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Borges: A Life
Edwin Williamson’s major new biography is the first in any language to encompass the entire span of Jorge Luis Borges’s life and work. Drawing upon previously unknown or unavailable sources, it brings out the human side of Borges: his roots in Argentina, the evolution of his political ideas, his relations with family and friends, the conflicts, desires, and obsessions that drove the man and shaped his work. Williamson’s definitive biography finally unlocks the mysteries that still surround the life of Borges, resulting in a compelling and poignant portrait that will radically transform established views of this modern master.
592 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 42 reviews
August 26, 2011
If he were alive today, Jorge Luis Borges would be 112 years old. Love for his works and the outsized influence they have had on my life makes it impossible for me to let his birthday (August 24) pass without some observance.
Coincidentally, I have just finished reading Edwin Williamson’s biography of the Argentinian author—and this after reading six or seven other Borges collections earlier this year. In the process, I am learning some things about my literary hero which put me in an interesting position: As much as I love the man and his work, under no circumstances would I ever want to have been like him.
We have all become so used to the blind old man wandering like Tiresias down the dark corridors of a life that has turned bitter that we forget that once he was a young man, full of dreams that the future would be glorious. He was a good looking young man, yet no one I know has ever met with so much rejection from women. That rejection led him through decades of anguish—made worse by his strident opposition to the rise of Juan Perón and his wife Eva to power in the 1940s—ending ultimately in his blindness through a hereditary disorder (his father also became blind).
He got over it. What Borges did was turn his anguish into beautiful music. In a poem entitled “Browning Resolves to be a Poet,” he writes:
And he did, too! In March 1957 he came out with an essay entitled “Borges and I,” in which he writes about himself as if he were two people, his intimate, personal self (as Williamson calls it) and his public self:
These “games with time and the infinite” are some of the greatest things that have proceeded from the mind of man.
On one hand, Borges was a Mama’s Boy, whom Leonor Borges Azevedo called “Georgie.” She had an excessive influence on his life, and grossly interfered with all his attempts at love. Finally, Borges did marry—twice. The first marriage was to a widow from La Plata that ended in discord and separation. Finally, late in his life, Borges married a young former student, of mixed Japanese and Argentinian ancestry, named Maria Kodama. By then, he was an old man. Love, however, knows no seasons: It just changes its nature to suit the circumstances.
So, Happy 112th Birthday, Georgie! May your work live forever!
Coincidentally, I have just finished reading Edwin Williamson’s biography of the Argentinian author—and this after reading six or seven other Borges collections earlier this year. In the process, I am learning some things about my literary hero which put me in an interesting position: As much as I love the man and his work, under no circumstances would I ever want to have been like him.
We have all become so used to the blind old man wandering like Tiresias down the dark corridors of a life that has turned bitter that we forget that once he was a young man, full of dreams that the future would be glorious. He was a good looking young man, yet no one I know has ever met with so much rejection from women. That rejection led him through decades of anguish—made worse by his strident opposition to the rise of Juan Perón and his wife Eva to power in the 1940s—ending ultimately in his blindness through a hereditary disorder (his father also became blind).
He got over it. What Borges did was turn his anguish into beautiful music. In a poem entitled “Browning Resolves to be a Poet,” he writes:
If a woman shares my love
my verse will brush the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens;
if a woman spurns my love
I will turn my sadness into music,
into a high river that will continue to resound throughout the course of time.
And he did, too! In March 1957 he came out with an essay entitled “Borges and I,” in which he writes about himself as if he were two people, his intimate, personal self (as Williamson calls it) and his public self:
It would be an exaggeration to say that our relations were hostile; I live, I allow myself to live, so that Borges may devise his literature, and that literature justifies me. I have no difficulty in admitting that I have achieved some worthwhile pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good no longer belongs to anybody, not even to the other, but to language or tradition....
Years ago I tried to break free of him and went into the mythologies of the arrabal [Buenos Aires slums] to playing games with time and the infinite, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to invent other things. And so, my life is a flight, and everything is lost to me and everything is claimed by oblivion, or by the other. I cannot tell which of us is writing this page.
These “games with time and the infinite” are some of the greatest things that have proceeded from the mind of man.
On one hand, Borges was a Mama’s Boy, whom Leonor Borges Azevedo called “Georgie.” She had an excessive influence on his life, and grossly interfered with all his attempts at love. Finally, Borges did marry—twice. The first marriage was to a widow from La Plata that ended in discord and separation. Finally, late in his life, Borges married a young former student, of mixed Japanese and Argentinian ancestry, named Maria Kodama. By then, he was an old man. Love, however, knows no seasons: It just changes its nature to suit the circumstances.
So, Happy 112th Birthday, Georgie! May your work live forever!
January 5, 2012
Borges had lady issues. The story is basically this:
Meets girl
Write great things
Girl humiliates him
Despair
Relvolution
More despair
Repeat about 7 times, then:
Happy
Dead
Meets girl
Write great things
Girl humiliates him
Despair
Relvolution
More despair
Repeat about 7 times, then:
Happy
Dead
September 27, 2012
Apparently everything Borges wrote is really mostly about how Norah Lange jilted him, with maybe a little bit about Mom and Pop Borges mixed in. That's an exaggeration, of course, but something about the 200 pages of this book that I managed to read makes me incline towards sterile reductionism.
November 17, 2018
Learned a lot about Argentina’s history and just how revered Borges was in the country. I found the telling a little repetitive and often couldn’t buy the repeated stress on themes in Borges life. They seemed too forced or contrived.
But I am convinced that I will read more Borges.
