"IN DEPTH"
A production of
Radiotelevisión Española
COMPLETE EDITION and RESTORED - ENGLISH SUBTITLES
with presentation of Joaquín Soler Serrano
My dear friends, in truth one
of the greatest satisfactions of my life was meeting Maestro Borges.
PRESENTATION OF JOAQUÍN SOLER SERRANO - 2001 I had read him, naturally, like everyone else,
PRESENTATION OF JOAQUÍN SOLER SERRANO - 2001 I had felt great desires to see him, I wrote to him.
PRESENTATION OF JOAQUÍN SOLER SERRANO - 2001 He accepted my visit. A plane put me in Buenos Aires, and there I appeared in the house of the great master of literary numismatics. The teacher Borges was already practically blind, you had to take him by the arm, or he hung on your arm. So we went up to his house, he showed me
everything at home, starting with the cat... that was an immense white cat,
the dream of her mother's love, and then he showed me her library. Book by book, the great teacher whom I think saw practically nothing, but nevertheless had the tactile ability
to find the book he was talking about. He taught me the Spanish classics. There he said: "It is where I have drunk everything I know. Then I have read everything that fell into my hands. Is very difficult for a blind person to read and yet I have done nothing but read all my life, and apart from that, start writing". I am who I was when I published my first book: “Fervor de Buenos Aires” in 1923
1998 - EDITION IN VHS - EDITRAMA and I think that in that first book is everything
COLLECTION VIDEO LIBRARY OF LITERARY MEMORY - IN DEPTH that I would do later, except that it is between the lines, and only for me, it is like a secret writing. When we talked about literary creation,
he told me that this is a gift that you either have or you don't have, that you don't become a writer
like you become a bricklayer, but that this is something that
you either take with you or you don't carries. I visited him in Buenos Aires two or three times, I convinced him to come to Madrid for the
“A fondo” program. The program was truly magical, extraordinary. All the fantasy, all the capacity that Borges has as a man capable of convincing you, of seducing you, of making you an admirer
of his, a brother of his, a literary and human relative, was put by Borges before the Spanish television cameras that
unforgettable day. Did you ever inherit anarchism from your father? Yes.
2004 - EDITION IN DVD - EDITRAMA And have it when you were young?
2004 - EDITION IN DVD - EDITRAMA And I have it for the future, I hope we deserve not to have
COLLECTION GREAT CHARACTERS IN DEPTH any government sometime, in any country in the world
COLLECTION GREAT CHARACTERS IN DEPTH That would be the ideal?
COLLECTION GREAT CHARACTERS IN DEPTH That is the ideal, yes. A minimum of government,
purely municipal government, as Spencer would say. Everyone was talking about Borges those days in Spain. That program ran through all the countries of Latin America. I think he's still traveling around, on videotapes, etc, etc. We are going to have a reunion with that Borges from then,
that is Borges as always. I tell you that you are going to experience
something that will stay with you forever, that will leave a mark on you,
2001- PRESENTATION MADE BY GONZALO HERRALDE that will make you feel happy to be human beings
FOR THE THEMATIC CHANNELS OF RTVE and that there are human beings like this, like Borges, the blind Borges, the poet Borges, the numismatic Borges, capable of making us connect
with dreams, poetry and happiness. Borges, the teacher. Spanish Radio Television
"IN DEPTH"
with the first figures of the arts, science and letters
today, joaquín soler serrano interview
September 8, 1976 COMPLETE EDITION and RESTORED
ENGLISH SUBTITLES (Pending review) edition and restoration 2020 GONZALO HERRALDE
999 interventions Today I am happy to have achieved
one of our aspirations since this program began to move, which was to have here,
honoring us, filling our spirit with celebration, the teacher Jorge Luis Borges.
Maestro Borges has done us the honor of coming from Argentina to spend a long time with us, talking.
He has not put any conditions on us, he has asked us to spur him on,
to spur him on, to harass him. Master, we are willing to affectionately harass you. I am very shy, so I hope you abound. I am absolutely sure that everything
you say will be of great interest to our audience.
- I will do my best. You have enormous numbers
of friends and admirers here, of people who know you for your work. Spain, very generous. But perhaps they had never seen you in person,
nor had they had the opportunity to hear your voice, nor to know firsthand
what your ideas are about so many things. You are a living monument of intelligence,
you are a man who has been said to be all mind... - I think it is an exaggeration.
- I think so, huh? Not because your mind is not a cool and cosmic mind, but because you are also a body and you are a sensitive body.
You have been accused of being a cold man, master No, that is false. I am unpleasantly sentimental.
I am very sensitive. When I write, I try to, well, have a certain modesty, right?
And since I write by means of symbols, I never confess directly,
people assume that this algebra corresponds to a coldness, but it is not like that, it is the opposite.
That algebra is a form of modesty and emotion. I think that turning feelings into mathematics
is really something very complicated and very beautiful. The task of art is that, it is to transform,
let's say, what happens to us continuously, transform all that into symbols, transform
it into music, transform it into something that can last in the memory of men, and that
is our duty. We have to comply with it, if we do not feel very unhappy. Because we would say then that feelings,
or that sensitivity, are primary, elementary things, which are given to the human being
in the very fact of being born, of existing. Yes, but in the case of the writer,
in the case of every artist, he has a joyous duty, to transmute all that into symbols.
Those symbols can be, I imagine, they can be colors, they can be
shapes, they can be sounds. In the case of the poet they are sounds,
and they are also words. And fables, stories, poetry... I mean that the poet's task is continuous, because it is not a question
of working from such an hour to such an hour. continually receiving something from the external world, and all that has to be transmuted, and is eventually be transmuted,
and at any moment it can get that revelation... The poet does not rest, he is working continuously,
when he dreams too. In my last book, "The Iron Coin",
there is a poem that I composed in my dreams. It is not very valuable, but, well,
it offers that psychological curiosity. That ability to make poems
even in the dream world must be incredible, right? How did you feel when you met again
with that dream poem? It was like a different find , right? Well, I dictated it the next day.
I didn't know if it had any value or not. And after a few days, I asked to be reread it, and I found that, in short, it was a decent poem, that it could be published,
especially by explaining that it was a gift from sleep. And I remembered Coleridge, who dreamed the poem "Kubla Khan", the whole poem, and at the same time he heard a music,
he saw that that music was liked in a palace. He knew it as those things of dreams are known,
and he heard the poem too. A long poem, extraordinary. Not in my case, it is a short poem,
with no other value than being a psychological curiosity, that of being a gift of sleep,
possibly a Greek present that may not be worth much, but, in any case, I published it togetherwith the others and nobody noticed
that he was very different from the others. I modified a single word. - Yes?
- Yes, only one. I don't remember what it was. but something had to be changed
that had made a mistake in the dream. My waking mind...was better...than dreaming, yes. So you think mistakes are made even in dreams? Yes, and in the vigil too, eh? In the vigil more. In the wake without any difficulty. You like to say, master,
that you have made every possible mistake. I think so, and then I have reached,
after 77 years, some successes, once I have discarded all the errors,
although I have repeated many as well. It means then that to err is necessary. Yes, I think it is necessary and possibly...
I, if I reached 200 years, would have come to know something of the art of writing. I keep learning. What distance do you see, for example, teacher,
speaking of these things of evolution, of transformation, between the Borges of 20 years ago and that of today? This, I think we are essentially the same.
But today's guy has learned a few tricks. I have learned some skills. And some modesties too. But I think that essentially I am who I was when I published my first book,
“Fervor de Buenos Aires”, in 1923, and I think that in that first book,
there is everything that I would do later, except that it is between the lines and only for me
It is like a secret deed, which is between the lines of the public deed, but everything is there,
I see, except that no one can see it but me. So what I have done afterwards has been
to rewrite that book, that first book, which has no greater value, but then has been
expanding, branching out, enriching itself, and I think that now I can, well,
I can boast of having written some valid pages, some occasional poem, and what more could a
writer ask for? Because aspiring to a book is already too much. Those figures, those keys, those secret codes,
that secrecy, do you want someone to share it? You do not write for yourself alone,
or do you also write for others to understand and decipher and unravel? No, because once something is written,
it is already far from me. When I write, I do it out of an intimate need. But I don't think, let's say, I don't think of a select audience, or an audience, let's say, of crowds,
I don't think of either of the two things, I think of expressing what I want to say
and I try to do it in the simplest way possible. Not at the beginning. When I started writing
I was a young baroque, like all young people are, out of shyness. That is, the young writer knows that what
he says is not very valuable and wants to hide it by pretendingt o be
17th century writer or a 20th centurywriter, let's say. But on the other hand, now I do not think about the seventeenth or the twentieth century, but simply to express what I want, and I try to do it
with the usual words, because only the words that belong to the oral language
are those that are effective. It is a mistake to assume
that all the words in the dictionary can be used, There are many that cannot be used. For example, a dictionary, you see the word,
you see as synonyms, the word 'azulado' (bluish), 'azulino' (bluish), 'azuloso' (bluish), and
other 'azulenco' (bluish) too. The truth is that they are not synonymous. The word 'azulado' (bluish) can be used,
it is a common word, let's say... - Alive ...
