I used to like Borges, but I must say that after watching his interview with William Buckley on YouTube I have to change my mind. I see in him the most pathetic being that can be conceived in literary terms. A frail, cowardly, old Latin American trying hard to LARP as an Englishman to satisfy his lack of self-esteem. What a vile creature was Borges, the man (although not the author). His stupid love for some cosmopolitan spirit is nothing but servility to the Perfidious Albion. What he forgets is that England is a forsaken land that produced absolutely nothing worthy after Shakespeare. In fact, the Englishman were battered to the ground by FUCKING Irishmen, for God's sake. But I digress. Borges reeks of stuffiness and a general lack of life. One would very likely find mould growing in the inner pockets of his jacket. I will always look up at his writings with affection, but I'll carry on pretending his books were written by myself, Uqbar-style.
I used to like Borges...
You projected the meaning onto the words anyway
>A frail, cowardly, old Latin American trying hard to LARP as an Englishman to satisfy his lack of self-esteem.
He wasn't trying to LARP, though. He was just an Anglophile. He even said on record "My destiny is the Castillian tongue" (Spanish) and that Dante, not Shakespeare, was the greatest writer ever. If you want an Aglofag LARPer look for T.S. Eliot.
this will make a great pasta
Too much is made of where one is from or what ones “racial” background is.
If the story is good it’s good.
This. Also his grandma only spoke English iirc and he spent a lot of time as a child, so he was actually kind of semi-native, like Nabokov.
From "Borges" (2006) by Adolfo Bioy Casares:
>BORGES: They say that lately, T.S. Eliot, to show himself as more English than the English has stated that Shakespeare was superior to Dante.
>SILVINA(Bioy's wife): Don't you think that?
>BORGES: I don't think anyone is superior to Dante. Shakespeare seems to me a little irresponsible to put him that high. I don't think of him as capable of building something like The Divine Comedy. He had eloquence, congratulations, that's also present in Dante.
>SILVINA: And the sonnets? Even if you don't like them they're very cute.
>BORGES: Dantes' are also not bad. Shakespeare's have a very weird theme... >SILVINA: What does it matter? Is it impossible to write a great work with a weird theme?
>BORGES: I don't know. The theme is so weird --asking a beautiful friend to marry and have children to whom he'd transmit his beauty-- that must be true, who would invent that? An argument against Shakespeare is that one does not always want to read him and that there's pieces we don't know.
>BIOY: Do you put The Divine Comedy above all?
>BORGES: As far as literature is concerned, it's only inferior to the Gospels. Homer might be a great writer, but it's incomparable to Dante and the authors of the Gospels. Is there a truly epic moment in The Illiad? I don't think so.
You watched the interview that some faggot did to him and you think all of a sudden that you know Georgie? Fucking kill yourself, Anglofag. Get in line. You don't know jackshit about Georgie. I FUCKING CAN'T GET WHY WOULD YOU EVEN SPEAK OUT OF PUTRID IGNORANCE. LIKE WHY? YOU DON'T KNOW GEORGIE, FAGGOT. HEAR ME? YOU DON'T. WHY EVEN ASSUME HE'D DEFEND SHAKESPEARE? FOR FUCK'S SAKE. KYS, END IT RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, DELETE THIS NONSENSE, THIS IS GEORGIE WE'RE TALKING YOU COCKSUCKING HOMO REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Watch the interview. It's pathetic how he hammers down the Spanish language (and the Romance languages in general) favoring English. The whole interview is a mess and I hate Buckley even more than I hate Borges. Stuffy, stinky, badly lit and far too humid people. His stupidity was so immense that he disparaged nationalism while supporting the fucking military coup in Argentina, calling those ignorant generals (who appealed to nationalistic instincts left and right) a "government of gentleman". It is very fitting that Eco named the librarian in The Name of the Rose 'Jorge'. If not for his weak body and blind eyes, Borges would definitely try to kill anyone who liked laughter and life.
Pretty good bait OP.
>If not for his weak body and blind eyes, Borges would definitely try to kill anyone who liked laughter and life.
He was an anarchist pacifist.
> It's pathetic how he hammers down the Spanish language (and the Romance languages in general) favoring English.
He does that also in his Spanish interviews. It's just boutade. Joking.
It's easy to call yourself a pacifist when you can't even bear the weight of your walking stick. Nietzsche had it right when he proclaimed that one needs to learn how to offend before being able to give praise. Borges' claim to pacifism is as laughable as an incel insisting he is abstaining from the flesh or entering monk mode. Remember: you're not abstaining if no girl would let you touch her with a six feet pole.