But I am convinced that I will read more Borges.
January 20, 2024
already the first time I read the Dutch-language collection ‘De Aleph’, comprising among others the stories in Penguin’s ‘Fictions’, I was left with a sense of the profundity and erudition that lay at the basis of each individual story: the feeling that I had far from grasped all that the stories had to offer. by now, I am convinced that the depth of Borges’ stories is such that it will take my lifetime (if not longer) for me to be able to appreciate them in full. but this biography will forever serve as a sort of reference work for me to gain a better understanding of how each story came into being and how Borges’ writings interwove with his personal life. as such, the biography enables me to do slightly more than what earlier felt like scratching the surface of something infinitely deep-rooted. in other words, ‘Borges: A Life’ has definitively changed my reading of the entirety of Borges’ oeuvre.
reading this biography has been cathartic to me in the sense that it to a degree has answered a (quite banal) question that has always intruiged me reading Borges’ work specifically and magical realist/metaphysical/modernist/‘experimental’ literature in general: how has the author come up with this? somehow, in many of Borges’ works, the author cannot obviously be related to the storyline or to (one of) the characters to such a degree, that paradoxically the question about the author’s role in composing the story imposes itself even more. this biography has been able to answer this question at least when it comes to the circumstances in which Borges found himself at the time of writing his stories.
what disappointed me though is that this biography does not shine a light on Borges’ creative process. it lacks an investigation of what actually constituted Borges’ genius, i.e. the way the stories were composed. Williamson is very sharp and, for as far as I can evaluate, accurate in his analyses of the symbolism in Borges’ writing—relating it to Borges’ personal life and the political circumstances in Argentina at the time—but we never come to understand the stages and thought processes Borges went through in creating his works, which is a shame to me as a starting writer who is very conscious of the process they go through while writing. the biography does not really ‘pick’ his ‘brain’, so to say, and therefore an important part of what makes Borges Borges remains enigmatic. this lack of intimacy in the biography has prevented me from sensing that I really have gotten to know Borges on the personal level I would have liked.
reading this biography has been cathartic to me in the sense that it to a degree has answered a (quite banal) question that has always intruiged me reading Borges’ work specifically and magical realist/metaphysical/modernist/‘experimental’ literature in general: how has the author come up with this? somehow, in many of Borges’ works, the author cannot obviously be related to the storyline or to (one of) the characters to such a degree, that paradoxically the question about the author’s role in composing the story imposes itself even more. this biography has been able to answer this question at least when it comes to the circumstances in which Borges found himself at the time of writing his stories.
what disappointed me though is that this biography does not shine a light on Borges’ creative process. it lacks an investigation of what actually constituted Borges’ genius, i.e. the way the stories were composed. Williamson is very sharp and, for as far as I can evaluate, accurate in his analyses of the symbolism in Borges’ writing—relating it to Borges’ personal life and the political circumstances in Argentina at the time—but we never come to understand the stages and thought processes Borges went through in creating his works, which is a shame to me as a starting writer who is very conscious of the process they go through while writing. the biography does not really ‘pick’ his ‘brain’, so to say, and therefore an important part of what makes Borges Borges remains enigmatic. this lack of intimacy in the biography has prevented me from sensing that I really have gotten to know Borges on the personal level I would have liked.
November 6, 2024
Heb het niet uitgelezen want was te lang maar was vrij chill.
November 15, 2009
Jorge Luis Borges is not one of my favorite writers. I admire his poetry and there are some stories have stayed in mind over the years since first reading them. But I believe him an important writer and a most fascinating man.
Edwin Williamson has done a stunning job in piecing together the details of his life and unraveling much of the enigma which surrounds him yet today, though he does tend to stray into Freudian analysis a little too much, often with astonishingly unconvincing results.
You can read my full review on Amazon.
Edwin Williamson has done a stunning job in piecing together the details of his life and unraveling much of the enigma which surrounds him yet today, though he does tend to stray into Freudian analysis a little too much, often with astonishingly unconvincing results.
You can read my full review on Amazon.
February 21, 2015
Borges is a favorite writer of mine, along with many of his diehards, it was difficult to not cast critical eye at Edwin Williamson. Though, I perhaps enjoyed the Williamson bio just as much as the James Woodall bio of Borges, My Life.
I tend to only have extreme reactions when reading things about JLB. This time I took a deep breath. Like many of his fans, I'm happy reading anything about him - with that, it was an enjoyable read.
I tend to only have extreme reactions when reading things about JLB. This time I took a deep breath. Like many of his fans, I'm happy reading anything about him - with that, it was an enjoyable read.
March 26, 2012
So far... It's an interesting angle on 19th & 20th c. Argentinean history. And there's a wealth of great material on Borges, including anecdotes, excerpts from all sorts of essays, letters, poems, and stories.
My problem though, is with the author's devotion to psychoanalytical literary criticism/psycho-biography. Too much, too often! Barf!
My problem though, is with the author's devotion to psychoanalytical literary criticism/psycho-biography. Too much, too often! Barf!
November 29, 2007
Worst Borges criticism ever. Th' dude linked everything in his work to various unrequited loves.... Anyone who's ever read Borges knows that love's not a real big focus of his stories...
March 18, 2016
His interviews are better. Why bother?
You should definetly read this before entertaining any prospect on reading this biography: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/boo...
You should definetly read this before entertaining any prospect on reading this biography: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/07/boo...