- ...that the reader accepts. But if I put 'azuloso' (bluish) or if I put
'azulino' (bluish), no. It is a word that looks in the opposite direction
to what is thought. That is, the only word
that can really be used is 'azulado' (bluish). Well, it is a common word that slides with
the others. And the others would be contrived? So I put 'azulino' (bluish), for example,
and it's a decorative word. It is as if Isuddenly put a blue stain on the page. So I think that this is not a legal word, it is a mistake to write with the dictionary.
One must write, I believe, with the language of conversation, with the language of intimacy. But you get to that with time, with ... You get with time, yes, because it is very difficult for a young writer to resign himself to writing with common words...
However, there are words that are common to me and not to others. Of course there is that error, because each human group has ts dialect. Each family has its dialect.
Possibly there are words that are common to me and are not common to others. But anyway... But there are, there have been, there will continue to be mature writers, some with the Nobel included, who write with that baroque, with that rhetorica thing ... It seems to me a mistake,
the baroque comes between the writer and the reader, also arguably the baroque is a sin,
is the sin of vanity. If a writer is baroque, it is as if he asks to be admired.
Baroque art is felt as an exercise in vanity. Always, even in the case of the largest.
Even in the case, for example, of John Donne or Quevedo...
Baroque is felt as a vanity or arrogance of the writer. - There is like a plea.
- Yes, yes, that phrase of yours is better. The reader is being asked ... A tribute is being asked or demanded, which
is even worse, right? Both are unpleasant, right? On the other hand, what they have said to yourself,
and perhaps it is due to that so-called accusation of coldness. It has been
said that you are ... - That is entirely false.
- ... conciseness, accuracy and rigor, which the most desirable and the most difficult to achieve. My teacher, I keep calling him teacher,
even though I know I will never write like him. Rafael Cansinos Assens,
once spoke of my numismatic style, it is a nice phrase, that is, I wish I, I, would make coins, right? Well, I have here some sentences cut out
of a text by Cansinos Assens about you, where he says ... Without a doubt he has been very generous to me. Possibly there we will find the numismatic... He says: "Borges passed through us like a new grind, full of discreet and smiling generosity". You have always been a great discreet and a great shy. I wish, I wish it had been. "Fine, equanimous, with the ardor of a poet,
restrained by a blissful intellectual frigidity", Cansinos said , "with a classical culture
of Greek philosophers and oriental troubadours, that fond of the past, making him love
'calepinos and infolios', without prejudice to modern marvels". - It's right ...
- He painted that world of yours a bit, somewhat enigmatic ... "Without detracting from modern wonders",
this alliteration, eh? You met Cansinos in your first stay in Spain,
which was in the 1920s . Yes, the 20s, I do not remember the date.
The truth is that I remember many things, but no dates. I have a few dates here.
With your help we are going to remember together. - Let us back to Buenos Aires, 24 August 1899...
- Well The day that comes into this world Jorge Luis
Borges Acevedo. that, as I have said, is Borges. All that reported it to you. All that, yes, perhaps it never happened, right? were you son of Don Jorge Borges Aslán
and Leonor Acevedo. And you came from an old Argentine family that had pioneered independence… Yes, I was going to tell you, I can go further.
I am a descendant of a man, Juan de Garay, who founded the city of Buenos Aires,
and of another Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera, an Andalusian, who founded the city of Córdoba. I am a descendant
of conquerors, and later, of Spanish conquerors, and later, of Argentine soldiers who fought
against the Spanish, it was natural for that to happen, right?
And after Manuel de Rosas from Paraguay, finally, a family of soldiers of mine. My English grandmother
was from a family of Protestant shepherds, which seems fine to me, because it means
that I carry the Bible in my blood, somewhere. But in that line of warriors, his father was
a notable exception. He was an exception because of his myopia,
but my grandfather, Colonel Francisco Borges, died in 1864 in the 'La Verde' battle,
after the battle he had himself deliberately killed. He wanted to die for a series of political circumstances. General Miter had already surrendered and
he mounted a horse, a white horse, a white horse, put on a white poncho and advanced, not at a gallop, but at a trot,
offering a good target to the enemy army shooters and received two bullets. and they killed him. The worst thing is that the Remington was
used, in my country. A new sound.
That of the bullets that killed him. However, what is surprising about you is that,
being, in short, the heir of all those bloods, of that fiery and warlike dynasty, you have been a rather skeptical man as far as this matter is concerned. It is true. But possibly I have been wrong
for a long time. I believe that the exercise of arms is an
honorable exercise, beyond the fact of exercising them for such a cause or for such another, right?
Being a soldier is something noble. I know that by saying this I am in conflict
with many people. But I don't try to befriend anyone,
or ingratiate myself with anyone. You continue…. What's more, at the end of everything you
have to think that poetry begins with epic, right? The epic is the first manifestation of poetry
in all the cultures of the world. It always starts with "the weapons and the
man ...", well. "With weapons and man". And that always happens, right? You always enjoyed great independence.
Do you feel it in a total, absolute way? Do you always say what you think? Well, I try to say it, and that is why I am
indiscreet many times. But today, for example, I am completely honest. Thank you very much, teacher. Let's go back then. We are in that his father was a peaceful English teacher. Yes, but he was also an individualist anarchist,
a reader of Spencer, he disbelieved of the Government, of the Governments in general.
Yes, he was a professor of psychology. He was also a romantic poet? He was a poet, and he left some good sonnets.
But he wanted the destiny to be fulfilled in me. that could not be fulfilled in him. The destiny of writer. I knew since I was a child that my destiny would be a literary destiny. That was indicated
to me, in a tacit way, which is the only way to indicate things, to be taken for granted,
and since I was a child I knew that my destiny would be a literary destiny.
And my father gave me his library, a library mostly of English books. I was educated in that library
and I remember, among the books, I remember a Garnier edition of Don Quixote.
I read that one, reread it and many years later. when I returned to Buenos Aires I wanted
to reread Don Quixote in the same edition,. it took me alot of work to get it, with the
same steel engravings I thought that this was The Don Quixote edition, the first that I had read, I have spent my life reading, and I have a good memory for verses,
and at one time, for pages of prose as well. Your sister Nora has said several times
that she reminds you as a child that you were always lying on the floor face down, reading incessantly. IIt is true, it is an exact memory, I do not know if ... And did you read everything that fell into your hands, or did you already have a selective ability to ...? No, I was a reader, let's say, hedonic.
I read what I liked. And since my father never indicated any book to me, he did not say, for example: "This is Don Quixote, it is a masterpiece." No, he let me open Don Quixote and read it,
and he did not discuss literature with me. Do you remember what impression Don Quixote
made on you then? The discovery of that work? Well, at first, there was something paradoxical,
what I admired in Don Quixote was what Cervantes loved and yet attacked,
the world of cavalry errant. In other words, for me Don Quixote was a chivalric novel. And in a way it is too. Because without a doubt Cervantes does not feel any sympathy for the priest, for the barber, for the bachelor, for the dukes, he feels sympathy for Alonso Quijano. In other words, he's very ... Besides, he is somehow this Quijano and not the others. - Exactly.
- That book is rare, it is very rare. I mean if you don't think it cannot be stated categorically that he wanted to make a parody of the chivalric books. No, I don't think so. In addition, Brussac has pointed out that when Cervantes published Don Quixote, those books were no longer read.
Cervantes was the last remaining reader of those books. And that he loved them very much, but that
he realized that there was something absurd in those books, and that is why he wanted,
let's say, to heal himself of that passion. And as a writer, what did you think of Don Miguel? Well, I had a conversation with Ernesto Sabato.
Of course he told me something that seems very fair to me. He says:
“It is always said that Cervantes wrote badly, as it is always said that Dostoyevsky wrote badly, but if that bad writing has served them to leave us "Don Quixote" and "Crime and Punishment", let's say, well, then, they didn't write so badly, they wrote what was necessary for their purposes. But that was Sabato's opinion. It is an opinion of Sabato,
but we cannot censor, from a rhetorical point of view, what Cervantes wrote.
Of course, Quevedo could have corrected any page of Cervantes, or Diego Saavedra Fajardo as well. Lope de Vega too, but they couldn't have written it. Correcting a page is easy, but writing it is very difficult. You liked Quevedo better, anyway? Yes, but I think I was wrong,
I think I like Cervantes better now. And I was... - I'm going to say it's blasphemy...
- Say it, say it... I feel something, I feel at the end of everything,
I have admired Quevedo a lot, I admire him, but, let's say, he is an admirable object, an admirable thing. Instead, Cervantes and Alonso Quijano, who wanted to be Don Quixote and once was.
These are personal friends of mine. It is something else. It is a relationship of friendship,
which is never established with this Quevedo. Nobody feels like a friend of Quevedo. You can admire him. - We went to Don Quixote...
- It is true. We have left that library. Strolling through your father's library in
your childhood years. Those years that were for you, I imagine, years full of fantasy, of wealth, because you looked out every day to a new world. Yes, I read a lot. I read, for example ...
I didn't know they were famous books. I was reading them then, a book,
"The First Men on the Moon," by Wells, I read it then. I read Kipling, then, I read Stevenson then,
I read "The Thousand and One Nights" then. All them capital books for me ...
