Borges, biography Pt.2

Further to this post, where I expressed my doubts about the value of biography as something that reduced the otherness of certain forms of art by limiting its inspiration to often domestic circumstances. After finishing Borges: A Life by Edwin Williamson, I’m ready to qualify that opinion. This biography focuses very much upon the author’s emotional life to the detriment of his intellectual concerns. It’s understood that this is a deliberate approach that can be ascribed to the biographer’s unearthing of new details of Borges’ life. As a result, most of what are commonly considered to be Borges’ most original and challenging fictions are largely ignored. The likes of Funes, The Memorius, Tlon Uqbar, Orbis Tertius and pretty much any of the less personal works are barely mentioned except to acknowledge their publication at certain points in the author’s life. Instead, it’s the context for the later work collected in The Book Of Sand and Doctor Brodie’s Report that are detailed. This is, for me, very much the best outcome because I had always found the later stories to be almost transparent in both subject matter and exposition. Understanding how Borges explored personal themes in these works causes them to be greatly enriched as I now reread them now. Their frequent reference to swords, knives, honour and expectation is contextualised and their emotional impact significantly deepened. The next book I want to read now is The Lesson of the Master: On Borges and His Work by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, his chief English translator.