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Borges y yo
An apprentice writer has an entirely unexpected encounter with literary genius Jorge Luis Borges that will profoundly alter his life and work. A poignant and comic literary coming-of-age memoir.
"This is a jewel of a book." --Ian McEwan
In 1971 Jay Parini was an aspiring poet and graduate student of literature at University of St Andrews in Scotland; he was also in flight from being drafted into service in the Vietnam War. One day his friend and mentor, Alastair Reid, asked Jay if he could play host for a "visiting Latin American writer" while he attended to business in London. He agreed--and that "writer" turned out to be the blind and aged and eccentric master of literary compression and metaphysics, Jorge Luis Borges. About whom Jay Parini knew precisely nothing. What ensued was a seriocomic romp across the Scottish landscape that Borges insisted he must "see," all the while declaiming and reciting from the literary encyclopedia that was his head, and Jay Parini's eventual reckoning with his vocation and personal fate.
"This is a jewel of a book." --Ian McEwan
In 1971 Jay Parini was an aspiring poet and graduate student of literature at University of St Andrews in Scotland; he was also in flight from being drafted into service in the Vietnam War. One day his friend and mentor, Alastair Reid, asked Jay if he could play host for a "visiting Latin American writer" while he attended to business in London. He agreed--and that "writer" turned out to be the blind and aged and eccentric master of literary compression and metaphysics, Jorge Luis Borges. About whom Jay Parini knew precisely nothing. What ensued was a seriocomic romp across the Scottish landscape that Borges insisted he must "see," all the while declaiming and reciting from the literary encyclopedia that was his head, and Jay Parini's eventual reckoning with his vocation and personal fate.
333 pages, Paperback
First published August 18, 2020
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1952 people want to read
About the author
Jay Parini
191 books152 followersJay Parini (born 1948) is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels and poetry, biography and criticism.
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July 23, 2023
It was a joy to spend a week with 22-year old Jay and 72-year old Borges on their improbable 1971 road trip around literary and historic sites of Scotland in a clapped-out Morris Minor.
This was like a soufflé: delicate and irresistible, but requiring great skill to achieve:
“Cooking and writing are the perfect combination… They’re elemental. You bring various distinct elements together.. You add the flame. It’s chemistry.”
With this novelistic memoir, Jay Parini has demonstrated the truth of his mentor’s analogy.
Image: Vanilla soufflé (Source)
“How on earth had I ended up in bed with a loquacious blind man in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands?”
The characters and situation are wonderfully drawn, and their erudition is worn so lightly, and often playfully, that it would be readable even if, like Jay, you've never heard of Jorge Luis Borges or read his work. However, if you haven’t, you should, regardless of whether you plan to read this!
True story
Jay Parini had enjoyed an undergraduate year in St Andrews and returned to study for a PhD, partly because he did not want to be drafted to Vietnam. He left his possessive mother and worrying father, burdened with guilt about who would go to war instead of him. He gets regular letters from the draft board, and from his friend Billy in Vietnam. Jay wants to be a poet. He’s unworldly and wants to be liked - by his mentor, Alastair, and by girls. As he gets to know Bella, he’s frustrated by his innocence: he can’t work out if she’s pushing him away or leading him on.
A bildungsroman-cum-road trip for a fish-out-of-water foreign student could be ordinary or worse, even with the sparky and contrarian Alastair and his brilliant ten-year old (approx) son, Jasper. But when Borges arrives to stay with Alastair (his translator), everyone shines in the glow of his sometimes exasperating erudition. They laugh and learn too.
Borges talks “with impressionistic bullet points, circumnavigations, and associations”.
Tea, beer, and hash brownies oil the wheels.
Image: A Morris Minor in the countryside near Dumfries (Source)
Say what you see
“Description is revelation… Nothing exists… until it has found its way into the language.”
When Alastair suddenly has to go away for a week, he asks Jay to “babysit” Borges - whereupon Borges asks to be driven around Scotland, partly to track down a Mr Singleton of Inverness, who’d written to him about Anglo-Saxon riddles.
Borges had lost his sight fifteen years earlier, so he wants Jay to describe everything. I was reminded of a charity that organised holidays for blind people. They recruited students to guide, and especially describe, the sights. Students initially signed up for a free holiday, but many continued doing it because the act of looking and describing immersed them more in the moment and place than just snapping photos.
Jay’s observations are interspersed by Borges’ stream of literary and historical allusions and anecdotes, many of which go over Jay’s head, like Socrates and a pupil. Borges is also prone to alarming and comical flights: running off in the dark and damp to recite outside and standing in a wobbly little boat.
It is quite filmic, but I hope no film is made.
Image: Borges with a “cuppa” (tea) (Source)
Palimpsest
The story is true - though two road trips were written as one - and the characters are real people, almost all with their real names. Over the years, Jay had often recounted, and occasionally written, about some of the incidents, and he made a few notes in his journal at the time, but it was fifty years until he finally wrote this. Some memories will have faded and others amended by subsequent knowledge and imagination. The layers of reality and memory, reworked, make it suitably Borgesian.
“Did everything come back to Borges in the end?”
Of course it did.
Quotes
“History is a form of fiction - you must shape the facts… create a satisfying narrative.”
So says Jay’s mentor, Alastair Reid. Jay is clear in his afterword that although he’s written dialogue, he didn’t take notes at the time. The quotes in this review are copied from the book, but those attributed to Borges or Alastair are unlikely to be verbatim.
• “The sun had only just lifted an eyebrow over the green mountains.”
• “My father suffered from a pervasive cautiousness. The sidewalks of his mind were strewn with banana peels.”
• “This isn’t a university, it’s a film set.” Alastair.
• “If you need an adjective or an adverb, you’re still fishing for the right noun or verb.” Alastair quoting Robert Graves.
• “‘Never end a poem with wisdom… Let your reader imagine the ending’…
‘So how do you know when a poem is finished?’
‘It’s never finished, only abandoned.’” Alastair and Jay.
• “‘What is a poem?’...
‘The next best thing to silence.’” Ailith and Mackay Brown.
• “What we discover, as within any labyrinth, will always be ourselves.” Borges, of course.
• “Writers are always pirates… Writers feed off the corpses of those who passed before them, their precursors. On the other hand they invent their precursors. They create them in their own image, as God did with man.” Borges.
• “The gravel crackled under our feet. ‘I like to walk on this popcorn,’ said Borges. ‘It’s a kind of foot music.’”
• “As we climbed the hills, I could feel the tug of the sky, and the heathery rolling valleys and spiky peaks in the distance moved me.”
• “Mythos... is not a story that is false, it's a story that is more than true... a tear in the fabric of reality.” Borges, about the Loch Ness Monster.
Image: Alastair and Jasper Reid three years before this adventure, by Rosalie (Rollie) McKenna (Source)
See also
Don’t let this long list make you think the book is heavy going; it’s absolutely not. But I want a record of the many books and authors mentioned, and others might find it useful too. No actual spoilers in the spoiler tags.
This was like a soufflé: delicate and irresistible, but requiring great skill to achieve:
“Cooking and writing are the perfect combination… They’re elemental. You bring various distinct elements together.. You add the flame. It’s chemistry.”
With this novelistic memoir, Jay Parini has demonstrated the truth of his mentor’s analogy.
Image: Vanilla soufflé (Source)
“How on earth had I ended up in bed with a loquacious blind man in a remote village in the Scottish Highlands?”
The characters and situation are wonderfully drawn, and their erudition is worn so lightly, and often playfully, that it would be readable even if, like Jay, you've never heard of Jorge Luis Borges or read his work. However, if you haven’t, you should, regardless of whether you plan to read this!
True story
Jay Parini had enjoyed an undergraduate year in St Andrews and returned to study for a PhD, partly because he did not want to be drafted to Vietnam. He left his possessive mother and worrying father, burdened with guilt about who would go to war instead of him. He gets regular letters from the draft board, and from his friend Billy in Vietnam. Jay wants to be a poet. He’s unworldly and wants to be liked - by his mentor, Alastair, and by girls. As he gets to know Bella, he’s frustrated by his innocence: he can’t work out if she’s pushing him away or leading him on.
A bildungsroman-cum-road trip for a fish-out-of-water foreign student could be ordinary or worse, even with the sparky and contrarian Alastair and his brilliant ten-year old (approx) son, Jasper. But when Borges arrives to stay with Alastair (his translator), everyone shines in the glow of his sometimes exasperating erudition. They laugh and learn too.
Borges talks “with impressionistic bullet points, circumnavigations, and associations”.
Tea, beer, and hash brownies oil the wheels.
Image: A Morris Minor in the countryside near Dumfries (Source)
Say what you see
“Description is revelation… Nothing exists… until it has found its way into the language.”
When Alastair suddenly has to go away for a week, he asks Jay to “babysit” Borges - whereupon Borges asks to be driven around Scotland, partly to track down a Mr Singleton of Inverness, who’d written to him about Anglo-Saxon riddles.
Borges had lost his sight fifteen years earlier, so he wants Jay to describe everything. I was reminded of a charity that organised holidays for blind people. They recruited students to guide, and especially describe, the sights. Students initially signed up for a free holiday, but many continued doing it because the act of looking and describing immersed them more in the moment and place than just snapping photos.
Jay’s observations are interspersed by Borges’ stream of literary and historical allusions and anecdotes, many of which go over Jay’s head, like Socrates and a pupil. Borges is also prone to alarming and comical flights: running off in the dark and damp to recite outside and standing in a wobbly little boat.
It is quite filmic, but I hope no film is made.
Image: Borges with a “cuppa” (tea) (Source)
Palimpsest
The story is true - though two road trips were written as one - and the characters are real people, almost all with their real names. Over the years, Jay had often recounted, and occasionally written, about some of the incidents, and he made a few notes in his journal at the time, but it was fifty years until he finally wrote this. Some memories will have faded and others amended by subsequent knowledge and imagination. The layers of reality and memory, reworked, make it suitably Borgesian.
“Did everything come back to Borges in the end?”
Of course it did.
Quotes
“History is a form of fiction - you must shape the facts… create a satisfying narrative.”
So says Jay’s mentor, Alastair Reid. Jay is clear in his afterword that although he’s written dialogue, he didn’t take notes at the time. The quotes in this review are copied from the book, but those attributed to Borges or Alastair are unlikely to be verbatim.
• “The sun had only just lifted an eyebrow over the green mountains.”
• “My father suffered from a pervasive cautiousness. The sidewalks of his mind were strewn with banana peels.”
• “This isn’t a university, it’s a film set.” Alastair.
• “If you need an adjective or an adverb, you’re still fishing for the right noun or verb.” Alastair quoting Robert Graves.
• “‘Never end a poem with wisdom… Let your reader imagine the ending’…
‘So how do you know when a poem is finished?’
‘It’s never finished, only abandoned.’” Alastair and Jay.