And I also read very bad books, but of course, a child, a child is not that I compare a book with another, a child, a boy, accepts what he reads, and accepts it with gratitude.
So I did not think, for example, that Don Quixote was better than "Juan Moreira" or "White Ant",
by Eduardo Busteiro, I read both books, I liked them, but I did not think they were better or worse, I did not have critical judgment.
I simply enjoyed the books. Perhaps I was wiser then. when I enjoyed the books than now that I try
to judge them. Well, on the other hand, not only did you
enjoy them. You were creating your own inner wealth,... ...fed by all those books.
- Yes - Borges's world was growing there.
- Yes, but I couldn't know that. You before of the 10 years he had already
written and done ... - Had written, yes, abominably ...
- I don't think. And I had written in old Spanish.
By saying that, everything is said. In the newspaper El País you were 10 years old ... In the newspaper El País I published
a translation of "The happy prince", by Oscar Wilde. Exactly. And I think it's pretty good. I have not looked at it again. Do you see how it was not so abominable? No. Well, I think Oscar Wilde is the easiest author. People who study English start with Oscar Wilde. The same as those who study in German begin with Heine. But that does not mean that he is not an admirable author. But on the other hand, apart from the fact
that your father knew English, you had an English governess. Well, that was not important, the important thing was my English grandmother. My English grandmother, who knew the Bible by heart.
You would quote a random passage and she would say: "Yes, book of Job, such a chapter, such a
verse," and keep going. So she was a living Bible and in the English of the Bishops' Bible,
the Bible of the seventeenth century, yes. It seems that your parents had a certain fear
that there would be contagions by the diseases of the time at school and you delayed a lot
in leaving home. That is why you read so much. It's true. And that's why you had that governess...
Miss Tink, I think her name was? Miss Tink, yes, how weird.
And a cousin of hers was famous as a malevo, yes. - Don't tell me...
- Tink the English, yes. - As a criminal?
- As a criminal, no ... as a cutler. For fight. - As a cutler.
- 'Navajero'? Cutler, we say there. How weird, huh?
Juan Tink, Tink the English. And some were with the one who cuts.
Cut and gulch, yes. And what was she like, your governess? - I don't remember her.
- He does not remember. No, of my grandmother yes, I remember her a lot. I remember that ... I don't remember the date
he died but I remember that she was dying,
we were all very sorry and she sent for us all and told us ... and she told us: An old woman then, very fragile,
but very strong, like my mother ... and she told us:
“This is happening, there is nothing interesting. I am a very old woman who is dying very slowly.
And that cannot interest anyone or worry anyone”. That was a few years later
and it happened in Geneva, I think, right? No, that was my other grandmother, who died in Geneva. No, that one died in Buenos Aires, yes. How nice that she saw her own death
and that she could see it from afar, right? A very old woman who is dying very slowly.
"Now the rumors are very, very slowly. That's all" Very bad shadow that the whole house is in an uproar. These have been some of your obsessions
throughout your work and your intellectual concern: life, death, infinity ... Can I be indiscreet and can I tell
the death of my other grandmother? - Yes, sir....
- Well, she was dying in Geneva. I had never heard a bad word from her.
She had a small voice... Was the daugther of Colonel Suárez,
who mounted the load of Junín, in Peru ... She was dying, we all surrounded her, she also said: "Let me die in peace", and later,
the bad word, that I've never heard it before. With a small voice...
So we felt that she was a brave woman. My father said:
“Well, Colonel Suárez's daughter is fine”. She said it like this: “let medie in peace” and then
the word that I don't want to mention here. The first and last time I heard her say that. And that anecdote, in a way,
what can clarify about that obsession of yours for death, for life, for the infinite, for the eternal? I don't know, maybe I was wrong to tell it,
but I have told it with affection, with respect. - I know, I know, teacher.
- I have counted it with all the reverence for her. I know, no, what I ask is if
she influenced that concern in any way ... Possibly the fact of having seen those agonies,
and my father's agony too, a long agony. As I say in a poem: "He died smiling and blind".
And my mother's agony, also very long. All those things, naturally, have marked me.
But everyone is marked by death, death is something that must mark all men. The idea that we can stop at any moment,
that we are fortuitous, that we are casual, has to excite anyone who is not entirely insensitive. - His father's blindness was also early?
- Yes. At what age, more or less, did start ...? Let's see, we would have to make an account
and I am very weak in mathematics. No, you are the mathematician… He was born in '74 and died in '38,
so how long he lived can be calculated. If you want we can do it in a moment? Well, I would need a computer or something,..
I don't know. - 64.
- No, he was born on 74. He was born on 74 and died on 38. The year of Lugones suicide. From 4 to 8 they go 4 and from 7 to 13 they go 6.
64 years, right? - 64 years, yes.
- Exactly. Much younger than me. However, I always saw
him as older. Logical. Because you are viewing it as a child. I have committed the indiscretion of continuing to live. No, you have done very well to continue living
and I hope it will be for a long time. Well, who knows for a long time ... But some years ... I would like to finish some jobs that I have. There are two fantastic stories.
There is a book on topics of Scandinavian literature. There are some poems I want to write ...
I feel like I'm asking for a few months of extension. Hopefully it will be many months, teacher. Let's see. We were saying then that you wrote
an essay in English on Greek mythology before you were 10 years old. It was a series of plagiarism from
the classical dictionary, well, I called it an essay, yes. Did that influence that you noticed,
that impact caused by Don Quixote, develop in a narrative that you wrote? Yes, it was called "The fatal visor",
what a shame, what are we going to do. Then comes the translation of "The Happy Prince",
10 years old, appeared in 1909 in El País, and in 1914 one of the first trips took place,
that I think had to be transcendental in your life. The trip to Switzerland. To Europe. The discovery of Europa, yes.
And then the discovery of Switzerland, a country that I love very much
and that everyone abhors, I don't know why. They are the most civilized on Earth. Was Switzerland at that time a kind
of great refuge in the heat of war, of the Great War? Switzerland is an admirable country.
Imagine: a country of Germans, French, Italians, who have decided to forget their differences.
Who have decided to be Swiss, to be something else. A country that never wanted to be an empire.
A country where there are no nationalists. So, no cult, for example, for a Swiss race
could not be. They are German, French and Italian,
and they hold up admirably. There in Switzerland his encounter
with the German language takes place. Yes, but that was because I had read Hume a lot, and from Hume I went to Schopenhauer, and I read it in English and I thought it
would be very nice to read it in the original text, and then I taught myself German for the purposes
that I was looking for. And I did that ... I remember Spencer had said that the teaching
of grammar is a horror, that one ... grammar,
and the philosophy of language, that it is not always necessary to study it, and that can be studied later. Furthermore, no child learns their language
through grammar, nouns, articles, genders, or conjugations. So I bought, I got a copy of Heine's
"Lyrisches Intermezzo" and a German-English dictionary, English because
it was the closest thing to German that I knew Then I started reading, and soon after I realized
that I understood what I was reading and that I was enjoying an admirable poetry.
And then eventually I got to read Schopenhauer's
"Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung" in German. "The world as will and representation". And you even did translations from the German. - Yes, yes, yes, I translated many, yes.
- Some of them here in Spain. In Spain, yes, in the magazine Cosmopolis,
which was directed by Gómez Carrillo, I think, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, yes. I posted a few. So, the knowledge… German is something that I have conquered
and perhaps that is why I am more proud, right? Because the other languages were given to me by circumstances. French for living in Geneva. Now, Latin is a language that I love very
much but have forgotten. It's an easily forgettable language, right? It's a shame. And English, English and Spanish were the languages of my life, the languages of my childhood. The mother tongues. Both, yes. Although of course Spanish,
in the first place since I know that I will say my last words in Spanish and not in English. Now, the German was due to a personal effort,
to a vocation to know German. This is what happened to me later with Anglo-Saxon,
with Old English, that I decided to study it and now I know something and now
I have begun the study of Old Scandinavian, Icelandic. You who have a prodigious memory,
do you remember your own verses? - Yes.
- And the verses of the others? - Of the others rather. I have good taste.
- Do you remember Heine yet? Yes, and how can I not remember Heine? Let's see, what is German like, teacher? But what I'm going to say is very elementary, huh?
With a very South American pronunciation. But there will be many who know German
who will be very happy hearing you. "I once had a beautiful homeland. The oak grew tall there, the violets nodded softly. It was a dream. They kissed me in German and said in German (you can hardly believe how good it sounds) the phrase: 'I love you! ' It was a dream." - What music does German have, eh?
- Certain. Yes, and at the same time,
open vowels, as in Spanish, because in English there are no vowels, they are intervocal sounds,
especially in modern English. But in German they are open vowels, right?
"It was a dream" ... instead in English "It was a dream" ... they are intervocal sounds. They don't have that sound that German
and Spanish have. The ancients, yes. You are a kind of explorer, a constant explorer in cultures. Yes. That German culture, for example, like this,
on the fly, what general impressions does the German culture produce on you? Literature, above all. Well, I'm maybe a bit unorthodox, huh?
