Jorge Luis Borges: Conversations

by Richard Burgin, Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986), one of the indisputably great writers of the twentieth century, was born in Buenos Aires. Never having been awarded the Nobel Prize, which his readers worldwide believed he deserved, this story writer, poet, essayist, and man of letters died at age eighty-six.

This anthology of interviews with him features more than a dozen conversations that cover all phases of his life and work.

Conducted between 1964 and 1984, the interviews reveal Borges to be a remarkably candid, humorous man, by turns skeptical and enthusiastic, and always a singularly incisive and adventurous thinker.

He discusses his blindness, his family and childhood, early travels, literary friends, and struggles to find his literary identity. In depth he examines the meanings and intentions of his own famous stories and poems, and he speaks of the writers whose works he has loved―Dante, Cervantes, Emerson, Dickinson, H. G. Wells, Kafka, Stevenson, Kipling, Whitman, Frost, and Faulkner―and of those whom he disliked, such as Hemingway and Lorca. Borges expresses his contempt for Péron and assesses the tumultuous politics of Argentina. He speaks also of the imagination as a type of dreaming, about issues of collaboration and translation, about philosophy, and about time.

Many of the interviews were conducted by notable figures, including Alastair Reid, Willis Barnstone, and Ronald Christ.

As Borges speaks in these conversations, readers who have fallen under the spell of his magical prose and poetry will find additional sustenance.

Genres: Literature, Biography Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Richard Burgin’s stories have won five Pushcart Prizes and been reprinted in numerous anthologies including The Ecco Anthology of Contemporary American Short Fiction, The Best American Mystery Stories, and New Jersey Noir (edited by Joyce Carol Oates). He is the author is 16 books including two novels, “Rivers Last Longer” and “Ghost Quartet,” eight collections of short fiction, as well as the interview books “Conversations with Jorge Louis Borges” and “Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer.” His book The Identity Club: New and Selected Stories was listed as one of The Best Books of 2006 by The Times Literary Supplement and as one of the 40 Best Books of Fiction of the last decade by The Huffington Post. Other books have been listed as Notable Books of the Year by The St. Louis Post Dispatch and three times by The Philadelphia Inquirer. In France a Richard Burgin reader, L’Ecume Des Flammes was published in 2011, which received a rave review in Le Monde. He is the founder and current editor of the literary magazine Boulevard.

Reviews

[Zeynep T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jorge Luis Borges ile en eskisi 1966, en yakın tarihlisi 1985 yılında olmak üzere yapılan söyleşilerin derlendiği kitap. Yazarı tanımak ve eserlerini daha iyi anlamak için okunması gerekli.

Borges'i Niçin Öldürmeliyiz başlıklı güzel takdim Gökhan Yavuz Demir Hocama ait ki kitabı bana öneren kişidir kendisi. Gökhan Hocam oldukça objektif bir sekilde çizmiş yazarın portresini. Borges'in "Franco'nun İspanyasına, Pinochet'nin Şilisine, ve Videla'nın Arjantinine övgüleri yüzünden" aldığı eleştiriler, "politik körlüğünü"ne karşı edebi görüş gücünün üzerinde durulması dikkate değerdi.

Sonrasında gelen takdim kısmını kim yazmış anlayamadım. Burada "Sade, anlaşılır bir üslupla yazmayı sevdiğinden, ro­manlardansa hikayeleri tercih ettiğinden, fazlaca anali­tik bulduğu edebiyat eleştirisine, Komünizme, Peron ve Anti-Semitizme karşı olduğundan söz eder." cümlelerinin yer aldığı paragraf söyleşilerden çıkan yazar portresini başarılı şekilde özetliyor. Sonrasında gelen Kronoloji ve Türkçede Borges kısımları okurlar için faydalı.

Söyleşilerde benzer sorular sorulduğu için yazar tekrara düşmüş tabii ama bir yandan yıllar boyunca fikirlerini netleştirerek tutarlı kaldığını görüyoruz. Eserlerini açıklamaktan kaçınmıyor. Ficciones ve Alef'i okumaya çalışırken faydasını gördüm. Görme duyusunu kaybetmesinin hayatına ve eserlerine yansımalarını anlattığı bölümler hem üzücü hem de kara mizah doluydu. Tamamen görme engelli olmasına yakın kütüphane müdürü olarak atanmasına dair şiir bile yazmış.