DID YOU FUCKING SEE HIM KILLING PEOPLE, JOINING SOME GUERRILLA OR THE COMMIES OR COMMITING ACTS OF VIOLENCE WHEN HE WAS YOUNG AND IN HIS PRIME? GEORGIE WAS WRITING POEMS AND STORIES, YOU POISONOUS MONGOLOID. CONSIDER SUICIDE, ÜBERPLEB FAGGOT.
Borges was Lovecraft-tier when it came to meekness, inwardness and self-loathing. Of course he didn't do any of those things. He was too insecure to do anything of the like.
THEN WHAT'S YOUR FUCKING ISSUE HERE? DON'T MESS WITH GEORGIE.
Is there something else in Borges apart from neverending references and meta-gimmicks?
a great poet
Gouchos
Geez, man. Read them
and a lucid essayist
Not really. But he is a master at doing that stuff, I'll give you that. He was unable to have a single original thought, and that's why he wrote Pierre Menard. He was justifying his plagiarism through literary theory.
Borges considered himself a coward. It is unnecessary to watch some interview of him to get that; his prose -mostly his gaucho works- are plentiful of nostalgic and idealistic visions of the "uneducated" man, as opposed to the literary snob, represented by him.
He was unable to renounce to his comfy lifestyle, however, you can read in many of his works (Deutsches Requiem, La otra muerte, Tema del traidor y del héroe) that he endorsed this literate life as the path God or maybe himself or maybe nobody choose for him.
That's the great thing of Borges, almost metaphysical: he, being so clearly one of the best (if not the best) Latin American writer, constantly makes fun of the literary and artsy ways of life, knowing that each time he was read and reread the snobish circles (in Latin America, this is the cradle that read books, leaving the poor, "cimarrones y vernáculos") that do so would, in reality, mocking themselves in some sort of celestial scenario. This last is set explicit in short stories like Pierre Menard or El Aleph.
>. He was unable to have a single original thought, and that's why he wrote Pierre Menard.
Pierre Menard is ironically, a very original idea and story.
>He was justifying his plagiarism through literary theory.
No such thing as plagiarism when it comes to Borges.
He publicly stuck up for the Jews at the height of anti-Semitic persecution in his country.
I never got this feeling from his stories. Just read "The South", man. He's clearly renouncing the nationalism from his youth (when he was young he even wrote using gaúcho-speak). He actively DESTROYED his early books. A rather pitiful act, if you ask me. But oh well, what to expect from a wannabe Englishman?
This. OP's a fag who barely knows Borges.
Daily reminder that anti-semitism was never a big thing in South America, even when it reached its zenith. Truly nothing exceptional about "standing up for the Jews" in Argentina. In fact, of course he did it. He needed to maintain his cosmopolitan façade.
>what to expect from a wannabe Englishman?
That's a complete misunderstanding of Borges. He loved America and France and Germany too, as well as the Jews. You must understand Borges was peculiar sort of man. His life was mainly mental and literary. Most of his battles were fought behind the forehead. So when he discovered a great author, he felt a great kinship and fascination. He was a semi-citizen of every country whose literature he loved and England happened to place highly because it has a great literature. But he still placed it below Dante, the Greeks, the Hebrews, if I'm not mistaken.
>But oh well, what to expect from a wannabe Englishman?
Well, for one, to write in English, not in Spanish. And to consider Shakespeare the best writer ever, not Dante. And to have his remains put in England, not in Switzerland. Just basic Anglofag things. Maybe even you are like this, who knows.
Was he an anglo larper? He idealizes the gaucho lifestyle rather than pose as an englishman
>not in Switzerland
I'm American and not Argentine, but I somewhat resent that he had his bones interred in Switzerland and not his native land
based
He read in English almost exclusively. His attitude was much like the one Dutch poster who says he's shunned his mother tongue. I'll grant you one thing: Borges thought he was unlucky for having Spanish as his mother tongue, but he owned it anyway. It's a more honest position than that of, say, Nabokov, who was absolutely JELLY of the Russian tradition but had to write in English in order to receive any sort of recognition.
>He read in English almost exclusively.
Except when he read in Spanish, German, Old Norse...
>Nabokov, who was absolutely JELLY of the Russian tradition but had to write in English in order to receive any sort of recognition
Nabokov was a better writer in Russian than in English. He had to write in English because he was losing familiarity with his native tongue and it was the only way to maintain an audience.
Oh you didn't get the memo? English LARPers now have their bones interred in Switzerland, write in Spanish, and consider Dante the best writer ever. That's just how things are now.
A cosmopolitan Anglo LARPer would do those things, yes.
>He idealizes the gaucho lifestyle
He said in interviews that he considered the Gauchos to be crude and primitive blockheads.