Because I do not admire Goethe as I should admire him, I do not admire Goethe's "Faust" for example, but I admire Goethe's "Roman Elegies".
I mean I am not a superstitious reader. I know I should say that "Faust" is a masterpiece,
but really, no. It seems to me a mistake by Goethe. Instead, I think of the "Roman Elegies",
I think of Goethe himself, the man Goethe and I feel affection for him.
Which is, until you can understand his mistakes. German culture is so rich and I really like the German language. But what we like about you, teacher,
are your own opinions, that is, that you do not tell us the topic that everyone says,
but that you tell us your truth. - Well what else can I do.
- That is the value that we appreciate so much. And the French culture, what is it that subjugates you? Well, I think French literature is one of the richest. And the proof is that if I take any literature,
any other literature, I may be thinking of a name, of course, with an obvious error,
but you can say Spain = Cervantes, England = Shakespeare, Germany = Goethe, but you cannot say France
and then a name, because there are many names. Because if you said France = Hugo, it is obviously,
obviously false. If you said France = Voltaire, it is also missing a lot, or France = La Chanson de Roland
is also missing, or a France = Verlaine, for example. Or France = Flaubert. It's extraordinary.
I don't like the French language. But I realize that I must like it,
since that language has been the instrument for such splendid literature. - Why don't you like French?
- Sound...I don't like the sounds of French. I remember how Schopenhauer said that French was the Italian pronounced by a person with a cold. - Cold?
- Yes, the nasal sounds of French. And yet I know that you were there for years… But if not… I don't, if this is a Schopenhauer joke.
I couldn't have say that. I have no right to repeat it.
I'm not the one to repeat Schopenhauer's thing. - Especially since you are not Schopenhauer.
- No, I am not Schopenhauer. - You are Borges.
- Well, what are we going to do. Does it mean that for years you were immersing
yourself in Mallarmé's poetry...you love them ... No, no, but not at that time,
precisely at that time, when I was studying French, it was when I discovered
the German language and literature. And when I was reading a lot, for example, Joseph Conrad, in English,
or Kipling, rereading, and I discovered Whitman, in English too, so that has come later. You have written a lot about Walt Whitman. - Yes
- A few rehearsals that we know about. Yes, on Walt Whitman I dictated ...
I gave several conferences in the United States, on the extraordinary experiment of Whitman.
The idea to write an epic of democracy, say an epic in which there was no character,
if not, in the fact that they were all main characters , a democratic idea ...
The character Whitman, who is partially him, partially his projection, his magnification,
and partially the reader as well, and each future reader as well, is a very rare character that of Walt Whitman,
that of Whitman's "Leaves of Grass", because it is not the journalist who writes this poem, no,
he is bringing together several people at the same time. He is the author, he is a magnification of the author
and he is each reader, that the course of the book many times Whitman speaks, says:
"What does Walt Whitman see, What does Walt Whitman hear?",
Is the reader. That is to say, each one of us when we read "Leaves of Grass",
is a Whitman character, it is a very curious experiment, and it is the most
extraordinary thing that has been done in the history of literature,
well and he was a great poet as well. What do you think of democracy? What I said in the foreword to my latest book.
It is an abuse of statistics, nothing more. You don't believe in democracy?. No, but possibly, I say this as an Argentine.
I do not believe in the possibility of an Argentine democracy, possibly in other countries
there may be a democracy and there is, of course. In many. But it is that in those countries it no longer matters
that there is democracy or there is something else. What then would be a solution, since you are referring
to the political problems of your country? - I have no solution, I am not a politician.
- But as an observer. For now, the only observation, the only convenient thing
would be to postpone the next elections for 300 or 400 years. But outside of that
I can't think of any other solution. Have a strong government and a fair government right now.
Have a government of lords and not a government of thugs. That's all I can say. In the times of Peronism
you were persecuted with a certain fury. - Well, no.
- They arrested your mother, your sister... - Yes, my sister, my nephew.
- You were removed from your position as librarian. - Well, to me, it was such a modest position.
- It was a modest position, right? Yes, but still, even that seemed like a lot to me.
No, but I have a clear conscience on political matters. Although I have not dealt with politics and I do not understand. But I think I understand ethics and that is a
dishonest government and wanting that is wanting dishonesty. That is enough for me. In addition, a very cruel,
very arbitrary, above all dishones, a venal government , , It seems that some of yours statements, also,
teacher, about the Government of Chile have surprised . Yes, although I don't know why it was surprising.
I imagine that if we have to choose between... Well, of course, now it is natural for me to happen at my age, but it is natural for me to look more
to the right than to the left, right? For purely biological reasons ... Possibly, possibly I cannot defend my way of acting, but ... Did you ever inherit anarchism from your father? - Yes.
- And you had it when you was young. And I have it for the future.
Hopefully we deserve to never have a government, in any country in the world. That would be the ideal? That would be the ideal, yes. A minimum of government,
a purely municipal government, something as Spencer would say. That would be the ideal for me,
but of course my opinions on political matters they should not be taken into account.
I do not know nothing about that. So let's go back to literature. I think it would be better, it is safer ground.
If I feel safe on some ground.... Conversations always have these meanders,
these comings and goings, these twists and turns. It is that if not, they would not be a living thing. - Exactly.
- They have to branch out. So, going back to the culture thing,
we have examined a little the passion with which you face the German culture, then… There are really many cultures,
Chinese culture at one time too. For example, the philosophy of Hindustan,
I have been interested in many things, Scandinavian mythology,
Scandinavian literature now, I am still very interested. What could you tell us about it? Well, I could tell you that, in Iceland,
as I said in a poem, which has not yet been published, in Iceland the memory of all Germany is saved, the memory, let's say, of Germany, England,
the Netherlands, the Scandinavian countries, Holland, all that is saved there, that is,
what they call Germanic mythology is really Scandinavian mythology. All those myths,
'The Twilight of the Gods', all that is known in Iceland, by the work of Icelandic people, that is to say,
that Wagner could not execute his work ... he could not execute his work either,
without men like Snorri Sturluson and other Scandinavians , which saved all that, all that memory
of Germanic mythology. It would have been lost, if not. What would we have if it had not been for the Scandinavians?
We got the fact that Thursday is called 'Thursday', Thor's day,
that Wednesday is called 'Wednesday', Odin's day of Woden, but nothing else, but all the myths, all the history ...,
the whole history of the twilight of the gods, the story of the ship that is made with the nails of the dead, all that, all that is saved in Iceland, on that island lost there. Are you Wagnerian? No, I don't like Wagner. I don't like Wagner because
it seems to me that he didn't understand all that much, that he did it in a very romantic, very emphatic way.
I'd say Wagner didn't understand Scandinavian. Or is it that I don't understand Wagner. Or both. I mean, I ignore Wagner as much as he ignored
the essentially Scandinavian, yes. In Chinese culture, what things have especially
attracted your sensitivity, your interest? - I think that above all ..
- Poetry? ... Taoism. This… Yang Tzu and Lao Tse, poetry too, oriental poetry in general, Chinese poetry,
Japanese poetry, that desire to give everything, to give a fragrance,
to give so many things in a few necessary words. - The synthesis, the conciseness.
- The synthesis. That they have taught us. The Haikais. A literature without long epics.
No masterpieces too, which is superstition. A literature that believes in the possibility
of a man saying everything in a few casual words, which are certainly not casual. And what is the most difficult, to say things in a few words? For example, you read the Canon of Confucius
and you think: well, here are some good recipes for behavior, but then you do not realize
that the author deliberately did not want to be rhetorical, that he did not want to be pathetic,
in fact he has renounced the pathetic, perhaps something typical that seems to me
of Chinese culture, of Japanese culture as well, the fact of being sober, of being concise, of saying everything
with a minimum of words, with a minimum of emphasis, that is very cute,
especially for me who tend to be emphatic, it's a lesson. No, no, well, but you are always struggling
with your emphasis, it is a permanent struggle. It is a permanent struggle, but you see
that right now it may not be too emphatic, but what are we going to do. Let's talk a little about the Spanish culture
that naturally affects us so much and we like to know how you see it and how you understand it. Well, it is that we would have to talk about
so many Spanish cultures at different times, but, nevertheless, I would say, and here I am going to be
heterodox, but I am among friends and I can do it, that there is a fluency
in the principles of Spanish literature that it is lost later. For example, we are going to look for Lope,
who is not so primitive, we are going to take the case of Cervantes. In Cervantes, all that complexity
that we call Cervantes, that complexity flows, one does not feel a greater effort. On the other hand,
already in the name of genius, somewhat later, like Góngora, like Quevedo, all that is already
a bit rigid. And then the case of Gracián, everything is very rigid. It already happens with the forms. You Gracián, you don't like Gracián at all. No, the truth is that I don't like it. Gracián seems to me
like a caricature of Quevedo. Because still in Quevedo, all that is driven by passion.
But in Gracián all that is very, very cold. That really is icy. Also, calling the stars
'chickens of the heavenly fields', for example, is unforgivable...