Jorge Luis Borges klasik Amerikan ve İngiliz edebiyatı hayranı. Engelli olmasının da etkisiyle çağdaşlarını ve sonra gelenleri takip etmemiş. James Joyce için "ünlü olmak, incelenmek için yazdı" diyor. Julio Cortazar için "her sayfada özgün olmak için o kadar çabalıyor ki bir zihin mücadelesine dönüşüyor değil mi?" Demiş.

Franz Kafka'ya dair konuştuğu bölümü çok sevdim. Yazarın eserlerindeki metaforlardan (ayna, labirent, uykusuzluk vs.), sevdiği edebiyatçılardan, yabancı dil öğrenmeye yatkınlığı ve çevirmenliğinden bol bol söz ediliyor.

Tekrarlar sebebiyle kimi yerlerde sıkılmış olsam da okuduğuma memnun olduğum kitaplardan oldu. Çevirmen Hatice Esra Mescioğlu, editör Ahmet Nezihi Turan başta olmak üzere kitabın yayınlanmasına katkı sunan herkesin emeğine sağlık.

[Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Borges always gets my attention from the first page to the last. In this series of interviews with Borges he ignites within me the same thing that he ignited when I first read his "Collected Fictions." That is the joy of reading. Because of Borges I have revisited "The Oddysey" and "The Inferno". Because of Borges I have begun to read Bioy Casares. Borges has elevated my taste and my ambition to read quality literature, so to read these interviews is simply to know him better. He speaks here on a variety of subjects and he has his favorite phrases to fall back on, but one of the pleasures of reading this book is to see his mind at work in a spontaneous situation. BTW - One thing we learn that he taught himself German by reading a book in German with the help of an English/German dictionary. Perhaps that is how I will have to read Bioy's "Borges" which is yet to be translated to English. Maybe things will go easier with Google translate.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 3 out of 5]

“İnsanlarda edebiyat duygusu hiç yok. Bu yüzden bir edebiyat parçası hoşlarına gitse, hemen karmaşık nedenler aramaya koyuluyorlar. ‘İyi bir şiir olduğu için veya ilgimi çeken bir hikaye olduğu için, okurken kendimi unutup içindeki kişileri düşündüğüm için seviyorum’ diyeceklerine, içinde gerçek kırıntıları, semboller, olmayan neden-sonuç ilişkileri aramaya başlıyorlar. ‘Hikayenizi beğendik ama ne demek istediniz bu hikayeyle?’ diye soruyorlar. Cevap şu: Hiçbir şey demek istemedim. Anlatmak istediğim hikayenin kendisiydi. Hikayenin kendisi zaten kendi gerçeğidir, değil mi? Ama insanlar bunu kabul etmiyor. Yazarın gizli amaçları olduğuna inanıyorlar. İnsanlar her türlü edebi eserin arkasında bir tür ders arıyorlar.”

Borges; ruh ikizim. Seninle söyleşi yapan, senin evine girip çıkan herkesi ölesiye kıskanıyorum.

[Paul H. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fascinatingly terrible; easily the worst book of literary interviews that I've read. Apparently lit-magazine intellectual types were really bad at conducting interviews in the 1960s and 1970s, as the questions are both terrible and impressively repetitive (the same 4-5 questions, over and over). The discussions somehow make Borges, of all people, seem uninteresting.

I was surprised by how much Borges revered Kipling, London, Stevenson (?!), and Poe. Nabokov was also a surprisingly big fan of Stevenson, who is an objectively second-rate author, but maybe we're all missing something. I was in agreement with Borges's dismissal of Dostoevsky, who (apart from a few great passages) is definitely overrated, and with his description of Tolkien as "rambling on and on" (LOTR has not held up too well for me either). But I could not possibly disagree more with his assessment of Ulysses ("it's a failure ... you don't really know the characters" ... "Joyce did not write in order to be read, but in order to be famous" ... ?!?!).

Though there were certainly some memorable lines, e.g.: "No philosopher has ever given me the sensation that I was reading a true or even probable description of the world. I've looked at metaphysics rather more as a branch of fantastic literature."

[Aslı Can]

Borges benden bambaşka karakteristiklere sahip olduğuna inansam da, kesinlikle kardeş ruh olduğumuzu hissettiğim insanlardan birisi. Söyleşilerini okunduğumda, kendimi huzurla saçlarım okşanıyor gibi hissediyorum.

[میثم موسوی نسیم‌آبادی]

هر کتاب، در واقع، جز یک سیاه‌مشق نیست... هرچه منتشر می‌کنم صرفاً چرک‌نویس است که تا بی‌نهایت اصلاح را برمی‌تابد... به قول نویسندۀ بزرگ مکزیکی، آلفونسو ریس، کتاب چاپ می‌کنیم تا ناچار نباشیم همۀ عمرمان را به اصلاح اشتباهاتمان بگذرانیم (بورجین، ۱۳۸۲: ذیل «گفت‌وگو با بورخس»، ۳۶۱-۴۱۰).