• “‘What is a poem?’...
‘The next best thing to silence.’” Ailith and Mackay Brown.
• “What we discover, as within any labyrinth, will always be ourselves.” Borges, of course.
• “Writers are always pirates… Writers feed off the corpses of those who passed before them, their precursors. On the other hand they invent their precursors. They create them in their own image, as God did with man.” Borges.
• “The gravel crackled under our feet. ‘I like to walk on this popcorn,’ said Borges. ‘It’s a kind of foot music.’”
• “As we climbed the hills, I could feel the tug of the sky, and the heathery rolling valleys and spiky peaks in the distance moved me.”
• “Mythos... is not a story that is false, it's a story that is more than true... a tear in the fabric of reality.” Borges, about the Loch Ness Monster.
Image: Alastair and Jasper Reid three years before this adventure, by Rosalie (Rollie) McKenna (Source)
See also
Don’t let this long list make you think the book is heavy going; it’s absolutely not. But I want a record of the many books and authors mentioned, and others might find it useful too. No actual spoilers in the spoiler tags.
February 21, 2021
It is 1971 and the Vietnam War has cast a shadow over the youth, gathering up many in its grasp. Jay's friend Billy is entrapped but Jay has no interest in giving his life to a conflict he thinks his wrong. With this in mind he decides to pursue his master's at St. Andrews in Scotland.
We learn of his life and of his parents, and his mother's quest to keep him from going. All for nought as he soon becomes embroiled in Scottish life and a girl he admired. His thesis subject on Mackay Brown, a still living lost, leads him to Alastair who becomes his friend and mentor. It is through him that he meets a now blind Borges. When Alastair and his young son need to leave due to a family emergency, Jay is asked to stay, for the week, with Borges. Borges though has other plans and requests that he be taken on a trip through the Scottish Highlands.
This follows and often humorous and invigorating trip through wonderful scenery and Scottish history. As Jay has to describe everything to Borges we too as readers experience start they see. Visiting Loch Ness, the Cairgorns, the battlefield at Culligan and Sterling Castle of William Wallace came. Borges is entertaing, clever with a mind and voice that speaks in poetic quotes and phrases.
This was a marvelous book, both a travelogue and a personal look at a revered man.
Some Borges quotes from the book.
"Great readers are scarce, more difficult to find than great writers."
"This is one of the benefits of extreme age. Nothing matters much, and very little matters."
"One must have a reason for doing things. Otherwise it's like a windmill beating the air."
And a poem of his on his blindness which is not included in the book
.
Jorge Luis Borges
On His Blindness
In the fullness of the years, like it or not,
a luminous mist surrounds me, unvarying,
that breaks things down into a single thing,
colourless, formless. Almost into thought.
The elemental, vast night and the day
teeming with people have become the fog
of constant, tentative light that does not flag,
and lies in wait at dawn. I longed to see
just once a human face. Unknown to me
the closed encyclopaedia, the sweet play
in volumes I can do no more than hold,
the tiny soaring birds, the moons of gold.
Others have the world, for better or worse;
I have this half-dark, and the toil of verse.
Jorge Luis Borges.
Now I want to read the authors book on Robert Frost. Maybe sometime this year.
We learn of his life and of his parents, and his mother's quest to keep him from going. All for nought as he soon becomes embroiled in Scottish life and a girl he admired. His thesis subject on Mackay Brown, a still living lost, leads him to Alastair who becomes his friend and mentor. It is through him that he meets a now blind Borges. When Alastair and his young son need to leave due to a family emergency, Jay is asked to stay, for the week, with Borges. Borges though has other plans and requests that he be taken on a trip through the Scottish Highlands.
This follows and often humorous and invigorating trip through wonderful scenery and Scottish history. As Jay has to describe everything to Borges we too as readers experience start they see. Visiting Loch Ness, the Cairgorns, the battlefield at Culligan and Sterling Castle of William Wallace came. Borges is entertaing, clever with a mind and voice that speaks in poetic quotes and phrases.
This was a marvelous book, both a travelogue and a personal look at a revered man.
Some Borges quotes from the book.
"Great readers are scarce, more difficult to find than great writers."
"This is one of the benefits of extreme age. Nothing matters much, and very little matters."
"One must have a reason for doing things. Otherwise it's like a windmill beating the air."
And a poem of his on his blindness which is not included in the book
.
Jorge Luis Borges
On His Blindness
In the fullness of the years, like it or not,
a luminous mist surrounds me, unvarying,
that breaks things down into a single thing,
colourless, formless. Almost into thought.
The elemental, vast night and the day
teeming with people have become the fog
of constant, tentative light that does not flag,
and lies in wait at dawn. I longed to see
just once a human face. Unknown to me
the closed encyclopaedia, the sweet play
in volumes I can do no more than hold,
the tiny soaring birds, the moons of gold.
Others have the world, for better or worse;
I have this half-dark, and the toil of verse.
Jorge Luis Borges.
Now I want to read the authors book on Robert Frost. Maybe sometime this year.
April 10, 2021
An absolute winner for me!!!!!!!
To avoid being drafted to Vietnam and wanting to break free from his mother’s suffocating control, Jay Parini took up doctoral studies at Scotland’s St. Andrews University. He had spent his junior year abroad at this university. Continuing his studies there appealed to him. His intention was to write a doctoral thesis on the Scottish poet George MacKay Brown, then living on Orkney. He arrives at the university in the fall term of 1970. Parini is twenty-two.
Parini’s mom writes him letters urging him to return home to Scranton, Pennsylvania. She wants him to take up law studies at Penn State. She forwards an ever increasing number of letters from the draft board. These he stashes away, leaving them unopened. Frightening letters arrive from his closest friend Billy, fighting in Vietnam. Although plagued by guilt, he remains convinced that his refusal to take part in the war is correct.
Parini settles in at St. Andrews University. Alistair Reid becomes Parini’s mentor and close friend. When Alistair is called away to deal with a family emergency, Parini agrees to care for Alistair’s houseguest. This houseguest is none other than the blind and aged Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. On Borges’ request, Parini agrees to spend a week touring the Scottish Highlands, the two traveling together in Parini’s old Morris. Parini is to describe in minute detail all that Borgs will miss because he cannot see. Although blind and in his seventies, he is a powder keg.
There are the basics. Now comes the fun part—explaining why the book is so wonderful. Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986) was an exceptional human being! He was a phenomenon, a one of a kind. He brims with enthusiasm and love of life. He is as far from being ordinary as one can get. His behavior is bizarre. A crazy old guy? Definitely, but I love him. His knowledge of authors and poets, places and history swirl around in his head constantly. When an event occurs, his thoughts overflow--he recites poetry, tells stories, muses, ponders and philosophizes. I adore his love of life. I admire his knowledge. His eccentricity makes one’s own eccentricity and inability to fit in seem insignificant, of no importance whatsoever.
The trip Parini and Borges take will have you laughing. Nothing that occurs is ordinary! At one point, while Parini is struggling with the brakes, Borges rushes from the car, stumbles and blood gushes from his head. Another time, throwing his arms into the air with a majestic fling, Borges falls from a rowboat and must be saved. Panini had no idea what he was getting himself into when he agreed to the week’s jaunt with Borges.
As they travel, their friendship grows. Parini learns from the elderly man about the art of writing. Ideas are pin ponged back and forth between the two. It is easy to understand that Borges’ egotistical stances are at times infuriating to poor Panini. To the reader, what is splayed before our eyes is amusing.
The two travel to Loch Ness and Loch Loman, Sterling, Inverness and the Cairngorms. For his thesis, Parini adds in a side trip to Orkney to meet with George MacKayBrown. All along the way, the landscape is picturesquely described to Borges, and thus also to us. History is related. On viewing the battlefield of Culloden, the final confrontation of the Jacobite uprising of 1745 is detailed.
Parini’s inner turmoil regarding the fate of his friend Billy and his own evasion of the war is well drawn. Believably drawn. Comparisons are made between Borges’ and Parini’s parental relationships. Both-- yes, Borges too--have sexual desires.
The book ends with an epilog, explaining how the book came into being. It makes clear that what we are reading is a “novelistic” memoir. Parini has notes, but he is recalling events that took place fifty years earlier! Creative license has been taken—with the dialogue, composite figures and changed time frames. In declaring this openly, I have no complaint.
Fred Sanders narrates the audiobook very well. He speaks slowly and clearly. You have time to ponder the meaning, the essence of what is said. Borges’ lines do at times take some thinking! Four stars for the audio narration.
The different parts of the book are well thought through. There are no loose ends. The characters, be they real or composites, seem genuine. Most of all, I thoroughly enjoy rubbing shoulders with Borges.
I am going to have to read Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges, despite that I am not a fan of short stories!
****************************
*Borges and Me 5 stars
*The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year 3 stars
*Robert Frost: A Life TBR
*One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner TBR
* Benjamin's Crossing TBR
To avoid being drafted to Vietnam and wanting to break free from his mother’s suffocating control, Jay Parini took up doctoral studies at Scotland’s St. Andrews University. He had spent his junior year abroad at this university. Continuing his studies there appealed to him. His intention was to write a doctoral thesis on the Scottish poet George MacKay Brown, then living on Orkney. He arrives at the university in the fall term of 1970. Parini is twenty-two.
Parini’s mom writes him letters urging him to return home to Scranton, Pennsylvania. She wants him to take up law studies at Penn State. She forwards an ever increasing number of letters from the draft board. These he stashes away, leaving them unopened. Frightening letters arrive from his closest friend Billy, fighting in Vietnam. Although plagued by guilt, he remains convinced that his refusal to take part in the war is correct.
Parini settles in at St. Andrews University. Alistair Reid becomes Parini’s mentor and close friend. When Alistair is called away to deal with a family emergency, Parini agrees to care for Alistair’s houseguest. This houseguest is none other than the blind and aged Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges. On Borges’ request, Parini agrees to spend a week touring the Scottish Highlands, the two traveling together in Parini’s old Morris. Parini is to describe in minute detail all that Borgs will miss because he cannot see. Although blind and in his seventies, he is a powder keg.
There are the basics. Now comes the fun part—explaining why the book is so wonderful. Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986) was an exceptional human being! He was a phenomenon, a one of a kind. He brims with enthusiasm and love of life. He is as far from being ordinary as one can get. His behavior is bizarre. A crazy old guy? Definitely, but I love him. His knowledge of authors and poets, places and history swirl around in his head constantly. When an event occurs, his thoughts overflow--he recites poetry, tells stories, muses, ponders and philosophizes. I adore his love of life. I admire his knowledge. His eccentricity makes one’s own eccentricity and inability to fit in seem insignificant, of no importance whatsoever.
