136
MAUREEN HOWARD
"I think of reading a book as no less an experience than traveling
or falling in love," says Borges in
Conversations With Jorge Luis Borges.
To read him is to know that books have been the central influence which
informed his life and art. It's odd then, that given his quirky, dated erudi–
tion, he should so appeal to a very young man, Richard Burgin, who inter–
viewed him for those
Conversations
while still an undergradute at Bran–
deis. It is to Burgin's credit that this book is so charming, so full of his
warm admiration for a literary idol. The interviewer has done his home–
work, but done it with enthusiasm, and it's no small accomplishment
to
direct the right questions to a man who has been reading in several lan–
guages all his life and who has pieced together from various sources a
highly personal metaphysics. Burgin holds his own with Borges: some
of the nicest interchanges in the book are those in which the master
learns from his student.
What we learn from
Conversations With Borges,
as well as from
the new selection of his works,
A Personal Anthology,
is that the past
can be constantly revitalized by genius. History, whether it's the fall of
nations or family memoirs, is fresh and meaningful if we bring our own
energy to its examination. Ultimately all is useful to Borges. No event
or personality, however staggering (Hiroshima or Hitler), subdues
his
imagination, which doesn't mean simply that everything is grist for his
mill but that he can look at the most rigidly interpreted facts of
history
with a fresh eye. In the same way literature for him is never canonized;
it is always open to new response. He is interested in possibilities and
paradox: where others have accepted or rejected Christ, Borges can
consider that
Perhaps some feature of the Crucified Face lurks in every mirror;
perhaps the Face died, was effaced, so that God might become ev–
eryone.
Who knows whether we may not see it tonight in the labyrinths of
dreams and remember nothing tomorrow.
In "The Modesty of History" Borges uncovers small incidents from
the remote literary past which seem to him to have much more authen–
ticity than the "historic" dates fabricated by governments and journalism.
Those of the hordes under thirty who want to throw off the past are
guilty, unlike Borges, of an old man's rigidity. They have been subject
to more made-up events than any previous generation and have perhaps
taken them too seriously. I think they have confused the whole despicable
process of "history in the making" (special issues of
Life,
1V pomposity,
Nixon: "This has got to be the most historic telephone call ever made
