales and poems, and those tales and poems are my justification. It is not hard for me to admit that he has managed to write a few worthwhile pages, but these pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good no longer belongs to anyone—not even the other man—but rather to speech or tradition. In any case, I am fated to become lost once and for all, and only some mo­ment of myself will survive in the other man. Little by little, I have been surrendering everything to him, even though I have evidence of his stubborn habit of falsification and exaggerating. Spinoza held that all things try to keep on being themselves; a stone wants to be a stone and the tiger, a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is so that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in those of others or than in the laborious tuning of a guitar. Years ago, I tried ridding myself of him and I went from myths of the outlying slums of the city to games with time and infinity, but those games are now part of Borges and I will have to turn to other things. And so, my life is a running away, and I lose everything and everything is left to oblivion or to the other man.

      Which of us is writing this page I don't know.

Suggestions for Discussion

1.   Who is the speaker?

2.   What is his relation to and attitude toward Borges, the writer?

3.   On the basis of this brief sketch, what conclusions are you invited to draw about the creative process and about the sources and subject matter of Borges' art?

Suggestions for Writing

1.   The concept of the double appears frequently in literature. Write a sketch of a character who might be described as having a double.

2.   Record your daily activities and thoughts for a week, paying no attention to mechanics or or­ganization. Then select one of the journal items for full and logical development.