The trip Parini and Borges take will have you laughing. Nothing that occurs is ordinary! At one point, while Parini is struggling with the brakes, Borges rushes from the car, stumbles and blood gushes from his head. Another time, throwing his arms into the air with a majestic fling, Borges falls from a rowboat and must be saved. Panini had no idea what he was getting himself into when he agreed to the week’s jaunt with Borges.
As they travel, their friendship grows. Parini learns from the elderly man about the art of writing. Ideas are pin ponged back and forth between the two. It is easy to understand that Borges’ egotistical stances are at times infuriating to poor Panini. To the reader, what is splayed before our eyes is amusing.
The two travel to Loch Ness and Loch Loman, Sterling, Inverness and the Cairngorms. For his thesis, Parini adds in a side trip to Orkney to meet with George MacKayBrown. All along the way, the landscape is picturesquely described to Borges, and thus also to us. History is related. On viewing the battlefield of Culloden, the final confrontation of the Jacobite uprising of 1745 is detailed.
Parini’s inner turmoil regarding the fate of his friend Billy and his own evasion of the war is well drawn. Believably drawn. Comparisons are made between Borges’ and Parini’s parental relationships. Both-- yes, Borges too--have sexual desires.
The book ends with an epilog, explaining how the book came into being. It makes clear that what we are reading is a “novelistic” memoir. Parini has notes, but he is recalling events that took place fifty years earlier! Creative license has been taken—with the dialogue, composite figures and changed time frames. In declaring this openly, I have no complaint.
Fred Sanders narrates the audiobook very well. He speaks slowly and clearly. You have time to ponder the meaning, the essence of what is said. Borges’ lines do at times take some thinking! Four stars for the audio narration.
The different parts of the book are well thought through. There are no loose ends. The characters, be they real or composites, seem genuine. Most of all, I thoroughly enjoy rubbing shoulders with Borges.
I am going to have to read Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges, despite that I am not a fan of short stories!
****************************
*Borges and Me 5 stars
*The Last Station: A Novel of Tolstoy's Last Year 3 stars
*Robert Frost: A Life TBR
*One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner TBR
* Benjamin's Crossing TBR
Read
February 20, 2024"There was something persistently odd and inscrutable about the way [Borges] spoke. Was it a problem of translation, or had he cultivated this opaqueness? Or was it translucence? Light filtered through the mask of Borges: a pale yellow glow with its own enigmatic brilliance. One felt somehow more intelligent, more learned and witty, in his presence. The universe itself felt more pliable and yielding, and so available."
Thus spake 20-something American Jay Parini after spending a few weeks on the road with the famous Argentinian master. Studying abroad, Parini came under the poetic tutelage of Alastair Reid, who in turn introduced him to the visiting writer Borges. When Reid must steal away suddenly for family business, young Parini is asked to stay with the blind Borges, who then demands a road trip through the Scottish Highlands.
Parini's job? To be Borges' eyes. To describe everything in detail. But mostly to serve as the sounding board of Borges' non-stop talking, complete with its eccentricities and seriously deep literary allusions.
That said, Borges is a bit of a mess. Spills food and drink upon himself and doesn't change. Digs into Parini's private life. When he needs a "rest stop," gets out and simply pees against the front passenger's side tire.
Um, OK. That'd about do it for me.
But seriously, the reactions of Scotland's tavern and B&B owners is something to behold when they meet this wild and crazy guy, and the book offers unexpected laughs. Culled from a few notes and a lot of long-distance memory, Parini admits at the end it's a mix of novel and memoir. But whatever, it mostly works, even if the last 50 pages lag a bit as Borges' habits become more familiar.
If you like road books, want to learn about Scotland in the Vietnam War era (Parini's ignoring letters from the draft board his mother keeps forwarding), or, of course Jorge Luis Borges, you might take a shining to this book. It reads fast.
Thus spake 20-something American Jay Parini after spending a few weeks on the road with the famous Argentinian master. Studying abroad, Parini came under the poetic tutelage of Alastair Reid, who in turn introduced him to the visiting writer Borges. When Reid must steal away suddenly for family business, young Parini is asked to stay with the blind Borges, who then demands a road trip through the Scottish Highlands.
Parini's job? To be Borges' eyes. To describe everything in detail. But mostly to serve as the sounding board of Borges' non-stop talking, complete with its eccentricities and seriously deep literary allusions.
That said, Borges is a bit of a mess. Spills food and drink upon himself and doesn't change. Digs into Parini's private life. When he needs a "rest stop," gets out and simply pees against the front passenger's side tire.
Um, OK. That'd about do it for me.
But seriously, the reactions of Scotland's tavern and B&B owners is something to behold when they meet this wild and crazy guy, and the book offers unexpected laughs. Culled from a few notes and a lot of long-distance memory, Parini admits at the end it's a mix of novel and memoir. But whatever, it mostly works, even if the last 50 pages lag a bit as Borges' habits become more familiar.
If you like road books, want to learn about Scotland in the Vietnam War era (Parini's ignoring letters from the draft board his mother keeps forwarding), or, of course Jorge Luis Borges, you might take a shining to this book. It reads fast.
September 11, 2020
I loved this memoir: it reminded me of that classic movie, "My Favorite Year." Jay Parini -- the immensely gifted biographer, poet, and novelist -- chronicles the week when he was 21 and had to "babysit" the international literary treasure, Jorge Luis Borges, who was by then blind and charmingly mad. The adventures and misadventures as Parini "shows" him Scotland range from howlingly funny to melancholic in the most beautiful ways. Parini is open and honest and conveys 1971 and his response to the Vietnam War with a candor that is moving and inspiring.
March 24, 2023
CRITIQUE:
So a Pint of Export is Your Only Support
This fictional memoir (or is it a memorable fiction?) comes across as a Scottish-American mix of Flann O'Brien and J. P. Donleavy.
The narrator is a graduate student from Pennsylvania named Jay Parini, who, in 1970, undertakes a Ph.D. in literature at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, largely to avoid the draft into service in the Vietnam War.
At age 22, he's asked to accompany the elderly (71 year old) blind Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges, on a road trip around the Scottish highlands. (1) Borges and Parini stay at various bed and breakfasts, hotels, and pubs, where Borges asks to drink a pint of Scottish Export ale for the first time, just so he can experience Scotland at its best.
I've previously read two of Parini's novels, and adored his word perfect fiction. This book, whatever its nature, embraces the same style. The reader can never be sure whether it's a memoir (that's been dug up) or a novel (that's been made up).
Parini explains the link in this manner:
"Say Only What Seems True"
The work purports to be based on real events, although it was written fifty years after these events occurred. The real Parini kept journals and notes at the time, but he also seems to have spent a lot of time remembering and reconstructing an imaginative and authentic-sounding record of what happened, in the style of a novel.
One of the characters Parini visits on the island of Orkney (without Borges), the Scottish poet, George Mackay Brown (who was supposed to be the subject of Parini's thesis), comforts him in words that could apply equally to both the thesis and the book:
Borges asks of Parini only that he be his eyes, that he describe what he sees, and for that he's eternally grateful, because "description is revelation," especially to the blind. Likewise, both fiction and memoir are a revelation for the reader.
Jay Parini [Source: Oliver Parini]
"Parini and I"
Although Parini admits that he had never heard of Borges or read any Borges before they met, he adverts to Borges' story "Borges and I" several times. In it, there are two Borges characters. One is "Borges", the character who appears to be the subject who acts in the story. The other is Borges, the narrator. At the end of the story, the narrator confesses, "I do not know which of us has written this page." He can't tell who is the first person or who is the author.
Readers of Parini's story find themselves in a similar plight. There is both an author and a narrator. But who knows which one wrote the story? And who would have guessed it would be this amiable, this romantic, this much fun and this unflaggingly wise?
VERSE:
On Getting Out of Her Bed
[In the Words of Jay Parini]
Her white bed sheets
Almost sighed
With the absence
Of her body.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) In 20019, FM Sushi and I did an unknowingly similar road trip around Scotland, which passed through:
* Edinburgh;
* Inverness;
* Loch Ness;
* Culloden;
* Skye [including Uig, the Fairy Glen and Portree] as opposed to Orkney [including Stromness]; and
* Glasgow.
SOUNDTRACK:
So a Pint of Export is Your Only Support
This fictional memoir (or is it a memorable fiction?) comes across as a Scottish-American mix of Flann O'Brien and J. P. Donleavy.
The narrator is a graduate student from Pennsylvania named Jay Parini, who, in 1970, undertakes a Ph.D. in literature at St. Andrew's University in Scotland, largely to avoid the draft into service in the Vietnam War.
At age 22, he's asked to accompany the elderly (71 year old) blind Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges, on a road trip around the Scottish highlands. (1) Borges and Parini stay at various bed and breakfasts, hotels, and pubs, where Borges asks to drink a pint of Scottish Export ale for the first time, just so he can experience Scotland at its best.
I've previously read two of Parini's novels, and adored his word perfect fiction. This book, whatever its nature, embraces the same style. The reader can never be sure whether it's a memoir (that's been dug up) or a novel (that's been made up).
Parini explains the link in this manner:
"Memory is a step-child of the imagination."
"Say Only What Seems True"
The work purports to be based on real events, although it was written fifty years after these events occurred. The real Parini kept journals and notes at the time, but he also seems to have spent a lot of time remembering and reconstructing an imaginative and authentic-sounding record of what happened, in the style of a novel.
One of the characters Parini visits on the island of Orkney (without Borges), the Scottish poet, George Mackay Brown (who was supposed to be the subject of Parini's thesis), comforts him in words that could apply equally to both the thesis and the book:
"I will read whatever you write about me, and will never object, as long as you're honest. Say only what seems true."
Borges asks of Parini only that he be his eyes, that he describe what he sees, and for that he's eternally grateful, because "description is revelation," especially to the blind. Likewise, both fiction and memoir are a revelation for the reader.
Jay Parini [Source: Oliver Parini]
"Parini and I"
Although Parini admits that he had never heard of Borges or read any Borges before they met, he adverts to Borges' story "Borges and I" several times. In it, there are two Borges characters. One is "Borges", the character who appears to be the subject who acts in the story. The other is Borges, the narrator. At the end of the story, the narrator confesses, "I do not know which of us has written this page." He can't tell who is the first person or who is the author.
Readers of Parini's story find themselves in a similar plight. There is both an author and a narrator. But who knows which one wrote the story? And who would have guessed it would be this amiable, this romantic, this much fun and this unflaggingly wise?
VERSE:
On Getting Out of Her Bed
[In the Words of Jay Parini]
Her white bed sheets
Almost sighed
With the absence
Of her body.
FOOTNOTES:
(1) In 20019, FM Sushi and I did an unknowingly similar road trip around Scotland, which passed through:
* Edinburgh;
* Inverness;
* Loch Ness;
* Culloden;
* Skye [including Uig, the Fairy Glen and Portree] as opposed to Orkney [including Stromness]; and
* Glasgow.
