125 years after his birth, Borges is still relevant

The work of the writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose 125th anniversary is celebrated today, It is more relevant than ever; some of its branches have even gained greater traction in the world in recent years, said Rafael Olea Franco, a specialist in the Argentine poet and critic.

The author of the book Borges in Mexico: A permanent literary dialogue (El Colegio de México), recently published, explained to The Day that although many aspects of the narrator decades ago were visible, others have been on top in recent times, which demonstrates its enormous advantage of having a very diverse work. That is why we continue reading it and looking for content and meanings..

As part of the commemoration of Borges (1899-1986), 300,000 poems will be distributed in Argentina. In Buenos Aires, particularly in his hometown of Palermo, there will be conferences, screenings, guided tours, round tables, reading workshops and poetry gatherings. In Spain, other tributes to the Argentine author will be held, such as a poetry recital at the University of Murcia.

Among the trends that have gained strength, Olea Franco explained, is Borges’ interest in “questions of history; at one point it was said that he was detached from it, especially in relation to Latin America and our culture. This is not the case; he was really attentive, although his physical characteristics, especially the blindness of the mature stage of his life, prevented him from being aware of it.

“Curiously, there have been coincidences in Borges’ work, for example, with the development of television series about Vikings, which the narrator had been reviving since the 1930s. He was a great admirer of the Icelandic sagas, and wrote about them; even in the book Ancient Germanic Literatures there is that presence.”

The doctor in Romance languages ​​added that “the persistence of series and films that talk about parallel worlds, time travel and so on, is very Borgesian. It has helped Borges to remain so, not to mention fractality, the idea of ​​which is already in his work; for example, in that map of England that he said was so precise that it contained the idea of ​​the map within the map and so on.

It is a literature that, in a different way, can still say something to readers, and this is reflected in the fact that not only writers have this relationship with his work, but also broader groups of readers. For decades, especially at the beginning, it was said that he was a writer for writers; years have passed and now he is also for many readers, fortunately.

The research professor at the Center for Linguistic and Literary Studies at El Colegio de México, who has also written The other Borges: The first Borges He stated that the main feature of the author of Fictions is that he is a thinker, which “explains not only his validity in the Hispanic American sphere, but worldwide.

“It reflects on the self and time, and embodies that thought in the texts themselves. Philosophical aspects such as Zeno of Elea’s paradox are put into narrative operation in the story Death and the Compass: the possibility of infinitely dividing one half into another half.

“The question of the self, something that concerned him greatly and is current in our culture. Borges has many texts in which he plays with it, and with the other who encounters himself. In a very curious one, entitled August 25, 1983, He addresses the idea of ​​this encounter with another self in the dream. He had promised to commit suicide on his birthday, that is, August 24, and August 25 came; he did not do it.

Olea said that the writer’s virtuality is noted in his reception: “Michel Foucault, in Words and things He begins by saying that what led him to write that book was an essay by Borges. We have other tributes: Umberto Eco in The name of the rose. “It has a wide diffusion.”

Mexico and the writer

The relationship between South America and Mexico had an important moment in the 1940s. When the poet and critic Xavier Villaurrutia reviewed Fictions (1944) and thanked a book of imagination, where what is said in the text is not based on a perception of an immediate everyday reality, but is pure imaginationsaid Olea Franco.

It meant a renewal, which also had to do with something that the very young José Emilio Pacheco detected, who recalled his experience in the second half of 1950, and said that Borges had taught him that other literatures can serve as nourishment for one’s own literature, which was later called the intertextual relationship.

The 2003 Alfonso Reyes National Prize for Literary Essay said that it could be said that Borges’ most outstanding student was Pacheco, “but Juan José Arreola develops parallel themes and a very strong confluence can be seen. There is a great influence there and the importance of defining a way of writing. That also happens with Carlos Fuentes.

“Fuentes says that when he read Borges in the 1940s in Argentina, he decided on his literary vocation and that he could write in Spanish. With Juan Rulfo and Octavio Paz the relationship is very different. What I tried there (in Borges in Mexico: A permanent literary dialogue) It was a different study: it could not be based on Rulfo’s statements, but it did rely on the evidence that he was part of the first group of people from Jalisco who read Borges and that there were several of his works in his library.

With Octavio Paz, the academic continued, There is a dialogue that I call unfinished, because it was intermittent and had ups and downs. Both are extraordinary, wonderful writers, but sometimes there were differences that had to do with their way of seeing literature..