I think Gracián is a German superstition, in a way. That Schopenhauer admired him a lot
but because he understood him little. But, but, I will go further, I would say
that Gracián thought well, that Gracián was a very, very sharp man, perhaps a man of genius,
but later when writing he believed himself obliged to say everything in an ingenious way,
with games of words, and surely then, for example, when he says:
"life is a militia against malice", well, that may be true, one can spend one's life
militia against malice, but, at the same time, when one read it in Spanish,
not when you read the German translation by Schopenhauer, in the Manual, what you notice is the play on words,
militia and malice, and then the thought is lost, it is betrayed by the pun, and the pun, there, militates against the author.
Because it prevents us from seeing that the idea that life is a militia against malice may be a fair idea.
We are as hampered by the militia pun against malice, well, and in general that happens with Gracián.
That he thought, admirably, but then when he writes
he is forced to make those drawings, those symmetries that are certainly the mark
of the Baroque style, in which he was a master, but a master of an unfortunate genre. - Do you feel an instinctive rejection by the pun?
- Yes. I imagine that you don't like
the 'greguería' of Ramón Gómez de la Serna. Well, the greguería is superior to the pun.
The pun seems to me to be a form of discourtesy, because I am talking to someone
and I hope that the other is hearing my ideas or listening to my ideas. If you stop at my words
it is as if you heard the sound nothing else. When Gracián says that comedies are 'come dies (eat days)',
because time is wasted with them, well, then he is not thinking of comedy, but of the word comedy. And in conversation it is very uncomfortable
to be interrupted with puns. Yes, because it is absolutely getting out ... But of course, because it is getting out ... It is impertinent. They are absolutely frivolous fugues ... Or, for example, those verses that Gracián admired,
addressed to a lady named Ana, and who says "Say, Ana, are you Diana?"
Well, it is impossible to be more icy. Fray Luis seems to be another of his favorite authors. Fray Luis, yes. I remember those verses that
everyone is remembering at this moment: "I want to live with myself, I want to enjoy the good
that I owe to heaven, alone, without witness, free of love, jealousy, hatred, hope, suspicion."
How terrible to want to live without love and to want to live without hope too.
But living without fear is a stoic ambition, right? And he says it like that, it's a terrible thing,
he says it simply, doesn't he? However, it is a moral idea ... and it has the form,
it is not weird, but the concept is weird, right? "Free of love, of jealousy, of hatred, of hope."
Yes, because hope is also an uncertainty, the one who hopes despairs, etc. Taking advantage of the fact that we are talking
about this issue, I remember that recently, a fewweeks ago, news was published here,
of some statements, in which apparently you ... But those statements are apocryphal ... - And I think you have already denied them, widely.
- I have denied them. I will continue to deny them… And numerous articles and comments
have been written about it. Some in defense of you saying that all criticism of Borges is a compliment,
which is a beautiful phrase. It is nonsense. It is saying nothing. And perhaps all praise for Borges, turning around,
is a criticism. And let's not look for the pun. All poison served by Borges is food. Who knows.
Every blow by Borges is a caress. Well, no, neither. It is absurd. So, we remain, teacher, in that what
they attributed to you as an accusation in general against a large number of Spanish writers did not… What I admit, yes, I admit having said,
is that García Lorca is a minor poet. I don't have to ... why deny it.
But I think that one can say that García Lorca is a minor poet and that this does not necessarily mean
an attack on San Juan de la Cruz, for example, right? - No, that is also a personal opinion.
- It is my opinion, it is nothing else. I am not a missionary of your opinion either. I say it, but I don't want to turn
the whole world into their opinion. And since you say so, why don't you take the opportunity
to explain to us why you think that García Lorca was a minor poet?
That it will be much prettier and more interesting for everyone. Why do you think he is a minor poet? Because of the theme? No, no, no. Due to a deficiency of mine.
Because I don't understand visual poetry very well, yes, purely auditory poetry. It seems to me that,
let's say, that García Lorca was an Andalusian, professional,
too conscious of being Andalusian. What happens is that in that sense Manuel Machado did better. For you, Lorca's poetry was too musical. Yes, yes, too much, but, I would not say that,
I would say that I do not find in Lorca's poetry what I hope to find in all poetry,
now that what I hope to find it would be very difficult to define, but what I know is that Lorca does not give me
that food or that stimulus that I seek. Nothing more. And Machado does give it to you. The two Machados give it to me. Manuel too.
Manuel Machado, that so despised, gives it to me too. But I think he has been despised for political reasons,
nothing more, eh? And Antonio Machado, of course,
one of the great poets of the Castilian language. I say not always, but sometimes it was.
And being so is sometimes enough. Since nobody is a great poet all the time. We have here a book of poetic work by Jorge Luis Borges. Heck, they could find another author and… and another text. No, but since we have the author here,
if it suits you, let's try, for example, there is a poem dedicated to the German language,
which coincides with something we were talking about recently. You begin by saying: "my destiny is the Spanish language ...". - Yes, of course.
- "... the bronze of Francisco de Quevedo ..." Yes, I agree with that poem, even though I wrote it. "... but in the slow night walked
other more intimate musics exalt me ..." It is true. "... some was given to me by the blood,
oh voice of Shakespeare and Scripture." The Bible that I see as an English book. - "... others by chance that is generous ..."
- Yes, the French. “… But you, sweet German language,
I have chosen and sought you alone…” It is true, I taught myself German,
by myself, in the year 1917 or 1918. “… through vigils and grammars of the jungle
of the declensions of the dictionary that never gets it right-” - It's true.
- What we were talking about grammar, with the precise nuance. - Ah well, that poem is not bad.
- That's wrong? No, no, this is not bad. Not that I wrote it, I test it generously. You say:
“my nights are full of Virgilio, I once said; I could also have said about Hölderlin and Angelus Silesius”.
- Angelus Silesius, the poet from Breslau. "... Heine gave me his high nightingales,
Goethe the luck of a late love, at the same time ..." Yes, Goethe's "Roman Elegies." "... indulgent and mercenary ..."
- Yes "... Keller, the rose that a hand leaves,
in the hand of a dead man who loved it." A Swiss poet, Gottfried Keller. "... and you will never know if it is white or red." Yes, the poems of the buried alive, of… “You, language of Germany, are your capital work:
the intertwined love of compound voices, open vowels, the sounds
that the studious hexameter of Greek and your rumor of forests and of nights. I ever had you.
Today, on the edge of the weary years, I see you as distant as algebra and the moon."
It is a typically Borgesian poem. And, well, what are we going to do,
I can't do poems typically of others. Logically, we are going to go to another poem
because I think that here you can tell us many things about yourself. Well you speak in " In Praise of Shadows,
Fragments of an apocryphal Gospel" ... Well, I think that's perhaps the most ... it is essential ...
it's really an apocryphal Gospel ... That would be my belief, yes. I'm so glad having come up with it in a purely intuitive way. If I believe that it is an essential page
in terms of ethics, for example. - Here I go.
- And in metaphysics as well. You say: "Wretched the poor in spirit, because
under the earth will be what it is now on earth." Of course, to suppose that being unhappy is a merit
is a mistake. It is nonsense. "Unhappy the one who cries,
because he already has the miserable habit of crying." Of course, I think that ponder
the misery and tears, are cowardice, right? Or is it something demagogic. "Blessed are those who know
that suffering is not a crown of glory." How it will be a crown of glory suffering? "Is not enough to be the last to ever be the first." No, it would be too easy to be the first. "Happy is he does not insist on being right,
because no one is or everyone is." "Happy is he who forgives others
and he who forgives himself." The one who forgives himself too. You may be happier that you forgive yourself. Yes, but I do not think that one should be overwhelmed
with reproaches, thinking "I did wrong", because it is a way of insisting on the error. If one did wrong, well, forget it. You ask for beatitude for the meek,
because they do not condescend to discord. Okay, yeah. They don't condescend to discord, yeah. "And also blessed are those who do not hunger for justice,
because they know that our fate, adverse or pious, is the work of chance, that it is inscrutable." Sure, how are we going to ask for justice. Almafuerte said:
"just ask for justice, but it would be better if you don't ask for anything."
Asking for justice is an excess. "Blessed are the merciful,
because their happiness is in the exercise of mercy and not in the hope of a reward." Yes, what Shaw said, that Santa Barbara told him,
that "I have left behind the bribery of heaven." Because heaven would have been a bribe, really. But people, I think they are always waiting
for that award that never comes. Or that sometimes it comes. Like other awards, like some Scandinavian award. The Nobel Prize that they are giving you, how many years ago? It's been so many years that it's like I've had it. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God." Do you think that a man with a dirty heart never sees God? I'm not at all sure that anyone can see God.
I think it's a phrase, no more. Let's forget it. Why not cross it out? Yes, cross it out. A literary phrase in the saddest sense of the word. "Blessed are those who suffer persecution for the sake of justice,
because justice matters more to them than their human destiny." That's fine. I agree. The important thing is the destiny of man,
above all. For the man, of course. For man, of course. What other criteria can we have? “No one is the salt of the earth.
Nobody, at some point in their life, is not." Yes, I believe that in all lives,
there is a moment like this that justifies, that saves them. All lives. Even in the most… miserable lives. The one who kills, you say, and here you enter
into deeper and more serious things, Master Borges ... "Whoever kills for the cause of justice,
or for the cause that he believes to be just, is not guilty." - Are you still convinced of that?