SOUNDTRACK:
March 19, 2021
Young Parini, a 21 year old American expat in Scotland, studying for hs PhD at the University of St. Andrews during the Vietnam war, befriends the professor, poet and translator Alistair Reid, a true bohemian of a certain generation, to whom Robert Graves was the hugely influential figure. Reid was currently translating the stratospherically brilliant Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, (whom Parini had never heard of) and was soon to visit Reid.
Soon, Reid calls Parini, informing him he and his young son (another of the many charming characters in the book) must go to London to see an ill relative, and asking the young scholar if he can come and look after the elderly, blind master. He does, and it's the story of this week that changed everything for the young Parini. Borges has the desire to travel to Inverness, and putting Parini in the Sancho Panza role, goes off Quixotian-like, to "see" the Scottish highlinds. "But you're blind," Parini said. "Yes, but you're not," Borges said.
The elderly Borges is a wild man, so full of life and ideas and desire, the 21 year old Parini can hardly keep up with him. Their adventures are marvelous, and Borges astounding in the breadth and depth of his knowledge and his passions--for myth, literature, culture, friendship, life and love. It was Parini's luck as a young writer to have to describe the world to Borges as they moved through it. "More detail!" cried Borges--the perfect training for any author.
I would recommend skipping the afterword, and let the experience end with the end of the story.
My favorite scene--when they visit the first Carnegie Library, way off the beaten track, and the very provincial librarian comes face to face with this strange old man who reveals himself to have been the head of the National Library of Argentina--and "he snapped to attention, as if a general had come to visit a barracks." But then, pulling a volume of Walter Scott from the bookshelf behind him, Borges proceeds to lick its spine. "Books should always be tasted." The man practically has a nervous breakdown by the time his esteemed guest exits the premises.
I wanted to immediately reread the book. Borges and Reid, and even Brown, the Orkney poet on whom Parini is doing hs thesis are absolutely irresistible characters and present fascinating ways of being and thoughts on culture, literature and life.
Soon, Reid calls Parini, informing him he and his young son (another of the many charming characters in the book) must go to London to see an ill relative, and asking the young scholar if he can come and look after the elderly, blind master. He does, and it's the story of this week that changed everything for the young Parini. Borges has the desire to travel to Inverness, and putting Parini in the Sancho Panza role, goes off Quixotian-like, to "see" the Scottish highlinds. "But you're blind," Parini said. "Yes, but you're not," Borges said.
The elderly Borges is a wild man, so full of life and ideas and desire, the 21 year old Parini can hardly keep up with him. Their adventures are marvelous, and Borges astounding in the breadth and depth of his knowledge and his passions--for myth, literature, culture, friendship, life and love. It was Parini's luck as a young writer to have to describe the world to Borges as they moved through it. "More detail!" cried Borges--the perfect training for any author.
I would recommend skipping the afterword, and let the experience end with the end of the story.
My favorite scene--when they visit the first Carnegie Library, way off the beaten track, and the very provincial librarian comes face to face with this strange old man who reveals himself to have been the head of the National Library of Argentina--and "he snapped to attention, as if a general had come to visit a barracks." But then, pulling a volume of Walter Scott from the bookshelf behind him, Borges proceeds to lick its spine. "Books should always be tasted." The man practically has a nervous breakdown by the time his esteemed guest exits the premises.
I wanted to immediately reread the book. Borges and Reid, and even Brown, the Orkney poet on whom Parini is doing hs thesis are absolutely irresistible characters and present fascinating ways of being and thoughts on culture, literature and life.
January 12, 2024
This was my first introduction to Jay Parini, thanks to Goodreads and Gr friends who recommended it. At first, I had trouble getting on board, as it felt too much like a bland memoir (I read mostly fiction). However, as I rolled further into the Scottish Highlands in Parini’s shaky Morris Minor, with Borges as the Delphic passenger, I got attached to the pair of them, two unlike characters bonding over poetry, imagination, literature, and beauty. Parini was in charge, as Borges was by this time fully blind. I did find it odd that Jay, as a post-grad student working on his doctorate, had never read Borges (and a few other celebrated poets/writers), but I let that go. I’m sure that by now he has read Borge’s entire oeuvre.
The “encounter” is 1971, and Borges has been left in Jay’s care after only meeting him recently. Jay is 22, studying for his PhD at St Andrews, attempting a dissertation and a meeting with poet George Mackay Brown in Orkney. A road trip through the Highlands together places Borges and Parini in some mad circumstances. I have been to a few of those places, so I felt especially warmed to the Scottish landscape, in all its grim and glory. Borges is in his early 70s and a bit bananas, which frustrates Jay but eventually wins him over. Borges’ madcap animus is infectious and edifying to the young hopeful scholar. Moreover, there are some quotes that shattered me in its relevance for today. Back then, it was the war in Vietnam that Jay protested—his Scotland move was partly to avoid the draft. His dear friend, Billy, has already been conscripted into this dangerous combat. Words about war from Parini:
“A war is an enormous funeral, and one should proceed sadly into battle, in humility, with a bowed head, fully aware that one might never be forgiven. I knew I’d never for a second approve of any rhetoric about war that verged on the exultant. There was no glory in war, only shame for having lacked the imagination to prevent this stumble into the abyss.”
Borges and Me is a touching Fool’s journey into clarity and minfulness. At first, it seemed that Parini was aching to get away from himself, despite his ambitious studies. By the end of his short trip with Borges, Jay had matured, learned some profound insights about writing and life.
One insight that stunned me was how two people can each write an original poem, years apart, but words that move in the same sphere, from different times, different places--poems written by two writers wholly unaware of each other while paradoxically the unrelated poets liberate the poem from originality and into the same realm. A poem that “exists only when refashioned and re-created.” It sounds dizzying when I look back at my wobbly description, but when Borges explains it, it’s lucid and beautiful.
“Light filtered through the mask of Borges: a pale yellow glow with its own enigmatic brilliance. One somehow felt more intelligent, more learned and witty, in his presence. The universe itself felt more pliable and yielding, more available.”
The “encounter” is 1971, and Borges has been left in Jay’s care after only meeting him recently. Jay is 22, studying for his PhD at St Andrews, attempting a dissertation and a meeting with poet George Mackay Brown in Orkney. A road trip through the Highlands together places Borges and Parini in some mad circumstances. I have been to a few of those places, so I felt especially warmed to the Scottish landscape, in all its grim and glory. Borges is in his early 70s and a bit bananas, which frustrates Jay but eventually wins him over. Borges’ madcap animus is infectious and edifying to the young hopeful scholar. Moreover, there are some quotes that shattered me in its relevance for today. Back then, it was the war in Vietnam that Jay protested—his Scotland move was partly to avoid the draft. His dear friend, Billy, has already been conscripted into this dangerous combat. Words about war from Parini:
“A war is an enormous funeral, and one should proceed sadly into battle, in humility, with a bowed head, fully aware that one might never be forgiven. I knew I’d never for a second approve of any rhetoric about war that verged on the exultant. There was no glory in war, only shame for having lacked the imagination to prevent this stumble into the abyss.”
Borges and Me is a touching Fool’s journey into clarity and minfulness. At first, it seemed that Parini was aching to get away from himself, despite his ambitious studies. By the end of his short trip with Borges, Jay had matured, learned some profound insights about writing and life.
One insight that stunned me was how two people can each write an original poem, years apart, but words that move in the same sphere, from different times, different places--poems written by two writers wholly unaware of each other while paradoxically the unrelated poets liberate the poem from originality and into the same realm. A poem that “exists only when refashioned and re-created.” It sounds dizzying when I look back at my wobbly description, but when Borges explains it, it’s lucid and beautiful.
“Light filtered through the mask of Borges: a pale yellow glow with its own enigmatic brilliance. One somehow felt more intelligent, more learned and witty, in his presence. The universe itself felt more pliable and yielding, more available.”
February 12, 2022
Borges Ve Ben ileride tekrar okurum, bu yolculuğa tekrar çıkarım dediğim kitaplardan oldu. Gerçek Borges’le Parini’nin satırlarındaki Borges nerede başlıyor veya bütünleşiyor bir önemi kalmıyor okurken. Borges’in temalarıyla çok uyumlu, özel bir kitap yazmış şanslı Jay Parini. Sadece Borges'i anlatmakla kalmıyor, Borges'le olan yolculuğunda kendini arıyor yıllar sonra döndüğü anılarında.
“Tek bir insanda belleğin saf dinginliği.”
Kalbim bir süre Jay Parini ve Borges’le İskoçya kırsalında kalacak. Belleğin gizemi, şiirsel manzaralar, insan ruhunun labirentleri, düşler ve hikaye içinde hikayelerin vaat ettikleriyle.
“Tek bir insanda belleğin saf dinginliği.”
Kalbim bir süre Jay Parini ve Borges’le İskoçya kırsalında kalacak. Belleğin gizemi, şiirsel manzaralar, insan ruhunun labirentleri, düşler ve hikaye içinde hikayelerin vaat ettikleriyle.
April 29, 2022
La premisa y gancho comercial de este libro pereciera ser el anecdotario surgido del encuentro entre un joven Jay Parini y un ya ciego y débil Jorge Luis Borges en Escocia, en 1971. Pero lo cierto es que en la medida que pasan las paginas uno no tarda en sospechar que acá hay poco de memorias y mucho de ficción, algo que el propio Parini nos confirma en el epilogo; así que lo primero que me parece atinado decir es que nadie espere encontrar acá hechos reales concretos.
Dicho esto, resta decir que la novela como tal no esta mal, aunque tampoco encuentro algo que merezca ser destacado. Parini compone en Borges un personaje excéntrico y simpático con el que el lector puede encariñarse rápidamente, aunque para mi gusto Borges queda transformado en un personaje caricaturesco, tristemente caricaturesco.
En síntesis diría que puede ser, como mucho y sobre todo para quienes no hayan leído demasiado a Borges, una novela entretenida, pero no mas que eso porque no aporta gran cosa. A quienes pretendan encontrar en estas paginas algo que los haga conocer un poco mas del Borges intimo, les diría de ir directamente a su obra, conferencias, entrevistas, o a libros como Medio siglo con Borges de Vargas Llosa por nombrar uno, porque acá no lo van a encontrar.
Dicho esto, resta decir que la novela como tal no esta mal, aunque tampoco encuentro algo que merezca ser destacado. Parini compone en Borges un personaje excéntrico y simpático con el que el lector puede encariñarse rápidamente, aunque para mi gusto Borges queda transformado en un personaje caricaturesco, tristemente caricaturesco.
En síntesis diría que puede ser, como mucho y sobre todo para quienes no hayan leído demasiado a Borges, una novela entretenida, pero no mas que eso porque no aporta gran cosa. A quienes pretendan encontrar en estas paginas algo que los haga conocer un poco mas del Borges intimo, les diría de ir directamente a su obra, conferencias, entrevistas, o a libros como Medio siglo con Borges de Vargas Llosa por nombrar uno, porque acá no lo van a encontrar.
