What do you think?
Rate this book
Borges on Writing
豪尔赫·路易斯·博尔赫斯是一个世界级的作家 ，他熟悉写作的条条框框，知道如何打破、什么时候打破这些条条框框。他是语言的魔术师，如同所有最优秀的变戏法的人、诗人一样，一旦戏法揭穿，诗文出口，他会让我们感到，这原来一直存在，在我们心中的某个地方，只是没能表达出来而已。
1971年春，博尔赫斯应邀赴哥伦比亚大学为写作班进行讲学，他解析自己的作品，并通过例子帮助其他人改进他们的作品。每次讲课围绕一个主题：谈写小说，谈写诗歌，谈翻译。在座的人，每人分发到博尔赫斯的短篇小说《决斗（另篇）》和他的六首诗，以及博尔赫斯作品的不同译本范例，博尔赫斯逐行评论，详细讲解创作的过程。
《博尔赫斯，写作课》以讲课的录音稿为底稿，为保留原汁原味，未作任何编辑。另附课堂中所举范例的西班牙文原文与英文译文，供对比阅读。
1971年春，博尔赫斯应邀赴哥伦比亚大学为写作班进行讲学，他解析自己的作品，并通过例子帮助其他人改进他们的作品。每次讲课围绕一个主题：谈写小说，谈写诗歌，谈翻译。在座的人，每人分发到博尔赫斯的短篇小说《决斗（另篇）》和他的六首诗，以及博尔赫斯作品的不同译本范例，博尔赫斯逐行评论，详细讲解创作的过程。
《博尔赫斯，写作课》以讲课的录音稿为底稿，为保留原汁原味，未作任何编辑。另附课堂中所举范例的西班牙文原文与英文译文，供对比阅读。
173 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
78 people are currently reading
1880 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,927 books14k followersJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
April 22, 2023
In 1971 Borges gave a series of three talks to university students in New York, dedicated to poetry, fiction and translation, and these have been recorded and published in this slim volume. It reads like a transcript of a public radio programme, a conversation between intelligent and well-read people, even if the original insights are not quite abundant. Borges comes across as a humble, curious, inquisitive man, a bit lonely, puzzled by his celebrity and yet clearly relishing it. An enjoyable read.
March 27, 2011
I am continuing my reading of the five collections of Borges' stories, essays, and poems published by Penguin in 2010 under the editorship of Suzanne Jill Levine. The reason I am doing this is twofold: First of all, going all the way back to the 1960s, I have thought that the Argentinean author walks on water -- and, in fact, he has influenced me powerfully in my adventures as a voyager in world literature. Secondly, I am expecting to visit Argentina later this year and want to pay homage to one of the most important influences of my life. (I plan to stay in the northwest Buenos Aires neighborhood -- Palermo -- in which he lived much of his life.)
What I find interesting about the Levine Penguin series is that we see not only the old Borges, the blind Tiresias who delighted in uttering oracular statements, but also the young man who was not overly afraid of making a fool of himself. Witness the opening essay in this collection, "Ultra Manifesto" (1921), in which Borges sounds like any other collegian trying on the latest "-ism" as if it were a new pair of shoes. This is a very ungodlike Borges, indeed, and sometimes a callow one.
Although Borges has directed so much of my reading, I was somewhat surprised to see him panning two great writers I discovered on my own. In a 1940 review of his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares's The Invention of Morel, he disses Marcel Proust on one page -- "There are pages, there are chapters in Marcel Proust that are unacceptable as inventions, and we unwittingly resign ourselves to them as we resign ourselves to the insipidity and emptiness of each day" -- and in the next paragraph slams into Honoré de Balzac -- "Ortega y Gasset was right when he said that Balzac's 'psychology' does not satisfy us; the same thing could be said of his plots." Sigh! I guess in literary criticism there are no perfect fits: One takes the good with the bad.