- Yes. For the cause of justice ... A soldier is not guilty, for example.
And possibly an executioner is not guilty either. I say if he believe in the law that makes him ... So the long or short hand of justice
is a just hand, even if it is basically unjust. Yes, it can be, yes. "Do the acts of men deserve neither fire nor heaven?" Too. I believe that my life does not deserve ...
Besides, it is absurd, we can assume that I reach 80 years, well. How am I going to be rewarded
over an eternity of centuries or punished for an eternity of hell? It is disproportionate. - Too.
- Of course. I lived 80 years,
if then they give me an eternity of fire or an eternity of glory. Has no sense. At this moment that we live here
they will reward or punish us so much? I hope not, not for this, master.
Do you believe in hell? Well, many times on Earth we have the feeling of being in hell. And also sometimes I feel like I'm in paradise.
I believe that in every man's experience there are only memories, in hell and in heaven.
I think you will have felt in hell many times, and in heaven, sometime too ...
- It means that man ... I mean that misery and happiness are not ignored by us. What they are, of course,
that heaven is rare and hell is quite common. - It is more common.
- It is more common, it is more common. Circulation is easier. “Don't hate your enemy, because if you do,
you are somehow his slave. Your hatred will never be better than your peace." - And here…
- It's selfish advice, of course. Here you are not generous,
here you are, in short, working for yourself. Of course, that is a very selfish phrase, you know. “If your right hand offends you, forgive it.
You are your body and you are your soul and it is difficult, or impossible, to set the border that divides them." Yes, well, contrary to what
if your right hand offends you, cut it off. Well. And now we speak of the truth.
The truth that is always so defended, so vilified, the truth that is always in question
and that is the great commitment of man. “Do not exaggerate, you say, the cult of truth.
There is no man who, after a day, has not rightlylied many times." It is obvious. If you are introduced to someone, you say:
"so much pleasure ", who knows if you have so much pleasure. And on the other hand it is better that it be so,
it is better to lie. And it is also a somewhat defensive instinct. I think so, a pedantry.
Insisting on telling the truth is always pedantry. - An ethical pedantry.
- And besides, you couldn't live with the truth. And coexistence would be impossible.
It would be an exercise in vanity and selfishness. Always be truthful. “I am not talking about revenge or forgiveness;
oblivion is the only revenge and the only forgiveness." - Yes.
- And the ability to forget? It does not depend on you.
I have a poem in which I talk about that, right? And It say: "And the art of forgetting is difficult." Of course it is difficult. But still, one must seek to forget certain things. And besides, in the long run, you do it. "Happy the poor without bitterness
or the rich without arrogance." "Happy the loved ones and lovers
and those who can do without love." Yes, but it is better to be loved or a lover
and not do without love. - I think so.
- I also think so. - I think I do not agree with this South American author.
- This South American or Argentine author ... I think he is wrong...He has made mistakes several times already
in the course of a page. But here is something that is very beautiful,
and with which I agree: "The door is the one you choose, not the man." It sounds like a cool phony phrase, but it's okay.
A memorable and a bit hollow phrase. But it looks good. "The door is the one who chooses, not the man"
It's terrible enough. - In reality, the destination is always ...
- Well, the door is better, right? The metaphor is well chosen, right? If the path is the one you choose, it seems to me that
it would be wrong, the door better be the one you choose, yes. We have walked through his philosophical creed a bit, before moving on with his life. But there are things on the sidelines, I would like to know how you see them, master. But of course, but you do not call me teacher,
I am not anyone's teacher. Well, for me he is a teacher, for all of us. - No, you can call me Borges, tell me Borges.
- I call you Borges with great pleasure - Of course, yes, also ...
- And it's as if I called him teacher too. It happens to be my name. Borges, what is hatred for you, that hatred
that has been alluded to there, in one of those sentences? I don't feel hate. Have you never hated? Well, if I think of two dictators in my country ...
I try not to think of them. In Rosas and in the other. That can be a form of hatred, right?
Trying to forget, but that is better than exaggerating or insulting, right? I do not know which is better - The hatred on the other hand ...
- But I do not feel hatred for anyone. You think it is corrosive to yourself, right? - I believe that the one who hates is destroying himself.
- He who hates is destroyed. Yes, so hatred really turns against oneself.
That is why it is convenient not to hate. And is love getting rich? - Yes, it is always getting rich.
- To love is to give oneself? Yes, regardless of whether they want one or not.
At the moment you want it, it is already ... Do you like to feel loved? It would be, it would be, very impressive for me to say:
"No, I don't like feeling loved." But the truth is that I like it. No, but I know that you are a shy man,
who likes to run away from certain demonstrations. I think it would be better, since I am speaking in public,
saying that I dislike being loved. The truth is that I don't dislike it. - The normal thing is that you likes it.
- I think so. Why not be normal? Also, if I were to lie, everyone would know that I was lying. You have always spoken with a certain disdain
of the vocation to power, of the pride of those who rule, of purple, of the weight of purple. I have never felt that. What Marco Aurelio said:
“neither master nor slave.” You don't have to be a master and you don't have to be a slave.
Besides, the master is a slave. He has to worry all the time about the others,
who he commands ... What is life for you, Borges? I would say that it is an interesting adventure
and that we are engaged in that adventure. And by contrast? And that we will die undertaking that adventure.
With happy or adverse fortune. In 1919 you came to this country where you are now, teacher, you live for a short time in Barcelona… Yes, but I rather remember the evenings
at the Café Colonial, by Cansinos Assens. Then you were in Palma de Mallorca. I was in Palma de Mallorca for a year, yes. You lived in Valldemossa, near Chopin's cells. Exactly. - And George Sand.
- La Cartuja, yes. At a time when tourism has not yet ... - No, there were no tourists.
- He hadn't woken up. - I was the precursor of tourism.
- You were the first tourist. The first tourist is a sad honor but that's right,
the 'pioneer' of tourism. The pioneer... You wrote two books in Spain
that were never published. And I have to ask you why? One was called
"Red Rhythms" or "Red Psalms", I don't know very well. Let's hope it was "Red Psalms",
because "Red Rhythms" is too silly. You are referring to the October revolution, it seems to me… Exactly, yes, but at that time being a communist
meant something else, it meant a longing for universal brotherhood,
it meant a little Walt Whitman or pacifism. Maybe now it has another meaning, now it is a form of
Russian imperialism or the rancor of certain people. It makes another sense, yes.
Yes, I was a communist then. There was another book called "The cards of the gambler",
where your Barojian influence was evident, it was you ... Yes, of course, but I do not remember anything
about that book at all. - I have managed to purify myself of that memory.
- All traces of...disappeared? The only thing, the title that is not bad. "The cards of the gambler". - Nothing bad.
- No, not bad. The two words are Arabic, also, I'm not sure. You had a first setback,
which I do not know if it has been repeated many times, and that is that a story in the newspaper
La Esfera was rejected. No, it was repeated...
But, but not in the magazine La Esfera, but in others. - In others?
- It keeps repeating itself. But there is nothing special about it. In Madrid you go to the famous gathering of
Rafael Cansinos Assens, which we were talking about. At the Colonial Cafe. The coffee of the couches,
that of the red couches, of the large mirrors. It was an extraordinary time. We would arrive at midnight,
a little earlier, a quarter to 12, let's say, we would stay until dawn, and then Cansinos Assens,
would propose a theme, for example, the metaphor, for example, the rhyme, for example, the plot,
then it was he talked about it all night and Cansinos forbade, had forbidden, in some way, to talk about other writers. I mean, he didn't want anyone to be
attacked. I wanted the gathering to be like that, something platonic. That a topic be discussed
and we would continue until dawn and accompany Cansinos to his house on Morería Street, near the viaduct.
All night talking about literature ... I have not seen a person with the same passion, except in
Buenos Aires, in Macedonio Fernández's gathering, but there they talked about metaphysics.
But there too many of us met to discuss a topic. Now Cansinos was a man of exceptional courtesy. Sometimes there were up to 20 people in attendance and then,
if he saw a new face, he would ask him where he was from ... the visitor...and then he would talk to him about his ...
what region he was from, where he came from, and then, Later on, that general conversation would come,
and Cansinos, well ... I was about to say goodbye to Europe,
and when I said goodbye to Cansinos I had the impression that I was saying goodbye to all the libraries in Europe,
because he seemed to have read all the books. I think he knew seventeen languages. It gave me the
impression of being all libraries, of being all languages, and all that in a life dedicated to literature. I remember that he had published a poem dedicated to the
sea...I said "what a beautiful poem, his, Rafael" He called him Rafael, Rafael or the sea, and he says
"Yes ...", he liked to keep his Andalusian touch ... "Yes," he says, "I hope, I hope to see it sometime."
He had never seen the sea. He liked the sea of his imagination. Like Coleridge ... with the splendid poem
about the sea that he had never seen. Then came his trips to Seville, Andalusia.