December 10, 2023
⁸O narațiune, astfel își numește Jay Parini cartea, încercând să rezolve problema încadrării acestei scrieri nici pe de-a-ntregul memorialistică, nici pe de-a-ntregul ficțiune.
Un roman de călătorie ce va deveni un film de călătorie care îi are ca protagoniști pe Jay Parini, un tânăr care fuge de războiul din Vietnam, și Jorge Luis Borges, un bătrânel orb care vorbește cam mult, admirat de aproape toți, mai puțin de protagonist care habar nu are cine este, prin Highlands
Cartea este mai degrabă o curiozitate și se poate adăuga șirului de cărți-mărturie sau ficționale despre Borges, din punctul meu de vedere cam simplistă, o carte care nu pune niciun fel de întrebări și nici nu am văzut în ea " un omagiul captivant", ba mi s-a părut că figura lui Borges este caricaturizată.
O carte de plajă, o carte de trecut timpul pe tren, dar e nevoie și de astfel de cărți.
Un roman de călătorie ce va deveni un film de călătorie care îi are ca protagoniști pe Jay Parini, un tânăr care fuge de războiul din Vietnam, și Jorge Luis Borges, un bătrânel orb care vorbește cam mult, admirat de aproape toți, mai puțin de protagonist care habar nu are cine este, prin Highlands
Cartea este mai degrabă o curiozitate și se poate adăuga șirului de cărți-mărturie sau ficționale despre Borges, din punctul meu de vedere cam simplistă, o carte care nu pune niciun fel de întrebări și nici nu am văzut în ea " un omagiul captivant", ba mi s-a părut că figura lui Borges este caricaturizată.
O carte de plajă, o carte de trecut timpul pe tren, dar e nevoie și de astfel de cărți.
December 8, 2020
I really enjoyed the sections of the book that included Borges and also the narrator's excursion to visit the poet George Mackay Brown on Orkney. I wasn't so interested in the narrator's awkward love life. (So sorry, Mr. Parini.) I'm glad I read it, and it's made me interested to read some Borges.
September 24, 2020
Borges and Me by Jay Parini
A charming, enchanting addition to the anthology of books about Borges.
Jay Parini, a Professor of Literature at Middlebury College describes his book as, An Encounter. A son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, upon graduation from college he seeks a graduate program at St. Andrews, Scotland. He is there to pursue an interest in poetry in addition to avoiding the pressures put upon him by his local draft board; it is 1970 and his best friend, Billy, a medic in Vietnam has enlightened Perini’s already existent resistance to the war.
Parini takes up with Alistair Reid, a Scottish poet who is also a translator and friend of Borges. Reid possesses a large personality, a raconteur, he enjoys cooking with a specialty for hash brownies. We follow the young graduate student as he explores his own poetry and graduate thesis work.
Reid, expecting a visit from Borges, is called off on an emergency to London right around the time Borges is arriving for a planned visit. He asks Jay to keep company with the Argentine poet, of whom Jay Parini has never heard of. Borges’ asks Jay to take a motor trip to Inverness where he has corresponded with a Mr. Singleton, an expert in Anglo-Saxon riddles.
The resultant road trip is most revealing. As a reader who has a good deal of knowledge about Borges I found myself getting to know the maestro in a whole new way through the daily habits, mannerisms, thought processes and personal interactions the two of them experience.
The journey has several calamities and humorous moments: unaided the blind Borges suffers a mild concussion as he wanders along a roadside, Borges talks Parini into a rowboat ride on the Loch Ness and in his excitement the great poet capsizes the boat and then tells the tale how the Grendel/monster caused the mishap, we hear about some awkward moments as it relates to Borges’s urination and eating habits, Mr. Singleton, the riddle expert, they discover does live in Inverness-only it is the other one in New Zealand, and , most of all, we get a first hand glimpse of Borges's encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm for all things literate, a master of extravagant statements in Latin, English and Spanish-
As Parini describes him: “the unstoppable Borges, who would say whatever he thought whenever he thought it, running along siderails of speculation with a kind of signature compulsiveness. No feeling went unexpressed for long. No thought searched in vain for matching words. If anything, Borges was language itself."
An additional theme are the parallel unrequited loves for both the older Borges and the still naïve Parini. Borges obsesses over his first love, Norah Lange, while Jay dawdles over his infatuations with a fellow coed and the daughter of an Inn keeper they stay at for a night. Borges continues to implore Parini to be bold and take action which eventual he does to great success.
Jay Parini also exhibits his own acquired wisdom and sensibilities. His struggle resolving his relationship to the Vietnam War and his buddy’s Billy service there are triggered when he and Borges visit the battlefield of Culloden, where the Scottish Prince Charles went down in defeat to the English. There they witness a reenactment where Borges is described as “a full grown toddler on the loose”. Parini writes:
“Battlefields had figured in my dreams since childhood. I had taken a trip to Gettysburg with my father when I was very young, not yet twelve. That experience cut a blistering hole in memory, with the thought of blood-soaked corpses, some of them boys only five or six years older than I was. One would have guessed that Americans has learned something about the futility of war by now, and how it rarely advances the cause of humanity. Wouldn’t slavery had petered out in a few years? Weren’t the decades of so-called Reconstruction as bad as slavery itself, creating battle lines between the races that had yet to fade? We had recently suffered the bitter blandishments and compulsive lies of George Wallace, a sociopathic fool who had forged a political career from the populist scraps of resentment that continued to plague America more than a century after the Civil war.”
And as he thought of his good friend Billy in the jungles of Vietnam:
“War was always the last choice for any nation, an admission of defeat. One should never enter a conflict with a sense of triumph, with the slightest jubilance. A war is an enormous funeral, and one should proceed sadly into battle, in humility, with a bowed head, fully aware that one might never be forgiven. I knew I’d never for a second approve of any rhetoric about war that verged on the exultant. There was no glory in war, only shame for having lacked the imagination to prevent this stumble into the abyss.”
Borges, too, comments as they watch the reenactors march on Culloden, as they replay the past for pleasure: “what a marvelous [endeavor]. You mirror reality! And this is what I do for a profession. Hold little mirrors to the world, I do, but they’re untrustworthy. Like all mirrors, prone to distortion…I’ve found a name for myself. Borges, the Reenactor! The problem is, one never wins old battles. The losses only mount.”
And to Parini, who wants to become a writer Borges adds: “you wish to write, I know. Remember that the battle between good and evil persists, and the writer’s work is constantly to reframe the argument, so that readers make the right choices. Never work from vanity, like our Bonnie Prince…what does Eliot say? ‘Humility is endless’…We fail, and we fail again. We pick ourselves up. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
As the encounter, as Parini characterizes this time in his life, ends, Billy is killed in Vietnam, Parini finds love requited and Borges has fallen in love with the Highlands. As Borges prepares to return home Alistair Reid and Jay Parini sum up the time spent with the master:
Reid says, “he’s a magician, a sorcerer, a fraud, and a genius”.
Parini adds, ‘and a priest.”
“That, too”, Reid agrees, “Borges makes these perfect little texts, essays that are stories. It’s all poetry, a kind of spell. After reading Borges, if you miss a train, the event will feel drenched with meaning…Literature, after Borges, must change”.
Parini writes about Borges, what many of his avid readers have also discovered:
“there was something persistently odd and inscrutable about the way he spoke. Was it a problem of translation, or had he cultivated this opaqueness? Or was it translucence? Light filtered through the mask of Borges: a pale yellow glow with its own enigmatic brilliance. One felt somehow more intelligent, more learned and witty, in his presence. The universe itself felt more pliable and yielding, and so available.”
I have read a few other personal memoirs about Borges: Alberto Manguel’s With Borges, Seven Conversations with Borges by Fernando Sorrentino and Conversation with Borges by Richard Burgin, but I must say that Jay Parini’s book, Borges and Me, is a standout; a unique tale about a young poet and a master poet exchanging their thoughts, hopes, fears and enchantments with one another.
So, there you have it. A marvelous read about the great Argentine maestro, Jorge Luis Borges.
A charming, enchanting addition to the anthology of books about Borges.
Jay Parini, a Professor of Literature at Middlebury College describes his book as, An Encounter. A son of Scranton, Pennsylvania, upon graduation from college he seeks a graduate program at St. Andrews, Scotland. He is there to pursue an interest in poetry in addition to avoiding the pressures put upon him by his local draft board; it is 1970 and his best friend, Billy, a medic in Vietnam has enlightened Perini’s already existent resistance to the war.
Parini takes up with Alistair Reid, a Scottish poet who is also a translator and friend of Borges. Reid possesses a large personality, a raconteur, he enjoys cooking with a specialty for hash brownies. We follow the young graduate student as he explores his own poetry and graduate thesis work.
Reid, expecting a visit from Borges, is called off on an emergency to London right around the time Borges is arriving for a planned visit. He asks Jay to keep company with the Argentine poet, of whom Jay Parini has never heard of. Borges’ asks Jay to take a motor trip to Inverness where he has corresponded with a Mr. Singleton, an expert in Anglo-Saxon riddles.
The resultant road trip is most revealing. As a reader who has a good deal of knowledge about Borges I found myself getting to know the maestro in a whole new way through the daily habits, mannerisms, thought processes and personal interactions the two of them experience.
The journey has several calamities and humorous moments: unaided the blind Borges suffers a mild concussion as he wanders along a roadside, Borges talks Parini into a rowboat ride on the Loch Ness and in his excitement the great poet capsizes the boat and then tells the tale how the Grendel/monster caused the mishap, we hear about some awkward moments as it relates to Borges’s urination and eating habits, Mr. Singleton, the riddle expert, they discover does live in Inverness-only it is the other one in New Zealand, and , most of all, we get a first hand glimpse of Borges's encyclopedic knowledge and enthusiasm for all things literate, a master of extravagant statements in Latin, English and Spanish-
As Parini describes him: “the unstoppable Borges, who would say whatever he thought whenever he thought it, running along siderails of speculation with a kind of signature compulsiveness. No feeling went unexpressed for long. No thought searched in vain for matching words. If anything, Borges was language itself."
An additional theme are the parallel unrequited loves for both the older Borges and the still naïve Parini. Borges obsesses over his first love, Norah Lange, while Jay dawdles over his infatuations with a fellow coed and the daughter of an Inn keeper they stay at for a night. Borges continues to implore Parini to be bold and take action which eventual he does to great success.