August 14, 2022
I find Borges a mysterious and difficult writer - his type of metaphysics is impenetrable to me. So I read this biography in the hopes of finding out more about his literary motivations. The book did its job in giving the outlines of Borges' life, his literary affiliations, friendships and feuds, as well as his complex and changing political views. I had not realized that Borges had started as an avant-garde literateur, so that was enlightening.
The author seems to focus on two aspects of Borges' life. The first is the conflict between "the sword of honor" and "the dagger". The sword refers to loyalty to his land-owning ancestors and the conservative politics that went with it, as represented by his strong-willed and long-lived mother. The dagger refers to the other face of Argentina, that of the pampas, gauchos and tango, the restless, anarchic lower-middle class (which would eventually lead to Peronism), and which was represented by his passive father.
This part of the book resonated with me; I can see how Borges was totally bewildered by the swinging of the political pendulum in Argentina, between attempted reforms, approaches to fascism, and military dictators. His provocative statements did not do much to endear him to the younger generation of writers, which was -at least initially- totally enthralled by the promise of the Cuban revolution.
The second focus was that of Borges' love life, which seems to have been about 70 years of being rejected by one girl after another, and a Dantesque search for the new Beatrice who would lead him to a literary masterpiece. And all of that driven by an early sexual failure with a prostitute in his teenage years. I dunno... it seemed farfetched and reductionist. I can't believe that a man in his 70s or 80s would still be haunted by his emotional failures from 40 years before.
Apart from the limitations of what was in the book, there's also the limitation of what was not in the book. By that I mean : a broader discussion of the generation of the Latin-American Boom. If I remember correctly, one of Julio Cortazar's first publications was supported by Borges or a magazine that Borges was associated with. Similarly, the impact of the Cuban revolution, which seems to have detonated like a bombshell in the Latin American world, was never mentioned.
In summary, while the book does have the traditional framework of a biography, with dates and places and source materials, it is really more an attempt at psychological analysis, and one with a rather limited focus.
The author seems to focus on two aspects of Borges' life. The first is the conflict between "the sword of honor" and "the dagger". The sword refers to loyalty to his land-owning ancestors and the conservative politics that went with it, as represented by his strong-willed and long-lived mother. The dagger refers to the other face of Argentina, that of the pampas, gauchos and tango, the restless, anarchic lower-middle class (which would eventually lead to Peronism), and which was represented by his passive father.
This part of the book resonated with me; I can see how Borges was totally bewildered by the swinging of the political pendulum in Argentina, between attempted reforms, approaches to fascism, and military dictators. His provocative statements did not do much to endear him to the younger generation of writers, which was -at least initially- totally enthralled by the promise of the Cuban revolution.
The second focus was that of Borges' love life, which seems to have been about 70 years of being rejected by one girl after another, and a Dantesque search for the new Beatrice who would lead him to a literary masterpiece. And all of that driven by an early sexual failure with a prostitute in his teenage years. I dunno... it seemed farfetched and reductionist. I can't believe that a man in his 70s or 80s would still be haunted by his emotional failures from 40 years before.
Apart from the limitations of what was in the book, there's also the limitation of what was not in the book. By that I mean : a broader discussion of the generation of the Latin-American Boom. If I remember correctly, one of Julio Cortazar's first publications was supported by Borges or a magazine that Borges was associated with. Similarly, the impact of the Cuban revolution, which seems to have detonated like a bombshell in the Latin American world, was never mentioned.
In summary, while the book does have the traditional framework of a biography, with dates and places and source materials, it is really more an attempt at psychological analysis, and one with a rather limited focus.
March 21, 2019
This is simply a magisterial book, which combines modern Argentine history (independence forward to late 1980s) with literary criticism and a detailed treatment of currents in Argentine culture. Williamson shows great depth and breadth, and inevitably becomes deeply sympathetic to Borges. The great man had his own problems, not the least of which was his elitist reactionary view of the world -- his crillolismo was that of the urbane (and urban) elite; his views of Argentina never showed true feeling for ordinary people; his concern for everyday peronistas in no way affected his view of populism; and he ended up endorsing both Videla and Pinochet as they murdered their fellow citizens. In this aspect, which takes up a lot of the book (1940s forward, beginning with Perón), Williamson glides over Borges' gross insensitivity as a public intellectual and assigns too much malign importance to Perón. Perón was a horror, but his successors were much worse, beginning with his wife Isabel and her brujo Lopez Rega. All the while, Borges lamented nationalism but praised nativism, the nativism of his ancestors, of course. Not until the end of his life did he give consideration to the displaced indigenous populations or the rural poor. The point of emphasizing this criticism is not to place extraordinary political obligations on a man who lived his life in crushing solipsism, but to suggest that other great intellectuals -- from Garcia Lorca (whom he maligned) to Ernesto Sábato (with whom he fell out over Perón) and Elie Wiesel (whom I suspect he did not know) carved out much more powerful public positions with greater ethical and moral vibrancy than did Borges. Borges always worried about himself and his art, and that's the true limit of the man. The biography might have been a bit more declarative in this regard, or at least to give more balanced treatment to the long stretch of time in which Borges achieved his greatest heights, and Argentina dove to its most inhumane depths. Despite all this, and despite having studied Latin America for decades, I feel enriched by this great biography.
October 23, 2025
This is not a good biography of Borges. Edwin Williamson didn't do the research into the reading that Borges did that Borges would have expected of his biographer.
To those semi-forgotten ("neglected") authors who have been waiting for a review like this to get your due recognition, I don't want to make you an enemy. But that review was promised to an acquaintance of mine in the critical conversation, so please stay tuned.