You relate to the generation of 'ultraism'. Exactly, Adriano del Valle and Salvador Villar, the Mosquera,
and then in Madrid I met Gerardo Diego. - To Pedro Garfias
- Pedro Garfias, yes, but Pedro Garfias was Andalusian, from Osuna, yes. Did you know Juan Ramón, too? No, I never met him, I don't know why.
It is very rare that I did not know him. I met him later in Buenos Aires, when he went to give lectures. And you began to collaborate in the magazines of the
moment: Hélices, Cervantes, Grecia, Ultra, Cosmopolis,… Wow, what names did the magazines have then….
Yes, there was a Hélices magazine, it's true. They were other times, they were other titles. However, I find it beautiful to think
of all those guys who only thought about literature. Because now I would say that the literary passion has been
lost. The only passion which is currently, politics, or remains the personal passion, money,
but something like the passion of philosophy, as I did in Buenos Aires,
in the gathering of Macedonio Fernández, the passion of literature, in the gathering of Rafael
Cansinos Assens, I don't know if it happens now, or in any case it can happen individually,
but I don't know if it is shared, generously, as then? You dedicated yourself, for a complete and total vocation,
without ever thinking about what your literary activity would reward you. No, I never thought. And you have been a man rather removed
from those great economic concerns. Well, for a long time I was. My family was…
Also, my father told me that I didn't need… That what I had to do was this:
I had to write a lot, correct a lot, break almost everything and, above all, not rush to publish. So, for that reason, my first book, "Fervor de Buenos Aires", was really the third,
which I published in the year 23, and I did not think of taking it to bookstores,
or sending it to writers, or sending it to newspapers. . Distribute it among friends,
and now I see that the book has been read, say, this, thousands of people. There is a surprising thing and it is that like… Yes, it is very strange, it is like over time one is surrounded¡
by friends and that is very pleasant. There is a fervor that was born by that first Borges, by the
Borges of that book, which is the third, but for many it is the first. Well happily it's the first,
because the above is really embarrassing, a shame. You return to Buenos Aires after so many years in Europe
and you return with an enthusiasm for your incredible land and city,
in such a way that you come to say that your absence and your stay in Europe have been illusory,
that your European events have been illusory, that you had never left Buenos Aires. But that's absurd, I don't know how I said that, yeah. Well, it could just be a cordial phrase, or perhaps you ... "The years I have spent in Europe are illusory, yes, I have
always been and will always be in Buenos Aires". I think that corresponds to a…
it's just pathetic, right? I don't think it has any other value,
I don't think it's psychologically true. How am I going to be in Buenos Aires if one has read "The Thousand and One Nights", for example?
That happen in Baghdad, let's say. Was that first book of yours received very well by the people,
was it received very well especially by the young generation, the avant-garde... The first book yes, but I published that book and came to
Spain, then I spent a year in Spain and when I returned I saw that this book had found many readers. Which I did not expect. And the young Argentine writers had seen in you the way to join the new movements. Yes, of course, yes. Currently the movements do not interest me.
I mean, literary schools seem to me to be mere comforts of criticism. You returned to Paris, Madrid, Mallorca, Seville, Granada. Well, not so many places. Yes, to some yes, I have returned, yes. You published later in Buenos Aires on the 24th…. I don't have that cult, that Argentine cult in Paris,
I haven't had it. On the other hand, if I think, for example, of the south of France, yes,
I feel a lot of affection. But not so much for Paris. Of course it is a deficiency of mine, nothing more.
I should feel Paris differently, but I don't really feel it. Perhaps because you have found things
that were closer to you in the 'Midi' than in Paris, right? Possibly, because I think of Geneva with great affection.
I don't think of Paris with much affection. I think of Edinburgh with a lot of affection, well ... - Then comes “Moon in front”.
- Well, we can forget that, that is better. - Forgotten. "Notebook of San Martín".
- We can forget that too. - Poetic trilogy that we forget.
- I think so ... - "Inquisitions".
- That too can be forgotten. They are exercises
in the manner of Saavedra Fajardo, or Quevedo, yes. In those "Inquisitions" there were articles
on Quevedo, Unamuno, on Cansinos, on Lanuza. Another book of essays,
"The size of my hopes", published in 1926 ... - Have you also deleted it ...
- Yes, I have deleted it, and in all fairness. And you has not accepted that it be reissued. No, 'the lay arm of the mistress' can take care of that book, right? "Universal history of infamy", which we have here ... Well, "Universal history of infamy"
was my first attempt to write stories, because I did it with a certain shyness,
that is, I presented those stories as if they were true,
but apocryphal stories really were presented ... It was like a game, right? but they really were the first stories I wrote.
That helped me to let me write stories really after. One of my trial, an experiment. "The garden of Forking Paths". That book seems quite cute to me, yes,
"The Garden of Forking Paths". The story of a labyrinth. In 1938 you lose your father
and at Christmas you have an accident that has you at death's door for a long time. Yes, if you touch my head, my accident is documented here. How was it? Climbing a ladder, they had left a blind open, I hit the blind, which had just be painted and then I had septicemia, I was
very close to death without ever being in it, and I have reflected that in a story called "The South". The beginning of the story is the story of my accident, and
then afterwards there is a fantastic ending. - Were there fevers, delusions at that time?
- Yes - That you tried later, that you remembered ...
- Yes, whole nights of insomnia, of nightmare, of feeling very, very unhappy, with a high fever. Later you underwent surgery and in convalescence
you wrote that first truly fantastic story. Yes. It seems that from that moment on
you begin to know who you are ... Borges begins to find Borges. Well, I even realized that
I could write fantastic stories. I checked that. I verified that I had that modest possibility
and since then I have taken advantage of it. I have used or abused it. And now I have in mind
a fantastic story that may be the best of all, eh? But I will not reveal anything. It should not be revealed until it is written. No, I don't think so, because if you count things too much you
don't write them down. Why have you been a librarian?
For the love of books, for having an occupation, for earning extra money? For all those things, I also really like being in a library. It was a modest library, of a neighborhood ... But after all, a modest library always exceeds the possibility, the capacity of any reader.
- Definitely. If I'm in a neighborhood library,
there will always be more books that I can read, of course. And I have read many good authors there.
For example, I discovered Léon Bloy, I discovered Claudel, I didn't know them.
I discovered them in that neighborhood library. There were many works by Hugo
that I had not read. I read them there. "The Garden of Forking Paths" was presented
for the National Prize for Literature, another work of little merit,
forgotten as its author, was awarded. Argentina's outrage was general in the face of the outrage. Not the Argentine indignation, the indignation of my friends. - Of many friends, which were almost all.
- Well ... - And then they paid you a tribute ...
- In Sur magazine, yes. ... with a special number of redress, and they collaborated on it ... For example, a friend of mine,
a great writer, Eduardo Mallea, collaborated, and Drieu La Rochelle wrote, too, I think. - And Sabato.
- And Sabato too, yes, he was a young writer. Ureña ... Well, then they gave you
the Grand Prize of Honor from the Argentine Society of Writers. Yes, now, that award was created by Enrique Amorín
so that I could obtain an award that year. So he invented that award.
Which then has given many others, with good reason. But that award was invented by Enrique Amorín,
a Uruguayan writer, so that I could obtain an award. - And it was invented against the National Prize.
- It was the National anti-prize. It was that, yes, exactly. We saw the front and back, yes. 1944 is also the year of the publication of one
of your most famous collections: “Ficciones”. Yes, I wish I remembered some of them,
but yes, I think they are fantastic stories. This way we have ... ... but, look, we are going very slowly, we are in the year 44
and we are passing years ... and we are in the 76 ... - We are going very fast ...
- We have to burn the stages. - Peronism is coming...you give lectures in Argentina and Uruguay.
- I prefer not to remember that word. Yes.. You quit or were outright removed,
however you want to say it. Well, I was appointed municipal inspector
for the sale of poultry and eggs in the markets. And I understood that it was a way of telling me to quit, right? - Rather.
- My competition in the matter on poultry and eggs is null, right? So you declared yourself incompetent for the new position. I said yes, that it seemed very strange to me
hat they would appoint a writer with such an extraordinary position.
It was one of the jokes of that time, yes. You founded the magazine "Anales de Buenos Aires",
where a short story by the unknown Julio Cortázar would be published. Yes, exactly, the first text of Cortázar that was published. And we publish an issue dedicatedto Juan Ramón Jiménez.
Where I collaborated. Juan Ramón Jiménez went to Buenos Aires,
precisely to give lectures in Buenos Aires, commissioned by Ms. Ortiz Basualdo,
who directed the magazine Los Anales. You made an anthology of the best detective stories. Yes, that book was very influential,
and also an anthology of the best fantastic tales. What do you think of the detective stories?
From the detective novel. - Now I'm a little tired of her.
- Got tired? Yes, it has something of a machine, let's say.
But there are admirable stories, like those of Chesterton, those of Poe, the novels of Wilkie Collins,
but it seems to me that it is a genre that easily becomes mechanical. In 1949 the book that makes him famous worldwide appears,
"The Aleph", where 14 stories are gathered. - There are 14, gosh.
- Later you added 4 more. - It's true.