Jay Parini also exhibits his own acquired wisdom and sensibilities. His struggle resolving his relationship to the Vietnam War and his buddy’s Billy service there are triggered when he and Borges visit the battlefield of Culloden, where the Scottish Prince Charles went down in defeat to the English. There they witness a reenactment where Borges is described as “a full grown toddler on the loose”. Parini writes:
“Battlefields had figured in my dreams since childhood. I had taken a trip to Gettysburg with my father when I was very young, not yet twelve. That experience cut a blistering hole in memory, with the thought of blood-soaked corpses, some of them boys only five or six years older than I was. One would have guessed that Americans has learned something about the futility of war by now, and how it rarely advances the cause of humanity. Wouldn’t slavery had petered out in a few years? Weren’t the decades of so-called Reconstruction as bad as slavery itself, creating battle lines between the races that had yet to fade? We had recently suffered the bitter blandishments and compulsive lies of George Wallace, a sociopathic fool who had forged a political career from the populist scraps of resentment that continued to plague America more than a century after the Civil war.”
And as he thought of his good friend Billy in the jungles of Vietnam:
“War was always the last choice for any nation, an admission of defeat. One should never enter a conflict with a sense of triumph, with the slightest jubilance. A war is an enormous funeral, and one should proceed sadly into battle, in humility, with a bowed head, fully aware that one might never be forgiven. I knew I’d never for a second approve of any rhetoric about war that verged on the exultant. There was no glory in war, only shame for having lacked the imagination to prevent this stumble into the abyss.”
Borges, too, comments as they watch the reenactors march on Culloden, as they replay the past for pleasure: “what a marvelous [endeavor]. You mirror reality! And this is what I do for a profession. Hold little mirrors to the world, I do, but they’re untrustworthy. Like all mirrors, prone to distortion…I’ve found a name for myself. Borges, the Reenactor! The problem is, one never wins old battles. The losses only mount.”
And to Parini, who wants to become a writer Borges adds: “you wish to write, I know. Remember that the battle between good and evil persists, and the writer’s work is constantly to reframe the argument, so that readers make the right choices. Never work from vanity, like our Bonnie Prince…what does Eliot say? ‘Humility is endless’…We fail, and we fail again. We pick ourselves up. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
As the encounter, as Parini characterizes this time in his life, ends, Billy is killed in Vietnam, Parini finds love requited and Borges has fallen in love with the Highlands. As Borges prepares to return home Alistair Reid and Jay Parini sum up the time spent with the master:
Reid says, “he’s a magician, a sorcerer, a fraud, and a genius”.
Parini adds, ‘and a priest.”
“That, too”, Reid agrees, “Borges makes these perfect little texts, essays that are stories. It’s all poetry, a kind of spell. After reading Borges, if you miss a train, the event will feel drenched with meaning…Literature, after Borges, must change”.
Parini writes about Borges, what many of his avid readers have also discovered:
“there was something persistently odd and inscrutable about the way he spoke. Was it a problem of translation, or had he cultivated this opaqueness? Or was it translucence? Light filtered through the mask of Borges: a pale yellow glow with its own enigmatic brilliance. One felt somehow more intelligent, more learned and witty, in his presence. The universe itself felt more pliable and yielding, and so available.”
I have read a few other personal memoirs about Borges: Alberto Manguel’s With Borges, Seven Conversations with Borges by Fernando Sorrentino and Conversation with Borges by Richard Burgin, but I must say that Jay Parini’s book, Borges and Me, is a standout; a unique tale about a young poet and a master poet exchanging their thoughts, hopes, fears and enchantments with one another.
So, there you have it. A marvelous read about the great Argentine maestro, Jorge Luis Borges.
May 13, 2020
https://rogueliterarysociety.com/f/bo...
...So what was I worried about? Pretty much everything, I think…
Jay Parini was a young student when he went away to study abroad. The Vietnam War was raging, the Selective Service was calling, and kids were coming home in boxes. Parini had friends who served, but he preferred, if he could, to survive and be a scholar and writer of the first rank.
...Could I really make a go of writing—especially if I wanted to write poetry?...I dearly wished, as Thoreau put it in my favorite sentence from Walden, “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Parini, abroad, was not only a virgin and a novice to romance, he desperately wanted to be a poet of note. These two great desires served to cause angst and the fear of not overcoming either obstacle.
...One night I had had a nightmare about giving a speech at an antiwar rally in St. Andrews, where my uncles had come to hear me, the three who had fought on the beach in Salerno...What did it mean to put your body on the line, as they had?
I have known the name Jay Parini for quite some time. I know he is a political activist when required of him, and the great literary critic, writer, and professor of literature Frank Lentricchia is a very good friend. Reading this book gave me more insight into Parini’s character, his sense of humor, his moral code, and his humanity. He also provides a rare glimpse into the brilliantly eccentric man Jorge Borges, which turns out to be totally captivating and in many ways ingenious. The story weaves in and out of a personal time capsule during the Vietnam War, our country’s involvement in it, and the Selective Service constantly pounding at his overseas door for him to come serve and likely die. Those of us who were also of that age and time can relate to the angst and moral outrage Parini so aptly describes. And being a young man driven to art and knowledge the conundrum could be at times unbearable. The sixties were as chaotic and life-changing as any time in America.
…”Ah, informed…” Borges said dismissively. “Nobody can teach you anything. This is the first truth. We teach ourselves…”
Jay Parini is an academic who surprisingly is wholly accessible. He is also forthcoming and personal about his development into manhood, sexual matters of the heart, and of course his desire to become a vital poet. In matters of love he was a novice and needed the help of an experienced woman to give him the confidence needed to proceed in romantic endeavors that frighten all of us. Traveling the countryside with Jorge Borges taught him much about looking at life through changed eyes. It becomes apparent near the end of the book that the blindness of Borges in many ways taught Parini how to see.
...He touched my cheek in a kindly, even fatherly way. “A strategy for survival, son,” he said. “We enter the maze, you see, as in any tale, and with luck we arrive at the point from which we began, which is always ourselves.”
Upon first meeting him, Borges the writer was unknown to Parini, and that as well makes the book quite interesting. Separating the comical man from his seriously famous work was insightful as well as extremely entertaining. Jorges Borges is without a doubt one great writer. Jay Parini, to my surprise, is as well.
...“This is, my dear, the work before us, always. To find a language adequate to what is revealed…” Borges said, “You see, I designed my work for the tiniest audience, ‘fit company though few.’ A writer’s imagination should not be diluted by crowds!” After a few moments he produced a final aphorism: “A fool knows more in his own house than a wise man in the house of another man.”
In the past I have read and enjoyed Borges immensely, and this brief and personal look into a slice of evolving life offered me the first opportunity to be immersed in a book written by Jay Parini. Though the encounter and road trip with Borges occurred many years ago, Parini uses his memory, and the published work of Borges, to recreate the experience, taking some liberties, combining a few women and men to make single living characters.
...Memory is the stepchild of the imagination...
Heartfelt and feeling honest, this memoir was a delight to read and it certainly rang important to me as I also went through many of the same challenges as a young man in love, art, and war that Parini did. I have also had the great fortune from time to time to have been in the presence of iconic literary characters such as Frank Lentricchia and Gordon Lish. This book demands a five-star rating and should be read by everyone, especially aspiring writers.
...So what was I worried about? Pretty much everything, I think…
Jay Parini was a young student when he went away to study abroad. The Vietnam War was raging, the Selective Service was calling, and kids were coming home in boxes. Parini had friends who served, but he preferred, if he could, to survive and be a scholar and writer of the first rank.
...Could I really make a go of writing—especially if I wanted to write poetry?...I dearly wished, as Thoreau put it in my favorite sentence from Walden, “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
Parini, abroad, was not only a virgin and a novice to romance, he desperately wanted to be a poet of note. These two great desires served to cause angst and the fear of not overcoming either obstacle.
...One night I had had a nightmare about giving a speech at an antiwar rally in St. Andrews, where my uncles had come to hear me, the three who had fought on the beach in Salerno...What did it mean to put your body on the line, as they had?
I have known the name Jay Parini for quite some time. I know he is a political activist when required of him, and the great literary critic, writer, and professor of literature Frank Lentricchia is a very good friend. Reading this book gave me more insight into Parini’s character, his sense of humor, his moral code, and his humanity. He also provides a rare glimpse into the brilliantly eccentric man Jorge Borges, which turns out to be totally captivating and in many ways ingenious. The story weaves in and out of a personal time capsule during the Vietnam War, our country’s involvement in it, and the Selective Service constantly pounding at his overseas door for him to come serve and likely die. Those of us who were also of that age and time can relate to the angst and moral outrage Parini so aptly describes. And being a young man driven to art and knowledge the conundrum could be at times unbearable. The sixties were as chaotic and life-changing as any time in America.
…”Ah, informed…” Borges said dismissively. “Nobody can teach you anything. This is the first truth. We teach ourselves…”
Jay Parini is an academic who surprisingly is wholly accessible. He is also forthcoming and personal about his development into manhood, sexual matters of the heart, and of course his desire to become a vital poet. In matters of love he was a novice and needed the help of an experienced woman to give him the confidence needed to proceed in romantic endeavors that frighten all of us. Traveling the countryside with Jorge Borges taught him much about looking at life through changed eyes. It becomes apparent near the end of the book that the blindness of Borges in many ways taught Parini how to see.
...He touched my cheek in a kindly, even fatherly way. “A strategy for survival, son,” he said. “We enter the maze, you see, as in any tale, and with luck we arrive at the point from which we began, which is always ourselves.”
Upon first meeting him, Borges the writer was unknown to Parini, and that as well makes the book quite interesting. Separating the comical man from his seriously famous work was insightful as well as extremely entertaining. Jorges Borges is without a doubt one great writer. Jay Parini, to my surprise, is as well.
...“This is, my dear, the work before us, always. To find a language adequate to what is revealed…” Borges said, “You see, I designed my work for the tiniest audience, ‘fit company though few.’ A writer’s imagination should not be diluted by crowds!” After a few moments he produced a final aphorism: “A fool knows more in his own house than a wise man in the house of another man.”
In the past I have read and enjoyed Borges immensely, and this brief and personal look into a slice of evolving life offered me the first opportunity to be immersed in a book written by Jay Parini. Though the encounter and road trip with Borges occurred many years ago, Parini uses his memory, and the published work of Borges, to recreate the experience, taking some liberties, combining a few women and men to make single living characters.
...Memory is the stepchild of the imagination...
Heartfelt and feeling honest, this memoir was a delight to read and it certainly rang important to me as I also went through many of the same challenges as a young man in love, art, and war that Parini did. I have also had the great fortune from time to time to have been in the presence of iconic literary characters such as Frank Lentricchia and Gordon Lish. This book demands a five-star rating and should be read by everyone, especially aspiring writers.
