The blind man that read more than I could ever dream.

In Argentina, it seems that Borges is either loved or hated due to his political commentary and intellectual prowess. Having now read some more of his short stories, I am caught in-between admiration and envy. I admire him for his humility (I only know of it because I have watched lots of his interviews throughout the years), and his intellect, which I also envy.

If you didn’t know, Borges for a good majority of his latter years of life was blind, and I believe he still wrote despite that difficulty. This too is another reason which I admire him. But Borges, is intertwined within Argentine lore while also being rejected by many. While I visited Buenos Aires in 2019, I accidentally met one of his neighbours, a doctor, while in a local bookstore, and we discussed the man for about half an hour before we departed our separate ways. I will never forget the memories he shared with me about Borges. One quote he mentioned which Borges told him was in regards to literature was, “novelties: classics.” A simple and resourceful note from the blind librarian.

But his book was far from simple, or was it? Though from the outside, Borges’s short stories are often intimidating, depending on the story, for others they are quite magical and playful. Why playful? Well they simply play with history, changing the outcome or narratives of history recorded in the transcripts of time. So, in a sense, for those who have learned history of that certain context within his story, it could very playful to read his stories to see where the author ends that history and why in that way. I am not one of those people that is aware of some of those ancient or premodern histories so I did have some trouble engaging with the narrative as much as I wanted to.

I also want to add the thought of why Borges never wrote a novel in the traditional sense. He said that for him it was hard to have continuous focus while reading novels thus he wrote short stories. I am paraphrasing, of course, but I find it interesting since some of his stories are hard to follow due to his playful: one, two, three, etc. steps ahead type of narrative within a very short amount of page count. Of course, this is all out of context for our current times since the literature in learned and higher classes was a framing for authors that was common in those times and I guess now too, in some cases, but through the details of his writing, like the block paragraphs and also the language used, we can see that it is a dated style.

He is another South American author that pays homage to his European roots through the mentioning of its history in his stories but he also stays grounded as a contemporary by writing about Argentina and other Latin American cultures. Almost seems that he wrote about every culture, though that is not true, but it almost seemed so.

In Deutsches Requiem, I thought it was awfully brave to write a story about his German and Jewish blood while writing as a fictional Nazi. In his essay, The Argentine Writer and Tradition, Borges tackles a topic so important and dangerous within Argentine culture that it makes me admire him more. If you didn’t know, in Argentina, we are very fanatical about a lot of things: our politics, our football (soccer), our history. That is why a lot of people call Borges “anti Argentine” due to some of the connotations he makes within the essay in question. But, on the other side, his point has a lot merit and future authors like Julio Cortazar seem to have written with Borges’s idea about Argentine style of writing, though, Cortazar didn’t need to read Borges’s essay to achieve it.

Nevertheless, Borges is an icon whether some see him as anti-Argentine or as the Latin American author who should of but never won the Nobel Peace Prize in literature.

Why do you think Borges never won the Nobel Peace Prize in literature?

or

Do you think his stories are outdated? why or why not?