کتاب «گفت‌وگو با بورخس» شامل شانزده گفت‌وگو با خورخه لوئیس بورخس (۱۸۹۹-۱۹۸۶) است که تقریباً در بیست سال آخر زندگی او صورت گرفته است. بورخس در این گفت‌وگوها خود را در وهلۀ اول شاعر معرفی می‌کند (همان: ۲۶۴) و ضمن تأکید بر فصاحت و ایجاز کلام، داستان کوتاه را بر رمان ترجیح داده و متذکر می‌شود که من نمی‌توانم رمان را بپذیرم، چون نه توانایی نوشتنش را دارم و نه برایم جالب است (همان: ۲۹۲).

لوئیس بورخس در سال ۱۹۵۵، وقتی دولت انقلابی آرژانتین او را به ریاست کتابخانۀ ملّی منصوب کرد، مردی پنجاه‌وشش ساله و نابینا بود که دیگر قادر به خواندن کتاب نبود (همان: ۱۰۴). او در شصت‌ونه سالگی برای نخستین‌بار ازدواج کرد؛ ازدواجی که کوتاه‌زمانی بعد به طلاق انجامید (همان: ۱۰۲). بسیار سفر می‌کرد و متفکری جهان‌وطن بود (همان: ۱۰) که ملّی‌گرایی را پلیدترین دشمن بشر می‌دانست (همان: ۱۴۸-۱۵۱).

این شاعر و نویسندۀ نامدار آرژانتینی، لورکا را شاعری کم‌مایه (همان: ۱۴۶)، همینگوی را نویسنده‌ای بسیار کسل‌کننده (همان: ۲۰۶) و اولیسِ جیمز جویس را کتابی ناموفق و معیوب شمرده است (همان: ۹۲). اما به شوپنهاور علاقه‌مند بود و می‌گفت: اگر از من بخواهند از فیلسوف برجسته‌ای نام ببرم، بی‌تردید شوپنهاور را برمی‌گزینم. در غیر این‌صورت، برکلی یا هیوم (همان: ۱۶۴). چنان‌که خود را وام‌دار کافکا می‌دانست و اذعان می‌کرد: عمیقاً به کافکا رشک می‌بردم و آرزو می‌کردم که نویسندۀ مسخِ او بودم (همان: ۳۴۷-۳۸۶).

بورخس به خدای شخصی اعتقاد نداشت. لذا متذکر شده است که کسی به نام خدا را قبول ندارد و بعید نمی‌داند که خودش خدا باشد (همان: ۳۷۵-۴۳۱). او که به پنج زبانِ اسپانیایی، انگلیسی، لاتین، فرانسه و آلمانی صحبت می‌کرد (همان: ۳۶۹)، به دین و حیات اخروی نیز باور نداشت (همان: ۱۶۲-۱۶۳) و مرگ را رهایی و نوعی خواب به‌شمار می‌آورد که مشتاقانه در انتظار آن است (همان: ۳۷۶).

منبع:

_ بورجین، ریچارد، ۱۳۸۲، گفت‌وگو با بورخس، ترجمه کاوه میرعباسی، تهران، نشر نی.

[راحله پورآذر]

کابوس‌ها معمولاً به کلمات وابسته نیستند. آنچه توصیف کتبی کابوس را دشوار می‌کند این است که دلهره‌ی ناشی از کابوس زاییده‌ی تصاویر نیست برعکس به گفته‌ی کالریج این احساس دلهره است که تصاویر را می‌سازد.

چه کسی جرئت می‌کند به بورخس ستاره بدهد.

[Hosna · Rating 4 out of 5]

بسیار درباره‌ی چگونه نوشتن آموختم.

[El-Jahiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure magic...imagine conversing with Borges!

[Fred · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have just started reading this collection of interviews. I am struggling to come to terms with literature. I hope this book is useful for my quest. I read the introduction, first and last interviews and skipped around a bit with the help of the index. I don't think I every finish this book. I did go read a few of his stories. They were good, but I believe Ray Bradbury, or Roger Zelazny are better.

Page 7 "Writing's the kind of activity between thinking and dreaming. You have a dream at the outset and then somehow you have to pin it down." This is interesting to me because it is the model for mathematical work, we image a theorem that needs to be invented, then we pin it down by checking it for contradictions against previously invented axioms and theorems. Both writing and and mathematics are an effort to explore the gap between what we know and what may be.