Or, y'know, any cosmoplitan person, like, I don't know, JORGE FRANCISCO ISIDORO LUIS BORGES ACEVEDO.
That’s what happens when your grandfather fought for th Unitarian party and suffered under Federalist forces. Borges makes no excuses for his lifestyle and was famously a snob. He has the self awareness to know this and also sees the abyss and human suffering for what it is. He took advantage of his resources. Certainly the cosmopolitan lifestyle isn’t for everyone and approaching it in a prescriptive manner is a mistake, Borges likes who he is and takes an active interest in being a good human being. He writes about Gauchos in a way that’s both surprisingly authentic but not fetishized.
I wish we had a show like Firing Line now. Buckley would bring literally anybody on and let them speak.
There's no one to bring on now, it's be done in four months.
>Bloom has already been everywhere
>Pynchon wouldn't do it
>Politicians aren't remarkable or interesting these days, they're just party representatives
>England is a forsaken land that produced absolutely nothing worthy after Shakespeare.
I disagree. You don’t like Milton? Or Donne? Or Herbert? Or Dryden? Or Browning? Or Shelley? Or Keats? Or Hardy?
>Or Herbert? Or Dryden? Or Browning?
>Keats
>Hardy
yikes
Or Sterne? Or Coleridge? Or De Quincey?
OP is likely a butthurt slav, no other group is as upset about the English as them, for some reason.
So what you are saying is that if the exact stories that Borges wrote were somehow written by someone else you would like them better and consider them or greater quality? That’s fucking stupid.
OP might be a meta-troll because Borges wrote masterfully about identity. That’s what Pierre Menard was all about, but it shows up through all of his works.
That's modern Americans for you. You have to be a politically correct, righteous, humanist, or else you're work as an artist is shit. That's a how feeble and autistic America has become.
Here is a great poem by George Herbert I’m sure you would appreciate. You likely have never read him before.
My God, I heard this day
That none doth build a stately habitation
But he that means to dwell therein.
What house more stately hath there been,
Or can be, than is man, to whose creation
All things are in decay?
For man is ev'ry thing,
And more: he is a tree, yet bears more fruit;
A beast, yet is, or should be, more;
Reason and speech we only bring;
Parrots may thank us if they are not mute,
They go upon the score.
Man is all symmetry,
Full of proportions, one limb to another,
And all to all the world besides;
Each part may call the furthest brother,
For head with foot hath private amity,
And both with moons and tides.
Nothing hath got so far
But man hath caught and kept it as his prey;
His eyes dismount the highest star;
He is in little all the sphere;
Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they
Find their acquaintance there.
For us the winds do blow,
The earth doth rest, heav'n move, and fountains flow.
Nothing we see but means our good,
As our delight, or as our treasure;
The whole is either our cupboard of food,
Or cabinet of pleasure.
The stars have us to bed;
Night draws the curtain, which the sun withdraws;
Music and light attend our head;
All things unto our flesh are kind
In their descent and being; to our mind
In their ascent and cause.
Each thing is full of duty;
Waters united are our navigation;
Distinguished, our habitation;
Below, our drink; above, our meat;
Both are our cleanliness. Hath one such beauty?
Then how are all things neat!
More servants wait on man
Than he'll take notice of; in ev'ry path
He treads down that which doth befriend him,
When sickness makes him pale and wan.
Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath
Another to attend him.
Since then, my God, thou hast
So brave a palace built, O dwell in it,
That it may dwell with thee at last!
Till then, afford us so much wit,
That, as the world serves us, we may serve thee,
And both thy servants be.
is this the brazilian shakespeare dude?
man, you gotta ease off with this.
Here’s a little bit of Dryden’s Aeneid, you should try reading it someday
Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
And in the doubtful war, before he won
The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,
And settled sure succession in his line,
From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
And the long glories of majestic Rome.
O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
To persecute so brave, so just a man;
Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!
Can heav'nly minds such high resentment show,
Or exercise their spite in human woe?
I get it, you're proud of your country. This, however, is a Borges thread.
The man was a cosmopolitan. His favourite translation of the Odyssey was an English one, and his favourite translation of the Arabian Nights was a Spanish one. He liked Schopenhauer and the Norse sagas, too. Borges liked quality. It isn't anyone's fault.
I’m not even English. I just think you are a stupid ignorant fuck.
>I’m not even English. I just think you are a stupid ignorant fuck.
rude desu
thanks apu. you're always there for me, even when you're not
>OP is likely a butthurt slav, no other group is as upset about the English as them, for some reason.