This is a bad biography of a very interesting person and writer. Somehow Edwin never conceives of a critical anaysis, -- something, anything, -- of the works by Borges, and instead insists on autobiographical connections between work and story.
This book makes the mistake of too many biographies. It assumes the reader is already fascinated with its subject. No. A good biography should never invent a character, but it shouldn't let cultural mythology be the baseline.
I have a good idea. Let living authors who have produced an amount of work satisfactory to themselves write the biographies of one another. Make this a tradition, where it is customary for each author to open their archives to their peer researcher. If their friendship doesn't survive the task then make that a part of the story!
P.s. Nothing was mentioned about Borges being a tacky racist class-obsessed piece of shit in multiple interviews. It turns out that one of our greatest writers from the 20th century was a pre-Internet troll in the best version of these encounters with the "great man".
To those semi-forgotten ("neglected") authors who have been waiting for a review like this to get your due recognition, I don't want to make you an enemy. But that review was promised to an acquaintance of mine in the critical conversation, so please stay tuned.
This is a bad biography of a very interesting person and writer. Somehow Edwin never conceives of a critical anaysis, -- something, anything, -- of the works by Borges, and instead insists on autobiographical connections between work and story.
This book makes the mistake of too many biographies. It assumes the reader is already fascinated with its subject. No. A good biography should never invent a character, but it shouldn't let cultural mythology be the baseline.
I have a good idea. Let living authors who have produced an amount of work satisfactory to themselves write the biographies of one another. Make this a tradition, where it is customary for each author to open their archives to their peer researcher. If their friendship doesn't survive the task then make that a part of the story!
P.s. Nothing was mentioned about Borges being a tacky racist class-obsessed piece of shit in multiple interviews. It turns out that one of our greatest writers from the 20th century was a pre-Internet troll in the best version of these encounters with the "great man".
September 3, 2021
all of dfw's complaints in his review stand strong, to attempt to psychoanalyse a dead man at a distance of some decades, relying on an only half-complete record, that often filtered through others' decade old memories, is at best erroneous. although i'm inclined to be more generous to williamson's thorough gumshoe work in those same archives pulling out what objective facts he can, it's his own conclusions i started just skimming past.
his reductionism of borges' books goes two ways as well, everything in the writing is reduced to georgie's problems with women or his parents, but sometimes he will extract some kernel from the fiction and present it as evidence of how he must have been feeling at the time, as if authorship, especially of such strange ambiguous texts, is simply a one to one repositioning of one's own life
his reductionism of borges' books goes two ways as well, everything in the writing is reduced to georgie's problems with women or his parents, but sometimes he will extract some kernel from the fiction and present it as evidence of how he must have been feeling at the time, as if authorship, especially of such strange ambiguous texts, is simply a one to one repositioning of one's own life
April 4, 2024
This biography made me appreciate the works of Borges from a different angle, giving a lot more personal insights into the secret autobiographical meanings that Borges weaved throughout his stories and poems. It made me want to re-read some of the stories I already read and discover the ones I have not. It also provided an invaluable context of the political life and history of Argentina that influence Borges' life so much. On the negative side, I thought that the deep Freudian manner with which the author psychoanalyzed every single one of Borges' stories and poems was a bit tedious. I thought that this approach was a bit overbearing and it outbalanced the personal anecdotes and the stories about the person who Borges was, placing too much attention into the psychological conflicts he had between 'the sword and the dagger', and between solipsism and the Aleph
November 14, 2024
Muito embora se tenha revelado surpreendente em certos aspectos, esta biografia de Borges deixa na sombra alguns pontos de indiscutível interesse (por exemplo, não é explicado como é que o pai de Borges que nos é apresentado como dispondo de poucas posses, se pode permitir o luxo de viajar com a família pela Europa durante mais de um ano! E também não são explicitadas as razões que provocaram o seu alegado afastamento da sua irmã Norah, a qual noutras biografias assume um papel muito mais relevante, etc). Mas o pior são os excessos na busca de simbolismos que Williamson se permite e que tornam o texto não só repetitivo como também um pouco irritante.
April 25, 2020
A 2012 review suggested a link, which is now broken, to a review of the book by David Foster Wallace on Nov. 4, 2004. The title is "Borges on the Couch." It is excellent, on both the strengths of the book as well as its weaknesses: "his interpretations amount to a simplistic, dishonest kind of psychological criticism."
October 7, 2017
Una eficiente descripción del autor argentino, con bastante énfasis en sus inspiraciones y estilo de escritura bifurcándose del arquetipo biográfico que simplemente proporciona datos cronológicamente, sino que Williamson hace un análisis a fondo de la escritura Borgiana.
February 17, 2025
This generally competent biography of this tortured genius is somewhat marred by the author’s ceaseless pounding through tortuous repetition of his analysis of the conflicts that drove Borges. Nevertheless, it does a proper presentation of the man and his times.
December 29, 2019
A life lesson for me. Thank you, Edwin.
July 7, 2024
Beautiful bio of the most wonderful latin-american poet and writer
December 29, 2025
O biografie solidă. S-ar cuveni reeditată, deși iubitorii de Borges s-au rărit binișor prin comparație cu tinerețile mele. Pe atunci, proza speculativă a lui Borges nu speria pe nimeni. Îl citeam pur și simplu, așa cum citeam parabolele lui Kafka (și Procesul, și Castelul), fără mari dificultăți. Toți ne aflam sub vraja acestor prozatori fără egal.
