Conversations: Volume 2

Conversations #2

by Jorge Luis Borges, Osvaldo Ferrari, Tom Boll (Translator)

Recorded during Jorge Luis Borges’s final years, this second volume of his conversations with Osvaldo Ferrari provides a wide-ranging reflection on the life and work of Argentina’s master writer and favorite conversationalist.In Volume 2, Borges and Ferrari engage in a dialogue that is both improvisational and frequently humorous as they touch on subjects as diverse as epic poetry, detective fiction, Buddhism, and the moon landing. With his signature wit, Borges offers insight into the philosophical basis of his stories and poems, his fascination with religious mysticism, and the idea of life as a dream. He also dwells on more personal themes, including the influence of his mother and father on his intellectual development, his friendships, and living with blindness. These recollections are alive to the passage of history, whether in the changing landscape of Buenos Aires or a succession of political conflicts, leading Borges to contemplate what he describes as his “South American destiny.”The recurrent theme of these conversations, however, is a life lived through books. Borges draws on the resources of a mental library that embraces world literature—ancient and modern. He recalls the works that were a constant presence in his memory and maps his changing attitudes to a highly personal canon. In the prologue to the volume, Borges celebrates dialogue and the transmission of culture across time and place. These conversations are a testimony to the supple ways that Borges explored his own relation to numerous traditions.

Genres: Spanish Literature, Nonfiction, History, Politics, Poetry, Religion, Language

370 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."

Reviews

[Katia N · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second instalment from three volumes. Still touching, still intellectually stimulating though of course not as sharp as his writing. In this volume the most interesting conversations were about Irish literature - I didn't know they had almost thousand year school of poetry; French literature: tradition - every writer has to identify herself with some literary school or a movement. This is compared to English literature more spontaneous individualistic growth. Also the discussion about Virginia Woolf was quite entertaining. I did not know Borges has translated "Orlando" into Spanish while his mother was busy translating A Room of One’s Own". All the series would be a great podcast if they talk nowadays.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is volume 2 of 3 of a long series of radio interviews from the 1980s conducted by Osvaldo Ferrari. Some of the subjects are of interest only to Argentinians, such as the works of Leopoldo Lugones and Macedonio Fernandez, but more than half are of general interest. Toward the end of his life, Jorge Luis Borges liked to participate in interviews rather than writing new material, which was difficult as he became blind around 1955. There is some good stuff here, and it is fun to listen to Borges dealing with an Argentinian audience.

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Borges is one of those people that can speak authoritatively on any topic...and then it becomes very clear which topics he actually knows and cares about, because on the one's he doesn't he will constantly, though authoritatively, contradict himself.

That and the kind of fawning fanishness of his interlocutor give the whole thing big podcast vibes in the worst possible sense, but there's still enough of interest in there for fans of Borges (and especially if they know more about Argentinian, Spanish, and French literature than I do) that it can be a fun read, if you skim.

I did really appreciate this bit at the end, when he's talking about the symbols the recur in his work:

FERRARI. No, I think that it has to do with your desire to be faithful to all those symbols that have seemed essential or permanent to you.

BORGES. Well, I’ve written about that recently, as a matter of fact, and I listed them and I wondered why I’ve chosen those particular ones. And then I came to the conclusion that I’ve been chosen by them. Because I wouldn’t have any trouble, for example, doing without labyrinths and talking about cathedrals or mosques; doing without tigers and talking about panthers or jaguars; doing without mirrors and talking, well, about echoes, which are like auditory mirrors. Yet, I feel that if I worked like that, the reader would spot immediately that I’d lightly disguised myself (both laugh), and I would be exposed, that is, if I said ‘the leopard’, the reader would think about a tiger; if I said ‘cathedrals’, the reader would think about labyrinths, because the reader already knows my habits. And perhaps expects them, and perhaps…well, they’re resigned to them, and they’re resigned to such an extent that if I don’t repeat those symbols, I disappoint them in some way.