Nah, there is a whole bunch of retarded Argentinians here. Surprised that people haven't picked up on this yet. They are fairly obvious. They are active around the same time Americans are active. One of the main unabomber pushers on this board is an Argentinian.
>One of the main unabomber pushers on this board is an Argentinian.
sounds based to me
Anglos lack souls, Borges is good.
>being this butthurt about las malvinas in the year 2019
you described TS Eliot too lol
>“Of course the blacks are unbearable…I don’t retract what I’ve stated so many times: the Americans made a grave mistake in educating them; as slaves, they were like children, they were happier and less annoying.”
>Which group of people would you say you dislike the most? There are three that come to mind, of course. Women, blacks and homosexuals. Women are not fit for anything other than giving birth and pleasing men. Blacks are fit for nothing, have produced nothing and as a group, can only live on if the white man choses it so. Homosexuals are a a disgusting abomination that god will rightfully punish.
>Basque? I don’t understand how anyone could feel proud of being Basque…The Basques are even more useless than the blacks, and notice that the only good the blacks have ever served for is to be slaves.
>…rich people suffer a lot and are very unhappy. The poor suffer much less than the rich.
How can you dislike an author this based and redpilled?
can confirm
>t. retarded argentinian
Back to discord you fucking tranny
That may be the case but I'm neither Argentine or Anglo. Spanish isn't even my mothertongue, desu. Borges just gave me a bad impression, that's it.
Holy fuck Borges was this racist and sexist? Fuck, i won't read him anymore. Supporting his art would be the same as supporting racism and sexism. Life, and consequently, ART is inherently political. Separating the "art" from the "artist" is a bourgeois myth that makes no sense. Supporting Borges IS supporting racism, sexism and naive bourgeois politics.
Thanks for being smart.
No writer's lifestyle should be seen as prescriptive. One should strive to be like Borges in the sense that one loves and embraces what one is.
>Is there a truly epic moment in the Illiad? I don't think so.
Cringiest statement I've read in a while comes froma hack who learned what 'change of base' meant in maths and proceeded to endlessly spawn the same story, over and over again. No surprises here, let's just move on.
You're just butthurt your favorite book got BTFO by Borges.
>When he proved with math that Nietzsche ER isn't possible
Whas Borgie an autist?
t. Black homosexual woman
pretty sure he's joking
OP is literally "watches_____ once" guy. what a turd.
Do you have doubts?
what a cancerous thread
This is cool but c'mon there's nothing extraordinary here.
Explain yourself
holy shit the levels of based are off the scale
>I don't know. The theme is so weird
>Is there a truly epic moment in The Illiad?
was it senility?
>England is a forsaken land that produced absolutely nothing worthy after Shakespeare
we produced the greatest man to have lived & then stopped
Yeah, because Dickens did not exist.
Also read Chesterton, faggot
Serious question: what's so great about Dante? The Divine Comedy was easily my least favourite of the classical works I've read. I can understand that maybe my translation sucked and the Italian is beautiful, but I don't recall being captivated by any of the ideas or feeling for the characters either. Seemed to just restate fairly conventional religious beliefs overlaid with the author's now-irrelevant and often petty political concerns.
The 'fanfiction' meme felt pretty accurate tbphwy
Are you mentally challenged?
Nietzsche ER
>England is a forsaken land that produced absolutely nothing worthy after Shakespeare
and even then Shakespeare was average
>hammers down the Spanish language
based
>JELLY of the Russian tradition
holy shit stfu
Why are you on an anglo website?
>He read in English almost exclusively.
Borges spoke fluent English, French, Spanish and German.
And Anglo-Saxon lmao
Thermodynamics proves Schaupenhaur to be not only right, but more than right, with his analogy of a cat eating a bird. Not only does the bird suffer more than the cat feels joy, physics is built on the assumption (when entropy applies to organic energy transfer) that the number of bird who have to die is always (and substantially) greater than the number of cats which get to live.
Just goes to show that N. was a brainletism who couldn’t handle the fact Western philosophy was ended by S.
I get the acclaim and appreciate it for what it is, but yeah, it's a bit of a stinker.
I mean, the theme in that poem is very homosexual.
It's the most beautiful architecture in all of literature.
poor old shakespeare, he was a playwright and you know what the stage is like, and in those days all the womens' parts were played by boys. so he naturally got rather sensitive, and the boys can take over woman characteristics and play the woman in an extraordinary way, it was the woman that shakespeare was in love with. then of course, suddenly he became a man and the whole thing ended in tears.
i like the part where he goes to the moon lol
explain
that doesn't make any sense
nigger read in chapter 5 of deleuze difference & repetition regarding entropy and fuck off w/ your silly metaphysics
robert graves said that