Jorge Luis Borges a spus mereu că adevărata lui viață și-a trăit-o în cărți. Experiențele lui au fost cele descrise de Cervantes, Stevenson, Kipling etc. În pofida acestor declarații arhicunoscute, Edwin Williamson încearcă să arate că (și) viața lui Borges i-a înrâurit opera. Un rol decisiv, pare-se, a avut rugămintea tatălui său, Jorge Guillermo Borges, „in articulo mortis”, de a-i rescrie romanul El caudillo, publicat în 1921 fără succes. Fiul nu i-a împlinit dorința, dar a compus povestirea „Pierre Menard, autorul lui Don Quijote”, în care un individ ingenios rescrie romanul lui Cervantes, copiindu-l cuvânt cu cuvânt. În final, constată că Don Quijote a căpătat un înțeles diferit. Circumstanțele și momentul lecturii modifică sensul oricărei cărți. În definitiv, nici n-ar fi nevoie de un scrib viclean și pervers, ca Menard. Timpul e cel mai bun re-scriitor. Tot tatăl lui, cu o candoare pe care i-a transmis-o fiului: „Am pus în text multe metafore, ca să-ți placă ție...”.
Borges n-a apucat să-și termine studiile, n-a obținut diplome, nici nu prea i-au trebuit. La 9 ani, a fost înscris la școala de pe Calle Thames din Buenos Aires (Thames = numele unui colonel argentinian, nu fluviul din Londra). Apoi în cursul primei călătorii a familiei în Europa (1913 - 1921), a urmat o școală la Geneva. Nu știa limba franceză. A învățat-o de nevoie, rapid. De la mama lui, doña Leonor Acevedo Suárez (1876 – 1975), învățase spaniola (și literatura spaniolă), de la bunica din partea tatălui, Frances Ann „Fanny” Haslam (1842 - 1935), engleza. Cu Miss Tink, guvernanta familiei, a ajuns s-o vorbească fluent. În Elveția a studiat și germana, pentru a-i cerceta pe filosofi. A reținut de la ei că marea enigmă a filosofiei e timpul.
Borges a fost toată viața un (re)cititor de clasici. În casa copilăriei din cartierul Palermo, a găsit o bibliotecă bogată. Rafturile erau închise cu geam, după moda veche, am mai prins-o și eu. Erau romanele englezești ale bunicii Fanny. Când a putut să citească, a cutezat să umble prin rafturi. Primul roman citit a fost, desigur, Aventurile lui Huckleberry Finn. A mai citit: H. G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow, Frații Grimm, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dickens, Cervantes, Lewis Carroll, O mie și una de nopți, în traducerea „obscenă” a lui Richard Burton. Apoi: Alexandre Dumas, George Moore, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling și câțiva poeți englezi, Shelley, Keats și Swinburne. Pe poeți i-a învățat pe de rost. Cărțile lui Borges sunt îndeosebi cărțile autorilor din secolul al XIX-lea.
Să mai spun? Borges n-a avut noroc în dragoste. Biografia lui a fost presărată cu eșecuri. Când l-au iubit, femeile nu l-au înțeles și, când l-au înțeles, nu l-au iubit. El voia să fie și înțeles, și iubit, voia imposibilul. Printre muze: Norah Lange, Haydée Lange, Estela Canto, Marta Mosquera Eastman, Susana Bombal, Esther Zemborain de Torres Duggan, Pippina Diehl de Moreno Hueyo, Beatriz Bibiloni Webster de Bullrich. Și multe altele. Borges nu era foarte chipeș, era cam durduliu, dar, în discuții, avea farmec. Zeițele îl ascultau cu plăcere; de culcat, se culcau cu Adolfo Bioy Casares și alții. Episodul bordelului din Geneva nu merită atenție.
Borges n-a avut decât două slujbe: redactor la un ziar și bibliotecar. A descoperit că bibliotecarilor nu le păsa de cărți. A fost sfătuit să facă la fel. Mărturisește că Juan Peron l-a promovat inspector la piața de iepuri și găini. A declinat oferta pe motive de incompetență. Nu-i exclus ca Borges însuși să fi inventat acest incident. A fost directorul Bibliotecii Naționale din Buenos Aires, a primit postul în 1955, când orbise de tot. A ținut prelegeri în universitățile americane. Îi plăcea să vorbească despre poezia ca „senzație fizică”, despre „beneficiile” orbirii, despre „enigma lui Shakespeare”. Un public numeros îl asculta răpit.
Jorge Luis Borges a fost căsătorit de două ori, dar n-a divorțat niciodată. Prin 1967, doña Leonor i-a recomandat o văduvă: Elsa Helena Astete Millán (1911 - 2011). Au rămas împreună aproape 3 ani. Borges avea frecvent coșmaruri, deși, dacă ne luăm după poze, doamna Astete părea drăguță. Când n-a mai rezistat, soțul s-a refugiat în Islanda, unde îl aștepta Maria Kodama. Prin portărei, și-a cerut cărțile înapoi. În 1986, s-a mai căsătorit o dată. De doamna Elsa n-a divorțat. În Argentina era imposibil. Prin urmare, putea fi socotit după legea locului bigam.
Lui Borges i-a plăcut toată viața să discute despre literatură prin cafenele sau să se plimbe cu prietenii, recitând din Quevedo și Kipling... (4.07.25, v; 6.07.25, d).