Page 14 he says "... I think of reading a book as no less an experience that traveling or falling in love. I think that reading Berkely or Shaw or Emerson, those are quite as real as experiences to me as seeing London, for example."

I discovered Borges from a scene in the Netflix movie "Squid Game." He was the author of a book on the desk of a missing person.

In one of his interviews he says the purpose of literature is pleasure. Ok, my 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. Ryan, told me the same thing. I keep suspecting that there is something deeper because of works such as "The Brothers Karamazov," not a pleasant story. So my quest to understand "why literature" is still continuing. Azar Nafisi in her book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" said that the purpose of literature to to explore new ways of being human. I get this. In one of his books Richard Dawkins said that instead of reading great literature, we now read popular psychology books to learn about the human life. Interesting idea and consistent with my own reading until I came to the conclusion that humans are immensely malleable and the varieties of people are even greater that the varieties of songs to be sung using the finite scale of notes given us.

Borge likes American movies, especially westerns because they are modern epics, and he like detective stories because of their solid plots. Ok, so my tastes in reading and viewing are redeemed.

A comment of his that I recall, but I don't know which interview I read it in was about liking a story or an author. He said that sometimes it starts with just liking a line in a story, or maybe a paragraph. This suggests new horizons for me to appreciate. Many books I didn't like did have maybe one line or several lines that I liked.

[Fromwordstoworlds · Rating 3 out of 5]

"One of the many pleasures the stars (in which I don’t believe) have granted me is in literary and metaphysical dialogue. Since both these designations run the risk of seeming a bit pretentious, I should clarify that dialogue for me is not a form of polemics, of monologue or magisterial dogmatism, but of shared investigation… It is enough for me to say that if I am rich in anything, it is in perplexities rather in certainties." (J.L. Borges in Prologue)

One of the first impressions the book gave me was that of serenity; beyond the honesty and simplicity of the discourse, there is the peacefulness of a complex man who accepted his limits and had no hesitation talking about his fears and dislikes. Still uncertain about many things, Borges reveals himself as a profound intellectual that didn’t take life for granted.

To interview one of the most significant writers of the twentieth century one needed erudition. Although he was still an undergraduate at that time, Richard Burgin, together with Mosca Flo Bildner, a Brazilian girl, were accepted by Borges as his guests and interviewers. Borges was already blind in 1969.

"Flo and I split up in the afternoon, each to go out and buy him a present. Of course, there is something futile about buying a gift for Borges. He simply has no need or desire for any symbol of gratitude for his company. He always makes you feel that it is he who is the grateful one, and that your company is the only gift he needs. In any event, after wandering up and down the long streets of Boston, going through department stores, book stores, and record stores, I finally bought him a record of Bach’s Fourth and Fifth Brandenburg concertos on which my father played violin. Back in Cambridge, I met Flo holding her gift, four long-stemmed yellow roses."

As Borges begins to speak, a joy of reading emerges. He is honest, funny, profound. Using his education and his books as major exemplifications he will speak about childhood, family, ethics, metaphysics, favourite writers, art, symbols in his own writings, reality and death.

See full review on blog:
https://fromwordstoworlds.wordpress.c...

[Ashkan · Rating 5 out of 5]

ریتا گیبرت: آیا برای نسل جوان پیامی دارید؟
بورخس: نه، این صلاحیت را در خود نمی‌بینم که به سایرین پند و اندرز بدهم. در زندگی شخصی هم وامانده‌ام و به زحمت گلیمم را از آب بیرون کشیده‌ام. از بسیاری جهات، سرگشته بوده‌ام و بارها به بیراهه رفته‌ام.

گفت‌و‌گو با بورخس، ریچارد بورجین، برگردان کاوه میرعباسی
از صفحهٔ ۱۵۶، مصاحبه با ریتا گیبرت ۱۹۶۸

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

A big collection of interviews and talks that Borges gave over the years. Very interesting in parts as it really reveals the personality behind the books. 4 stars if you're really into Borges, otherwise I can't justify anything beyond 3 stars.

[Winterwade · Rating 5 out of 5]

As the premise of this book would suggest, the conversations with Borges contained within are extremely informative with regard to his perspectives on the world and his work. A must-read for fans of the master.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Borges is almost as interesting in interviews as he is in his writing. I especially enjoyed his interaction with radical American students during his interviews in the 60's.

[Cameron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Candid and formal interviews with Borges, the Argentine literary master. A fine read, if somewhat repetitive, that only adds to the many dimensions of Borges.