- Until now 18. And there it shows all the expressive possibilities
of the aesthetics of intelligence. Well thank you very much. Where there is a fusion of mathematical mentality,
of metaphysical depth... Do you think that's my central book, let's say? - Well, it was the book that made him most famous
- I think so. The most widespread, most popular book
Don't you think the same? It is true, yes. And all why? ... because the word 'aleph' is cute
and because it is written with 'ph', maybe ... - I don't know.
- That may be one of the reasons. I am not capable, but you who have studied
so many things of that kind, since the cabal ... Good title. The good choice of the title. He was elected in the year 50,
president of the Argentine Society of Writers. - Yes.
- At your lectures the police are watching you. The year 50, yes. The year 50, yes. And then that Society was closed by him ...
we already know by whom, right? ... by whom we did not want to show portraits
of a certain famous couple of that time, yes. You held the chair of English literature
at the Argentine Association of English Culture. He became interested in ancient Anglo-Saxon literature. Yes, then I was also a professor
of English and American literature at the Faculty of Philosophyand Letters
at the University of Buenos Aires. - Too.
- Exactly. Then I found it very. very nice.
I like being a teacher. I like teaching. I like it better ...
Because I prefer a lesson to a lecture. A lesson is always more serious...People usually go to
the conference to see, to look at the speaker. On the other hand, in a class people are interested in the
subject, I see it more important than the tie or the appearance of the person who is speaking. At that time you continue to write
and appear "Los Orilleros", "The Believers' Paradise", "Short and extraordinary stories". Yes, those were two films that I wrote with Bioy Casares. And there is a very interesting book
that is about gaucho poetry that you published in Mexico. In Mexico, yes. Everything is gathered, all the corpus,
all the material of that poetry. Everything, from Bartolomé Hidalgo's poems to, well,
everything is included in that book. Hernandez, also, I really like Lussich's oriental tales ... texts that are not usually found, yes.
Now, it came out with many misprints because it was published in Mexico, where naturally ... Do you think that gaucho poetry is epic poetry without a doubt? Yes, in a way it is epic, especially in the case of Ascasubi.
In the case of Hernández I am not so sure. But in the case of Hernández...
which is the story of a deserter who is converted, who is later a murderer, a fugitive,
it cannot be epic. It is something else, it is a novel in any case. But it is admirable.
But I don't think it's epic, I think that was an invention of Lugones,
who considers "Martín Fierro" as an epic. - The author ...
- Very astonished. I think so, I don't consider it as epic,
I consider it as a kind of protest against the regime of the ... ... well, of the cam. And from a literary point of view,
do you like Martín Fierro, of course? - Yes.
- And what do you like? - There is a sobriety, a nobility in Martín Fierro.
- Sobriety. The nudity. For example, it seems impossible
to write a book about the gaucho in which there is nota single description of the Pampa,
of the plain. However, in Martín Fierro there is none, and we feel the plain, and that seems to be extraordinary,
let's see: “… Cruz and Fierro from a ranch / A herd were lowered /
They were thrown in front / As knowledgeable Creoles, / And soon without being felt / They crossed the border / And when they had passed it, / A clear morning /
Cruz told him to look / The last towns, populations ... ”, there is given the plain, directly:
“ When they had passed it, the clear dawn Cruz told him to look at the last populations ”, and that is much more effective than
the descriptions of other authors. He was a storyteller who was then on your line,
of exactitude, of conciseness. I think so. I think so,
I think it is much more effective, for example, that the descriptions that we find in a book,
otherwise admire him, as "Don Segundo Sombra". Don Segundo Sombra, the author leaves the story
and begins to say that to the left there was, for example, a mountain, that to the right
there was a ranch, a ranch, whatever. On the other hand, in Martín Fierro, this, everything flows ...
the descriptive is on the side, but it is said, also, indicating or suggesting it ... And it also contrasts with all the other books
of gaucho poetry, where it is describes ... Everything is absurd. It is described, even excessively, isn't it? Well, yes, and there is also something else. The peasant does not see the landscape.
The one who has to pass is a cultured man. In Martín Fierro there is no description of the landscape ...
The one who narrates is a gaucho, so he cannot see the landscape. He cannot see it because,
let's say, a peasant looks at the sky in case it is going to rain or not, but not because
of this aesthetic enjoyment, not that. That is totally false, and in Martín Fierro everything
is fine like that. And in Ascasubi too. In 1956 they gave him the National Prize for Literature,
that everything arrives. Yes. It's true. And they give you the chair of English literature at the Faculty
of Philosophy and Letters of Buenos Aires. Two friends of mine had applied for that chair.
When they found out that I was running, they asked to be appointed, let's say, judges, to choose
the candidate, and they chose me. They had both run,
but they resigned their candidacy and voted for me. And they make you Doctor Honoris Causa
by the University of Cuyo, but by this time your blindness has been getting bigger and bigger
- It has been increasing, yes ... The first Doctorate Honoris Causa that I obtained,
from the University of Cuyo, in Mendoza. Then I had others. The one from Oxford, for example. Now I'm going to get the one from Santiago de Chile,
and in Colombia, I have also obtained degrees. Master, I would like to talk a little about a person
who has always been important to you, but who from that moment when,
due to his blindness, doctors forbid you to read and write to prevent him from accelerating,
she was always your companion, your mother. . Has your mother perhaps been
the being that has been closest to you? Yes. She was an admirable woman.
And she was honorably imprisoned during the dictatorship ... With me it has been an indulgence,
a kindness, exemplary, eh? More than specimens. And I wrote a poem after her death called "Remorse", and it is that I would have wanted to be happier
to please her, to make her happier. That I, once she is dead, have the remorse
of not having been happy, I would have liked to be happy, not for me, but for her. For her. She was much more than a mother to you.
She was a partner, she was a friend, a counselor. He died last year, at 99, a long life. For a time, my father died blind, and she said to me:
"well, I have been your father's eyes, now I will be your eyes", and indeed, all that with a generosity, with an indulgence, that is, she lived in that sacrifice… Yes, in that sacrifice,
she gave me everything and did not ask for anything, because children are easily ungrateful, not thankful. Did she think about your work,
did she give you her points of view? Yes, I was writing a story that she disliked a lot, called "The Intruder", and there...
It is about a man, it is about two brothers, there is a woman, whom both love. One of the brothers kills
the woman so that the woman does not come between them, then there comes a time when the older one has to tell
the younger that he has killed the woman. So, I didn't know how he could say that, and all the luck of the story depended on...
the name of the story was "The intruder"... it depended on the words, so my mother told me: “let me think”
she spoke like that in Creole, “let me think”, and then she told me, in a different voice:
"I know what he told him", as if that had happened, as if all that was not my dream, it is history.
"I already know what he said," well, write it, I told her, yes.
She went to write and read it, so the phrase was: "to work, brother, this morning I killed her." That is, he begins by reminding the other that they are brothers and orders him to work with him to bury the body,
and then comes the statement... All that my mother, I would not have noticed such a happy phrase. It is portentous. Yes, besides that, "I already know what he told him",
that is to say, that at that moment, she believed in the shores, this, imaginary ones.
She had identified with me. And in such a way that even better, since I had not found the phrase,
and she knew them better than I had imagined them. That moment is extraordinary. I see her, like this with the pen, stopping, I see exactly that morning,
on the desk, at the window, and she: "I already know what he told him".
And then he dictated the phrase to me, the perfect phrase that the story required to exist.
Then she told me: "I hope you no longer write stories like that, about cutlers and those vulgarities", then she took away all importance to the story and told me
that she expected me to write about other topics. Yes, that memory is very nice. Did you fall in love? A? Repeatedly? Several times, yes. That happens to every man, I think. - How many got married? One?
- No, one. - Only one.
- One is already too much, yes ... And what is the current moment in Borges' life?
How are you dealing with the future, that future so difficult to predict? Well, for the moment I try to think,
I try to think about my literary future. I try to think about the books that I have to write,
that I am already running out of time to write. I try to think about that.
And then I may have personal ambitions, perhaps, but those don't…
- They don't count. Those don't count, no. Are you comfortable here with us?
Did you like going back to Spain? Of course, yes, it has been something for me, very, very
valuable, very pleasant. Feeling that Spanish generosity, that, as I say in a poem, the mighty friendship
that is something typically Spanish, eh? That great river so of friendships,
of good will of the people. How do you see the country now,
from far and near, from within? I greet you with so much affection, I cannot ...
a political trial would not make any sense, that is given by me, I do not ...
I have already said that I do not understand political matters, but, but I trust, of course. Master, we would need hours and hours to talk with you, and God willing there will be time in the future. But I do not
want to tire you. Thank you very much for coming with us. But no, thank you very much. We really liked having you, getting to know you,
talking, penetrating your world a bit. - Well, you said all the essentials this afternoon, I didn't.
- No my God. I have limited myself to approving what you said.
Thank you very much. You are not just a man, you are literature,
all literature, mind and literature. Well why not. Thank you very much teacher, goodbye. have you seen
ENGLISH SUBTITLES
(Pending review)
"IN DEPTH"
director and presenter
joaquín soler serrano
A production of
Spanish Radio Television
edition and restoration 2020
GONZALO HERRALDE
information and sales: herraldegonzalo@gmail.com
