#27 Mon (7/18/22) - Forward to Barrenechea's Borges the Labyrinth Maker by J.L. Borges

Borges the Labyrinth Maker
by Ana Maria Barrenechea
Edited and translated by Robert Lima
New York University Press 1965

Forward to the Present Edition

Professor Barrenechea's book has taught me many things about myself. This is paradoxical, not in the common and erroneous sense of a startling statement, but, as explained by De Quincey, in the genuine sense of a truth which at first sight seems to be merely an amusing and false whim. Another way of putting it would be to say that there are many things in an author's work not intended and only partially understood by him; the business of criticism is to ferret them out. As Walt Whitman wrote: "Why, even I myself, I often think, no little of my real life; only a few hints, a few diffused faint clues and interactions I seek for my own use to trace out here."

Writers are book tools of the spirit; this is what Bernard Shaw meant when he remarks that the Holy Ghost is the author not only of the Holy Writ but of all books, and this, of course, is the feeling that underlies Homer's and Milton's invocations to the Heavenly Muse. Not only with understanding does a man write a book, but with his flesh and his soul, and with all his personal past and that of his forefathers. The tenants and opinions he holds are wrought by the superficial accidents of circumstance; what really matters is the driving trend behind the symbols. The author may not wholly understand them; this is the critic's task.

Every man of letters ends by evolving what he rather pompously considers a personal style, that is to say, a system (or jumble) of fads, oddities, and subjects whose particular owner he seems to be – of pet words and effective or ineffective tricks and turns of speech. These systems are never fully developed by their originators, who naturally don't wish to be completely predictable, but by their credulous disciples who clumsily ape them. A writer who is not unlike himself in every new book or sentence he pens runs the risk of becoming an obvious puppet, a mere provider of boredom. A storyteller has but few stories to tell; he needs to tell them a new, over and over again, in all their possible variations. The tales and tricks are not haphazard; they spring from his inner and hidden self and must be analyzed by the critic.

Ana Maria Barrenechea's book has unearthed many secret links and affinities in my own literary output of which I had been quite unaware. I thank her for these revelations of an unconscious process. This means that my best writings are of things that were striving to come to life through me, or in spite of me, and not simply allegories where the thought comes before the sign. I think all students of the literary craft should read this remarkable work, even if they do not especially care for my own tails and verses.

Jorge Luis Borges
Buenos Aires
January, 1964

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