Jorge Luis Borges a spus mereu că adevărata lui viață și-a trăit-o în cărți. Experiențele lui au fost cele descrise de Cervantes, Stevenson, Kipling etc. În pofida acestor declarații arhicunoscute, Edwin Williamson încearcă să arate că (și) viața lui Borges i-a înrâurit opera. Un rol decisiv, pare-se, a avut rugămintea tatălui său, Jorge Guillermo Borges, „in articulo mortis”, de a-i rescrie romanul El caudillo, publicat în 1921 fără succes. Fiul nu i-a împlinit dorința, dar a compus povestirea „Pierre Menard, autorul lui Don Quijote”, în care un individ ingenios rescrie romanul lui Cervantes, copiindu-l cuvânt cu cuvânt. În final, constată că Don Quijote a căpătat un înțeles diferit. Circumstanțele și momentul lecturii modifică sensul oricărei cărți. În definitiv, nici n-ar fi nevoie de un scrib viclean și pervers, ca Menard. Timpul e cel mai bun re-scriitor. Tot tatăl lui, cu o candoare pe care i-a transmis-o fiului: „Am pus în text multe metafore, ca să-ți placă ție...”.
Borges n-a apucat să-și termine studiile, n-a obținut diplome, nici nu prea i-au trebuit. La 9 ani, a fost înscris la școala de pe Calle Thames din Buenos Aires (Thames = numele unui colonel argentinian, nu fluviul din Londra). Apoi în cursul primei călătorii a familiei în Europa (1913 - 1921), a urmat o școală la Geneva. Nu știa limba franceză. A învățat-o de nevoie, rapid. De la mama lui, doña Leonor Acevedo Suárez (1876 – 1975), învățase spaniola (și literatura spaniolă), de la bunica din partea tatălui, Frances Ann „Fanny” Haslam (1842 - 1935), engleza. Cu Miss Tink, guvernanta familiei, a ajuns s-o vorbească fluent. În Elveția a studiat și germana, pentru a-i cerceta pe filosofi. A reținut de la ei că marea enigmă a filosofiei e timpul.
Borges a fost toată viața un (re)cititor de clasici. În casa copilăriei din cartierul Palermo, a găsit o bibliotecă bogată. Rafturile erau închise cu geam, după moda veche, am mai prins-o și eu. Erau romanele englezești ale bunicii Fanny. Când a putut să citească, a cutezat să umble prin rafturi. Primul roman citit a fost, desigur, Aventurile lui Huckleberry Finn. A mai citit: H. G. Wells, Edgar Allan Poe, Longfellow, Frații Grimm, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dickens, Cervantes, Lewis Carroll, O mie și una de nopți, în traducerea „obscenă” a lui Richard Burton. Apoi: Alexandre Dumas, George Moore, Jack London, Rudyard Kipling și câțiva poeți englezi, Shelley, Keats și Swinburne. Pe poeți i-a învățat pe de rost. Cărțile lui Borges sunt îndeosebi cărțile autorilor din secolul al XIX-lea.
Să mai spun? Borges n-a avut noroc în dragoste. Biografia lui a fost presărată cu eșecuri. Când l-au iubit, femeile nu l-au înțeles și, când l-au înțeles, nu l-au iubit. El voia să fie și înțeles, și iubit, voia imposibilul. Printre muze: Norah Lange, Haydée Lange, Estela Canto, Marta Mosquera Eastman, Susana Bombal, Esther Zemborain de Torres Duggan, Pippina Diehl de Moreno Hueyo, Beatriz Bibiloni Webster de Bullrich. Și multe altele. Borges nu era foarte chipeș, era cam durduliu, dar, în discuții, avea farmec. Zeițele îl ascultau cu plăcere; de culcat, se culcau cu Adolfo Bioy Casares și alții. Episodul bordelului din Geneva nu merită atenție.
Borges n-a avut decât două slujbe: redactor la un ziar și bibliotecar. A descoperit că bibliotecarilor nu le păsa de cărți. A fost sfătuit să facă la fel. Mărturisește că Juan Peron l-a promovat inspector la piața de iepuri și găini. A declinat oferta pe motive de incompetență. Nu-i exclus ca Borges însuși să fi inventat acest incident. A fost directorul Bibliotecii Naționale din Buenos Aires, a primit postul în 1955, când orbise de tot. A ținut prelegeri în universitățile americane. Îi plăcea să vorbească despre poezia ca „senzație fizică”, despre „beneficiile” orbirii, despre „enigma lui Shakespeare”. Un public numeros îl asculta răpit.
Jorge Luis Borges a fost căsătorit de două ori, dar n-a divorțat niciodată. Prin 1967, doña Leonor i-a recomandat o văduvă: Elsa Helena Astete Millán (1911 - 2011). Au rămas împreună aproape 3 ani. Borges avea frecvent coșmaruri, deși, dacă ne luăm după poze, doamna Astete părea drăguță. Când n-a mai rezistat, soțul s-a refugiat în Islanda, unde îl aștepta Maria Kodama. Prin portărei, și-a cerut cărțile înapoi. În 1986, s-a mai căsătorit o dată. De doamna Elsa n-a divorțat. În Argentina era imposibil. Prin urmare, putea fi socotit după legea locului bigam.
Lui Borges i-a plăcut toată viața să discute despre literatură prin cafenele sau să se plimbe cu prietenii, recitând din Quevedo și Kipling... (4.07.25, v; 6.07.25, d).