Read
December 28, 2020I am not sure how to rate this book; there were moments that I actually loved, but I found the young Jay Parini to be really irritated. When Borges actually appeared, things picked up, but I began to notice aspects of his behavior that weren't necessarily irritating but were confusing. He claims never to have heard of Borges, which is odd for a literature student in the early 70s, but more important than that, he realizes that his mentor and friend has great respect for Borges, but he never asks why or actually reads something by Borges. Having thought that, I quickly noticed that much of Borges's conversation with Jay seems to be paraphrases of his works. Then I wondered how on earth he had such vivid memories of time he was spending with a person whom he didn't think was very important. In the afterword, much (though not all) of this is explained, and I would have had more respect for Parini as a memoirist if he'd put this information in a foreward.
Read Borges himself.
Read Borges himself.
December 31, 2023
Undeva între 3 și 4 stele. Curge frumos, personajele te poartă cu ei prin Scoția cea rece și ploioasă.
Dar eu așteptam altceva de la o călătorie cu Borges. Tu și Borges, singuri, și totul să fie atât de banal? Hmm!
Dar eu așteptam altceva de la o călătorie cu Borges. Tu și Borges, singuri, și totul să fie atât de banal? Hmm!
November 30, 2021
The author comes across as inauthentic, even in his portrait of a pretentious young dud who encounters greatness.
He doesn't know who Borges is. He ridicules Falconer, the professor at St. Andrews, for being on the verge of dementia. The author is cringingly inept in his love life, too cowardly to either open his Vietnam War draft cards or attend a protest (choose one), and again, hasn't bothered to read ANYTHING by Borges (who shows up WAY late in the book) but thinks this encounter with an Argentine author who everyone else thinks is important might make a good story somewhere down the line for... him, young Jay Parini.
Oh by the way, Borges is about to receive an honorary degree from Cambridge. Jay still doesn't feel like reading any of his stuff.
There are moments here and there, but it never really gets better. The dialogue is too cutesy-poo. Of course nobody could remember such dialogue in detail, and you would actually hope not because nobody could spend more than five minutes around people who talk this way, so we get a silly and self-important explanation AT THE END for why it sounds so fake during the actual reading of the book.
Just read Borges or a biography of the man, stay away from this Encounter.
He doesn't know who Borges is. He ridicules Falconer, the professor at St. Andrews, for being on the verge of dementia. The author is cringingly inept in his love life, too cowardly to either open his Vietnam War draft cards or attend a protest (choose one), and again, hasn't bothered to read ANYTHING by Borges (who shows up WAY late in the book) but thinks this encounter with an Argentine author who everyone else thinks is important might make a good story somewhere down the line for... him, young Jay Parini.
Oh by the way, Borges is about to receive an honorary degree from Cambridge. Jay still doesn't feel like reading any of his stuff.
There are moments here and there, but it never really gets better. The dialogue is too cutesy-poo. Of course nobody could remember such dialogue in detail, and you would actually hope not because nobody could spend more than five minutes around people who talk this way, so we get a silly and self-important explanation AT THE END for why it sounds so fake during the actual reading of the book.
Just read Borges or a biography of the man, stay away from this Encounter.
December 9, 2021
Bu sene çok konuşulan bu kitapla ilgili beklentim çok yüksekti ve maalesef kendisi beni üzdü. Bana sorarsanız yazar elindeki müthiş malzemenin hakkını verememiş; hayatta kaç kişi Borges’le 1 hafta bir araba yolculuğu yapma şansına erişmiştir ki, oradan bu mu çıkmış çıka çıka? Amerikan edebiyatının kronik sorunu olan dil yavanlığı bu kitapta da mevcut. Borges gibi bir dil sihirbazı üzerine yazarken insan azıcık çabalayıp bir üslup devşirmeye çalışmaz mı ya? Bilemiyorum, Amerikalıların edebiyat üretmesi yasaklansın deme noktasına doğru ilerliyorum yeminle. Ben olsam kitabın yarısını çıkarır, çıkardığım yer kadar da başka şeyler eklerdim. Parini’nin kendisiyle ilgili konuştuğu kısımlardan hiç hoşlanmadım; Borges’i tanımıyor olması bir yana, kafa karışıklıklarını okumak da epey sıkıcıydı. Borges’li kısımlar her şeye rağmen lezzetliydi ama son sözde açıkladığı üzere o cümleleri de gerçek konuşmalardan değil, büyük ölçüde okuduğu Borges kitaplarından almış yazar. Eh o zaman bu da gerçek bir hikayeden çok Borges��le yapılan bir seyahatin ve diyaloğun hayaline / kurgusuna dönüşmüş oluyor. Benim gibi Borges fanatiklerinin sinir olacağını ama Borges’i çok tanımayanların keyif alacağını tahmin ediyorum bu kitaptan. Böyle.
June 7, 2021
I haven’t met a Jay Parini book I didn’t like but this lightly fictionalized memoir about the author’s short encounter with Borges in Scotland is particularly wonderful. The book’s sincerity is touching and Parini’s portrayal of Borges launched my current obsession with Borges.
July 15, 2023
Roman a clef ya da gerçek figürlerin kurgulandığı romanları pek tercih etmem. Bu kitaba da Borges ile ilgilenmeye başlayınca geldim. Bu kadar iyi bir romanla karşılaşacağımı tahmin edemezdim. Roman Borges’in ölüm haberini alan Parini’nin bir haftalık gezilerini hatırlaması üzerine kurulu. İskoçya’ya edebiyat eğitimine giden anlatıcımız şiirle ilgileniyor ve çok ilginç ilişkiler kurmaya başlıyor. Borges çevirmeni ile vakit geçirmeye başladıktan bir süre sonra Borges de İskoçya’ya teşrif ediyor. Bir hafta boyunca Borges’in gözü olan Parini’nin anıları çok eğlenceli. Fakat bittikten sonra çok daha derin etkileri olduğunu anlatıcı da okur da fark ediyor. Borges’in huysuzlukları ve Parini’nin ürkek bıkkınlığı çok iyi anlatılıyor. Yazarlık ve edebiyat üzerine çok değerli düşünceler olsa da romanın duygusal yönü de güçlü. Gençken yaşanan güvensizlik, savaşın tedirginliği ve yas tutmak gibi pek çok tatsız denebilecek duygu içinde toy Parini. Fakat sanatçıların pek sevdiği acıyı sanatla aşma yalanına sığınmıyor. Edebiyat her an yanlarında olmasına rağmen bu konularda çare olmadığını gösteriyor. Özellikle bir edebiyat efsanesini anlatırken bu gibi yapmacık ve kolay bir yola sapmamasını çok sevdim.
January 18, 2023
A romp of a read - a lightly fictionalised account of Parini's encounter with Borges: a writer whose work I, like Parini, have never (so far) read. Jay Parini, an American, was a post-graduate student at St. Andrew's University, dodging the draft to the Vietnam War. He's going through young-man-angst about the subject for his thesis (his supervisor doesn't seem keen on Parini's choice of poet Mackay Brown), his draft-dodging and his (lack of) love life. When a friend of his, Alistair, is called out of town on a family emergency, Parini is called in to house-sit Alistair's guest, the blind and elderly post-modernist writer Borges. Almost immediately, at Borges' request, they embark on a road trip round Scotland for which Parini is expected to be Borges' 'eyes'. Shambolic and unpredictable, Borges is also a fount of dizzying literary talk. This is a trip to savour. A book which is a funny and wry account of an unlikely and thoroughly Quixotic journey: indeed Borges names Parini's ancient Morris Minor after Quixote's horse Rocinante. And it's persuaded me too, that it's about time I read some of Borges' writing.
January 10, 2022
Such an incredible book.
English: https://elifthereader.com/books/borge...
Türkçe: https://kitaplikkedisi.com/kitaplar/b...
English: https://elifthereader.com/books/borge...
Türkçe: https://kitaplikkedisi.com/kitaplar/b...
October 14, 2021
At the end of this terrific book, Jay Parini explains his method of writing it. He first told the story, he says, as a conventional novel. Then, on finishing, he realized his story was close enough to actual experience that he saw it as something like memoir. So, he wrote a memoir on top of that novel in what he describes as a palimpsest.
The result is a work of quasi-fiction, one that feels like a memoir at the start and then feels like a novel in its climactic scenes. That is, when Parini is talking about his urge to get out of Scranton, and when he describes meeting a new set of friends and fellow students at St. Andrews in Scotland, I “know” he is recounting what actually happened. Later, when he describes almost drowning Jorge Luis Borges in Loch Ness, I “know” he is making stuff up.
The central joy of this work, though – a joy complemented by the wise, self-effacing tone that Parini uses throughout – is that, as we come to see Borges, we are also reminded of Borgesian notions of fictionality. The author of a short story subtitles “The Author of Don Quixote” (among many other great stories and literary experiments) spent a lifetime troubling the line between ‘ficciones’ and reality.
To his enduring credit, Parini lets us hear Borges in all his wild abandon. In some real and true way – perhaps a way similar to what he reports – Parini did meet Borges, and we hear a voice that certainly sounds authentic to me. (I’m not a Borges scholar, and I don’t read Spanish, but I’ve read and taught Borges for more than 35 years.) Throughout, Borges the character speaks of the ways in which we author our own lives and the ways in which coincidence happens because it’s the world authoring a larger narrative. He isn’t consistent in the application, but he’s consistent in the insistence that fiction and nonfiction are too close to distinguish.
So, as I read this book, I realized the fundamental Borgesian spell that Parini the character fell under and that Parini the author casts in his own way.
This “palimpsest” of a novel is true to at least some of Parini’s experiences (or so I take him at his word) and it’s true in the deeper sense of something that accurately reflects the spell that Borges cast on him when he was a young man.
It’s worth pointing out as well that Parini the young man is also an engaging character here. As I watched him come to understand something of heartache and ambition in his time with Borges, I found myself thinking of Il Postino, the great film about a young postman’s time with Pablo Neruda.
Our young Parini frets over avoiding Vietnam (and his correspondence with a high school friend in the thick of the fighting is powerful) and about his virginity, and he finds a sympathetic ear in Borges. It’s a friendship that grows out of a shared love of language and story, and it’s beautiful and fun. The more I read, the more I felt as if I could be Parini’s friend, as if I could share with him my versions of the same adolescent swimming after poetry.
I read this in anticipation of my getting to sit on a panel with Parini next week. (Yes, it does make me feel cool to write that.) And I will try to ask him about the distinction, though a part of me hopes that he maintains the same straight-faced playfulness of the text itself.
I expected to enjoy this, but I did not expect to love it as much as I do. It’s as joyful as anything I have read in a long time.
The result is a work of quasi-fiction, one that feels like a memoir at the start and then feels like a novel in its climactic scenes. That is, when Parini is talking about his urge to get out of Scranton, and when he describes meeting a new set of friends and fellow students at St. Andrews in Scotland, I “know” he is recounting what actually happened. Later, when he describes almost drowning Jorge Luis Borges in Loch Ness, I “know” he is making stuff up.
