BOOKS
A STRAIGHTFORWARD STORY
DOCTOR BRODIE'S REPORT. By
J .
L.
Borges. E. P. Dutton. $5.95.
Borges says: ( 1) late stories of Kipling "surpass" the stories of
Henry James and K afk a, (2 ) the method of the stories in
Doctor
Brodie's R eport
derives from young Kipling's " laconic masterpieces."
Thus, in the opening paragraph of the Preface to
Doctor Brodie's Re–
port,
Borges anticipates the appearance of a Jew from Prague in one of
the stories and a Jamesian situation in another. Sliding from late to
young Kipling, he prevents any suspicion that he vies with Kafka, let
alone Kipling. There is more to notice, but, to the weavings of rhetori–
cal nicety, why carry an analytical axe? I surrender therefore to the
manner Borgesian - mysteries of coincidental detail, flicker of ideas in
brisk, lucid prose - and yet, upon closing his book, find myself reopen–
ing it to the Preface where Borges says he is a member of the conserva–
tive party and adds, " no one ever branded me a ' Communist, a nation–
alist, an anti-Semite, a follower of Billy the Kid , 'Or "the dictator Rosas."
MaY'be the provocation here is considerable. But fools rush in, and I
won't be the first . I rush, instead, to a refutation of the charge no one
made, and, for dialectical vigor, I begin with a concession : after seeing
the trivialization of Kafka, a critic from the Jewish Defense League
wouldn't giggle at the Argentinian conservative's list of political sympa–
thies, bigotry, and hoodlum-worship. Beneath its bravado the mixture
is potentially homogeneous and no joke. He might consider it self-pro–
tective. And, if he were the sort who wanted to feed on literary evils,
he would scrutinize the stories - for which this Preface is a complex
entree
-
and he would find two Jews who are superficially stereotypical,
perhaps despicable. (True, the enthusiasm of this critic draws a whisper
from my lips:
" Vaya, vaya.")
One of the Jews, befriended and trusted
by a local hoodlum (whom the Jew admires inordinately ) , exposes the
hoodlum to the police and is instrumental in his nasty death. The Jew