July 12, 2013
Borges famously wrote that all he'd been was a weaver of dreams. Williamson's life of Borges shows him to have dreamt copiously through his long existence. He was a wreckless public speaker who loved to drop bombs in interviews and was unafraid to court controversy. He started his literary life as an ensign of the avant-garde and a bolshevik sympathiser. He morphed into a cultural nationalist, an admirer of the cut-throats of the barriadas, the knife-men of the Pampas and of old-fashioned milongas and tangos (he even wrote a few). He was remarkably clear-sighted about the awfulness of Argentinian fascism, headed by the indestructible General Peron and was a philo-semite. He later endorsed several dictatorships both in Argentina and abroad because he regarded them as the lesser evil (and he might have been right, although it probably cost him his Nobel prize). But he opposed the torture and vanishings of the Dirty War and he decried the manipulation of popular sentiment that General Galtieri achieved when he chose to invade the Malvinas (Falklands). He ended his life as mystical agnostic and chose to die in his second fatherland, Geneva.
Having read several Borges biographies I was surprised at the considerable links between his life (especially his sentimental life) and his work. Williamson teases the meaning of many obscure lines in Borges's work, by showing how they emanated from specific experiences, usually negative. This approach, while frequently enlightening, occasionally has its limitations. This biographer attempted to show that virtually everything Borges ever wrote , said or thought (at least until he met Maria Kodama, in the early 1970s) was a consequence of a battle in his head, between his mother ("the sword of honor") and his father ("the dagger of the compadrito"). While this framework can be enlightening, Williamson is so exhaustingly repetitive at flogging this horse, that the reader ends up feeling rather like someone who is accosted in a bar by a tiresome drunk who just goes on and on about some pet peeve. An insight is not a worldview, Mr. Williamson! Also, some of the chapters repeat themselves almost word for word, as if though the author had forgotten what he wrote before. The reader, alas, like Funes the Memorious, cannot forget and is therefore tempted to gloss over these bits. I was also surprised not to see any reference to Naipaul's essay "The Return of Eva Peron". Naipaul met Borges, interviewed him and also reviewed his work in a very lucid fashion. Surely the thoughts of one of the greatest living writers about one of his predecessors would have been of some interest?
The conclusion is that Borges definitive life in English (such as Boyd's life of Nabokov) remains to be written. While that happens, this is a better place to start than most. I give the book four stars because it has rekindled my old love for the Master's work. I think I'll dip into it in the next few weeks.
Having read several Borges biographies I was surprised at the considerable links between his life (especially his sentimental life) and his work. Williamson teases the meaning of many obscure lines in Borges's work, by showing how they emanated from specific experiences, usually negative. This approach, while frequently enlightening, occasionally has its limitations. This biographer attempted to show that virtually everything Borges ever wrote , said or thought (at least until he met Maria Kodama, in the early 1970s) was a consequence of a battle in his head, between his mother ("the sword of honor") and his father ("the dagger of the compadrito"). While this framework can be enlightening, Williamson is so exhaustingly repetitive at flogging this horse, that the reader ends up feeling rather like someone who is accosted in a bar by a tiresome drunk who just goes on and on about some pet peeve. An insight is not a worldview, Mr. Williamson! Also, some of the chapters repeat themselves almost word for word, as if though the author had forgotten what he wrote before. The reader, alas, like Funes the Memorious, cannot forget and is therefore tempted to gloss over these bits. I was also surprised not to see any reference to Naipaul's essay "The Return of Eva Peron". Naipaul met Borges, interviewed him and also reviewed his work in a very lucid fashion. Surely the thoughts of one of the greatest living writers about one of his predecessors would have been of some interest?
The conclusion is that Borges definitive life in English (such as Boyd's life of Nabokov) remains to be written. While that happens, this is a better place to start than most. I give the book four stars because it has rekindled my old love for the Master's work. I think I'll dip into it in the next few weeks.
August 1, 2014
In as much as Williamson's biography is evidently the result of years of hard work- the extent of his research is impressive- he is to be commended; had he avoided a lamentable tendency to attempt at every turn to divine Borges's psychological state based on some scarcely-extant nuance or imagined coincidence, as well as his insistence on referring to him as 'Georgie' for the first third of the book (notwithstanding the obvious reasons for this- emphasising the young Borges's yet-immature worldview and approach to interpersonal relationships; highlighting his subordinate position in relation to his parents, particularly his mother, based upon which relationship Williamson makes some truly astounding leaps of logic [some rather insulting, particularly hand-in-hand with the infantilising references to 'Georgie']- one grows steadily more irritated with each successive appearance of the nickname), it would have been closer to perfection and would have merited a five star rating. Whilst it is unlikely that Borges's output and his mindset at the time of writing are entirely separable, at the same time it undermines his creative capacity to insist- and Williamson very much insists, for 500 pages- that everything he wrote sprang whole-cloth from his fevered, tormented spirit, rather than his intellectual abilities.
In the final analysis, however, Williamson explores Borges's life in considerable detail, which is worth reading. Although he is bent on presenting his subject in a particular light (as David Foster Wallace put it in his well-known review of this book, Borges comes across as less a literary giant than 'a vain, timid, pompous mama's boy, given for much of his life to dithery romantic obsessions'), Williamson has worked hard to produce what he has produced; it is to be regretted that he could not employ such industry in a more objective assessment of his subject.
In the final analysis, however, Williamson explores Borges's life in considerable detail, which is worth reading. Although he is bent on presenting his subject in a particular light (as David Foster Wallace put it in his well-known review of this book, Borges comes across as less a literary giant than 'a vain, timid, pompous mama's boy, given for much of his life to dithery romantic obsessions'), Williamson has worked hard to produce what he has produced; it is to be regretted that he could not employ such industry in a more objective assessment of his subject.
March 29, 2017
Williamson's book is impressive for the level of research which was obviously involved in creating it -- he seems to have read everything Borges has ever written or had written to him or about him, and his ability to summarize and communicate all of this material is impressive.