The central joy of this work, though – a joy complemented by the wise, self-effacing tone that Parini uses throughout – is that, as we come to see Borges, we are also reminded of Borgesian notions of fictionality. The author of a short story subtitles “The Author of Don Quixote” (among many other great stories and literary experiments) spent a lifetime troubling the line between ‘ficciones’ and reality.
To his enduring credit, Parini lets us hear Borges in all his wild abandon. In some real and true way – perhaps a way similar to what he reports – Parini did meet Borges, and we hear a voice that certainly sounds authentic to me. (I’m not a Borges scholar, and I don’t read Spanish, but I’ve read and taught Borges for more than 35 years.) Throughout, Borges the character speaks of the ways in which we author our own lives and the ways in which coincidence happens because it’s the world authoring a larger narrative. He isn’t consistent in the application, but he’s consistent in the insistence that fiction and nonfiction are too close to distinguish.
So, as I read this book, I realized the fundamental Borgesian spell that Parini the character fell under and that Parini the author casts in his own way.
This “palimpsest” of a novel is true to at least some of Parini’s experiences (or so I take him at his word) and it’s true in the deeper sense of something that accurately reflects the spell that Borges cast on him when he was a young man.
It’s worth pointing out as well that Parini the young man is also an engaging character here. As I watched him come to understand something of heartache and ambition in his time with Borges, I found myself thinking of Il Postino, the great film about a young postman’s time with Pablo Neruda.
Our young Parini frets over avoiding Vietnam (and his correspondence with a high school friend in the thick of the fighting is powerful) and about his virginity, and he finds a sympathetic ear in Borges. It’s a friendship that grows out of a shared love of language and story, and it’s beautiful and fun. The more I read, the more I felt as if I could be Parini’s friend, as if I could share with him my versions of the same adolescent swimming after poetry.
I read this in anticipation of my getting to sit on a panel with Parini next week. (Yes, it does make me feel cool to write that.) And I will try to ask him about the distinction, though a part of me hopes that he maintains the same straight-faced playfulness of the text itself.
I expected to enjoy this, but I did not expect to love it as much as I do. It’s as joyful as anything I have read in a long time.
August 28, 2021
When I discovered Borges’s work many years ago, I knew I’d found a writer-poet-philosopher-muse who would be forever valuable in expanding and challenging my perspective on, well, just about everything in the universe, haha. As I read Borges, I began wondering how and why during my entire bachelor’s degree in English no professor had ever included Borges for our reading. Regardless, I had no time to remain baffled over my education’s shortfalls while I engaged with the genius of everything Borges had written.
Recently, I discovered Jay Parini’s books, and I connected, in particular, with two of his outstanding works that mediate on faith and the teachings of Jesus. When I saw that Parini had a memoir about having met Borges, I had to seek it out. What Parini offers in Borges and Me is a delightful and captivating blend of autobiography and fiction. His “encounter” with the incomparable Borges stretches over the course of a week during his postgraduate studies in Scotland. The Vietnam War raged on and Parini was not opening his draft notices.
To Parini’s great fortune, which he was unaware of at the time, he found himself acting as a caretaker for the renowned Borges while Parini’s mentor Alastair Reid attended to a family emergency. What unfolds is a rollicking road trip, whereby Parini serves as Borges’s eyes as Borges, who was blind, visits and “sees” the beauty of Scotland’s natural landscape and its historic sites. Parini gives us glimpses of Borges’s encyclopedic mind and his peerless breadth of knowledge that channels between the realms of whimsy and genius. Having my own great admiration for Borges, I smiled and laughed with glee as Parini recounts Borges’s loquacious intelligence and raucous antics.
While Parini’s memoir, indeed, recollects his comical and life-changing “encounter” with Borges, he nicely balances the road trip with intriguing side stories about his romantic desires and his worries over his dear friend Billy, conscripted and serving in Vietnam. However, the uncontainable source of searing energy in the story revolves around the hypnotic brilliance of Borges as he pontificates about life, love, literature, and the maze of ideas that make him a revered muse to so many readers and writers. Borges and Me offers a touching homage to one of the world’s foremost literary geniuses, and I believe Borges would congratulate Parini’s revitalization of memories to give us a fascinating book.
Recently, I discovered Jay Parini’s books, and I connected, in particular, with two of his outstanding works that mediate on faith and the teachings of Jesus. When I saw that Parini had a memoir about having met Borges, I had to seek it out. What Parini offers in Borges and Me is a delightful and captivating blend of autobiography and fiction. His “encounter” with the incomparable Borges stretches over the course of a week during his postgraduate studies in Scotland. The Vietnam War raged on and Parini was not opening his draft notices.
To Parini’s great fortune, which he was unaware of at the time, he found himself acting as a caretaker for the renowned Borges while Parini’s mentor Alastair Reid attended to a family emergency. What unfolds is a rollicking road trip, whereby Parini serves as Borges’s eyes as Borges, who was blind, visits and “sees” the beauty of Scotland’s natural landscape and its historic sites. Parini gives us glimpses of Borges’s encyclopedic mind and his peerless breadth of knowledge that channels between the realms of whimsy and genius. Having my own great admiration for Borges, I smiled and laughed with glee as Parini recounts Borges’s loquacious intelligence and raucous antics.
While Parini’s memoir, indeed, recollects his comical and life-changing “encounter” with Borges, he nicely balances the road trip with intriguing side stories about his romantic desires and his worries over his dear friend Billy, conscripted and serving in Vietnam. However, the uncontainable source of searing energy in the story revolves around the hypnotic brilliance of Borges as he pontificates about life, love, literature, and the maze of ideas that make him a revered muse to so many readers and writers. Borges and Me offers a touching homage to one of the world’s foremost literary geniuses, and I believe Borges would congratulate Parini’s revitalization of memories to give us a fascinating book.
July 9, 2025
This work felt like an effort in self-aggrandizement. The portrait of Borges strains credulity a bit as its narrative momentum relies heavily on slapstick misadventure rather and doesn't particular reveal anything essential about Borges.
In fact, the author does admit this is a "novelization" of his experiences, which pedestrian to aspiring intellectuals; a floundering college or graduate student is asked to babysit a formerly eminent figure (the eminence of which often escapes the fledgling student).
Maybe things kind of happened as Parini relays, but why is such an account worth a book length treatment?
You can learn a lot more about Borges by just reading his writing.
In fact, the author does admit this is a "novelization" of his experiences, which pedestrian to aspiring intellectuals; a floundering college or graduate student is asked to babysit a formerly eminent figure (the eminence of which often escapes the fledgling student).
Maybe things kind of happened as Parini relays, but why is such an account worth a book length treatment?
You can learn a lot more about Borges by just reading his writing.
March 14, 2025
I came for Borges (who is a priceless character throughout, as one might expect) but stayed for Parini. His wit and charm hooked me well before the legendary Argentine writer appears in the narrative, and his fluid style carried me along effortlessly as I tore through this blend of coming-of-age memoir and auto-fiction.
Their adventures traveling through the Scottish Highlands are often laugh-out-loud funny, yet are peppered with the metaphysical insights and wisdom Borges is known for. My highest recommendation.
I’m so taken with Parini as an author that I’m planning to try one of his earlier novels soon, “H.M.”, about another favorite author of mine: Herman Melville.
Their adventures traveling through the Scottish Highlands are often laugh-out-loud funny, yet are peppered with the metaphysical insights and wisdom Borges is known for. My highest recommendation.
I’m so taken with Parini as an author that I’m planning to try one of his earlier novels soon, “H.M.”, about another favorite author of mine: Herman Melville.
October 17, 2021
Çok eğlenceli ve keyifli bir yol arkadaşıydı kitap. Borges ve Parini'nin yolculugu kadar edebiyat yolculuğu da şahaneydi. Bir solukta okutturan akıcı bir üslubu var. Bu anı romanın ne kadarinda kurgusal izler var ne kadarı gerçeği yansıtıyor bilemem ama oldukça keyifli bir okuma deneyimiydi. Yer yer kahkaha attım. Beni güldüren kitapları genelde pek bulamam (:
Kapağı ise çok sempatik geldi. Bakınca gülümsemeden duramıyorum. İlknur Özdemir çevirisinin durulugu da zaten hikayeyi ayrı bir çekici hale getirmiş.
Kitap kapağı şahane değil mi ya :)
Kapağı ise çok sempatik geldi. Bakınca gülümsemeden duramıyorum. İlknur Özdemir çevirisinin durulugu da zaten hikayeyi ayrı bir çekici hale getirmiş.
Kitap kapağı şahane değil mi ya :)
January 26, 2022
Magical. The story of the time an elderly, blind Borges visited Scotland and Parini, through a series of unexpected events, ends up taking him on a tour of the Scottish Highlands. The book reads more like a novel than a memoir and in true Borgesian fashion breaks down the wall between genres and blurs the line between fact and fiction. It's beautifully written, funny, charming and deeply moving, the type of book that will restore your faith in the world, the people in it, and the power of literature.
July 24, 2022
Recommended to me by the Good Read BBC podcast 070522, this is a fictionalized real life encounter between Parini, then a US draft evader studying in Scotland to avoid the Vietnam War, and the Argentine author Borges. Panini describes this as a “kind of novelistic memoir.”
April 28, 2021
Utterly charming work of autofiction, with insight into both Borges and George Mackay Brown. Parini takes us on a wonderful journey through his own life and struggles as a young man, as well as the Scottish highlands, Orkney, and the mind and personality of figures like Borges, Alastair Reid, and George Mackay Brown.
My only beef with the book was my discovery, upon reading the afterword, that key aspects of the work are fabricated. The book reads like a novel, and indeed Parini refers to it as a "novelistic memoir" or "Borgesian fiction. Several key characters are actually composites of many people, for example. Yet the book was presented by the publisher as memoir and most reviews refer to it as such. In at least one instance the book quotes Mackay Brown saying something to Parini that was published in Brown's autobiography. On reflection, it seems many of Borges' statements came not from Parini's memory but from Borges' published writings. I'm fascinated by autofiction, and by the elision of fact into fiction. But when it's called a memoir I want to trust the author and know that the basic details are accurate. Don't you?
My only beef with the book was my discovery, upon reading the afterword, that key aspects of the work are fabricated. The book reads like a novel, and indeed Parini refers to it as a "novelistic memoir" or "Borgesian fiction. Several key characters are actually composites of many people, for example. Yet the book was presented by the publisher as memoir and most reviews refer to it as such. In at least one instance the book quotes Mackay Brown saying something to Parini that was published in Brown's autobiography. On reflection, it seems many of Borges' statements came not from Parini's memory but from Borges' published writings. I'm fascinated by autofiction, and by the elision of fact into fiction. But when it's called a memoir I want to trust the author and know that the basic details are accurate. Don't you?
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