If you read this book, to put things more straightforwardly, you will have a remarkably detailed, chronological telling of Borges' entire life, plus some bits before and after his life.
The only thing that hampers Williamson's book is his seemingly incessant need to psychoanalyze. Every chapter of Borges' life -- every episode, every chance happening -- is explained in terms of abstract psychoanalytical entities which Williamson has concocted, with names like "The ancestral sword of honor," or "The dagger," etc. He makes a convincing case that Borges understood his own life and most of his (almost always unsuccessful) attempts at courtship in terms of Dante's Divine Comedy, since Borges said as much himself and several of his friends made similar observations. But this is about the extent of Williamson's armchair psychiatry's usefulness.
The bright side is Williamson has a very consistent tendency to make paragraphs stick to only one topic, and to announce this topic in the first or second sentence of the paragraph, which let me easily skip over all the bits of the book devoted to 'analyzing' Borges.
Highly recommended to anyone who's a fan of Borges and wants to know the basic facts of his life: I haven't seen any other biography that was more thoroughly researched.
If you read this book, to put things more straightforwardly, you will have a remarkably detailed, chronological telling of Borges' entire life, plus some bits before and after his life.
The only thing that hampers Williamson's book is his seemingly incessant need to psychoanalyze. Every chapter of Borges' life -- every episode, every chance happening -- is explained in terms of abstract psychoanalytical entities which Williamson has concocted, with names like "The ancestral sword of honor," or "The dagger," etc. He makes a convincing case that Borges understood his own life and most of his (almost always unsuccessful) attempts at courtship in terms of Dante's Divine Comedy, since Borges said as much himself and several of his friends made similar observations. But this is about the extent of Williamson's armchair psychiatry's usefulness.
The bright side is Williamson has a very consistent tendency to make paragraphs stick to only one topic, and to announce this topic in the first or second sentence of the paragraph, which let me easily skip over all the bits of the book devoted to 'analyzing' Borges.
Highly recommended to anyone who's a fan of Borges and wants to know the basic facts of his life: I haven't seen any other biography that was more thoroughly researched.
October 13, 2010
I started reading Borges a little over three years ago and I’ll be reading him the rest of my life, but up until now I knew only the broadest outline of his life. I knew he was from Buenos Aires. I knew he went blind late in life and I knew that around the time he went blind he became director of the national library in Buenos Aires. In short - I knew the wikepedia biography. It was time to learn more about Borges so when I saw this in my local library I picked it up. It’s a well written and researched biography with lots of exploration into the psychology and motivations for Borges’s writing. By necessity some of this is speculation and must be accepted as such, but Williamson presents his material well. Argentine history, culture, politics and personal relationships play a big part in Borges’s writing and Williamson does an admirable and detailed job of giving us the appropriate context for the subject at hand, making this a dense, filled with detail, but rewarding work. So much so that I purchased a copy for reference purposes. I would have liked to have seen more about the writing for TV that Borges and Bioy Casares collaborated on, but I guess I’ll have to wait for another work for that - perhaps Bioy’s book on Borges that is yet to be translated to English.
August 4, 2009
I was actually surprised by how eventful Borges's life was as I always envisioned him as some sort of monk who lived in a library and slowly went blind. Ok, maybe he did live with his mother in their family home until she died, but he was quite active in the literary scene, outspoken politically, and had several romances and rivalries. Most surprising of all, though, was how many autobiographical details are scattered in his highly abstract and philosophical stories. Perhaps this is always true because how else are you going to write convincingly about anything but it was quite unexpected in his case.
Or not, as Borges himself wrote in the Afterword to The Maker: "A man sets out to draw a world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face."
Or not, as Borges himself wrote in the Afterword to The Maker: "A man sets out to draw a world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face."
October 26, 2007
Borges: A Life fails to escape that which kills every biography about the man--reductive theorizing. According to Williamson, Papa Borges tried to force Jorgie to rail a hooker, which made Jorgie one for the greatest prose writers to ever walk the Earth. There are lots of other papa, mama, girl issues that thickened the ink Jorgie wrote with (I believe he usually used a typewriter).
If I hate Williamson's theorizing of Borges's life, why did I give this book four stars? The book gave everything the back cover promised: a biography that encompasses Borges's entire life and work. I am obsessed with the man and this book devotes a majority of its pages to him. You ever see the piss poor movie Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man? I have watch it five times; I almost gave this book five stars because of the title. Read this book for disappointment and sustenance. Here's the link to the Borges movie: http://www.ubu.com/film/borges.html
If I hate Williamson's theorizing of Borges's life, why did I give this book four stars? The book gave everything the back cover promised: a biography that encompasses Borges's entire life and work. I am obsessed with the man and this book devotes a majority of its pages to him. You ever see the piss poor movie Jorge Luis Borges: The Mirror Man? I have watch it five times; I almost gave this book five stars because of the title. Read this book for disappointment and sustenance. Here's the link to the Borges movie: http://www.ubu.com/film/borges.html
December 25, 2009
This was a biography of Borges that took a more straightforward, less emotional, bent than other bios (from what I have heard of the others). Not much to say about this book that hasnt been said. It was overly long (and I've read Master of the Senate), which is fine if the length is warranted. This is more of a Borges Life Encyclopedia than a Life Story. Indeed we do go into interpersonal relationships, and the author tries to evoke emotion, but in me, at least he failed on most counts.
The book is not bad, it's just not one I would keep on my shelf - unless I intended to impress guests.
The book is not bad, it's just not one I would keep on my shelf - unless I intended to impress guests.
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