Borges's reputation over the last 40-50 years rests primarily on two collections of short stories he wrote in the 1940s, Ficciones and The Aleph, whereas he thought of himself more as a literary critic and a poet. With me, also, these two early collections were the high-water mark of his career; but I am not averse from reading as much of his work as I can -- regardless what I discover in the process.
What I find interesting about the Levine Penguin series is that we see not only the old Borges, the blind Tiresias who delighted in uttering oracular statements, but also the young man who was not overly afraid of making a fool of himself. Witness the opening essay in this collection, "Ultra Manifesto" (1921), in which Borges sounds like any other collegian trying on the latest "-ism" as if it were a new pair of shoes. This is a very ungodlike Borges, indeed, and sometimes a callow one.
Although Borges has directed so much of my reading, I was somewhat surprised to see him panning two great writers I discovered on my own. In a 1940 review of his friend Adolfo Bioy Casares's The Invention of Morel, he disses Marcel Proust on one page -- "There are pages, there are chapters in Marcel Proust that are unacceptable as inventions, and we unwittingly resign ourselves to them as we resign ourselves to the insipidity and emptiness of each day" -- and in the next paragraph slams into Honoré de Balzac -- "Ortega y Gasset was right when he said that Balzac's 'psychology' does not satisfy us; the same thing could be said of his plots." Sigh! I guess in literary criticism there are no perfect fits: One takes the good with the bad.
Borges's reputation over the last 40-50 years rests primarily on two collections of short stories he wrote in the 1940s, Ficciones and The Aleph, whereas he thought of himself more as a literary critic and a poet. With me, also, these two early collections were the high-water mark of his career; but I am not averse from reading as much of his work as I can -- regardless what I discover in the process.
January 24, 2014
Some 40 years ago, an almost informal encounter took place in an auditorium of Columbia University. A small group of students enrolled in some writing program met Borges with various questions about inspiration, subject, motivation, beliefs etc., keen to discover some of the authorship secrets.
It was not the usual academic approach. Borges’ blindness meant that his friend Di Giovanni would read some text he would interrupt from time to time to explain some obscure meaning, to remember some circumstance that conducted to a phrasing or a rephrasing, to evoke some autobiographical or historical event that inspired one scene or another.
A gold mine for a biographer or a literary historian or even a mere reader curious about the creative process. Were they – are they equally useful for an aspiring writer? I’d say they are in the same way the famous Philosophy of Composition is. Like Poe does with his Raven, Borges explains his short story The End of the Duel (and later one or two poems) paragraph by paragraph to prove, apparently, that there is nothing arbitrary in the creation of a work of art. We learn about the source of inspiration (an anecdote told by a friend), the stylistic of the names (“Carmen is a woman's name, but it's fairly common· for gauchos to have a woman's name if it doesn't end with an a. So a gaucho might be called Carmen Silveira”), the historical background (“The battle of Manantiales stands for the revolution in Uruguay called "La Guerra de Aparicio."), the message (“…it's meant to be horrifying or what we used to call hard-boiled, and in order to make it horrifying I left the horror to the reader's imagination”) and so on.
All this tremendously interesting, but where lies the magic recipe for creation? Can you, carefully respecting the recommendations, write something as beautiful as The Raven or The End of the Duel? To rephrase, can the ineffable be explained? One cannot even hope to catch all meanings of the exemplified texts, but how beautifully both authors fool us!
What one can discover, however, is some artistic beliefs. For example, Borges’ mistrust in Sartre’s concept of “littérature engagée” because it would limit the imagination since the stories own the writer rather than the other way around:
I don't choose my own subjects, they choose me. I do my best to oppose them, but they keep on worrying me and nagging me, and so I finally have to sit down and write them and then publish them to get rid of them.
Or his opinion that a poet’s duty is to master the forms before writing free verse, (this sounds like Queneau a little whom I don’t know whether he had read) since “… in the long run, to break the rules, you must know about the rules.”
Or his pride in the mark his English heritage left on his style (and on Spanish language, I’d add), revealed in the passionate quest for the right word while collaborating at the translation of his own works from Spanish.
During this short revelatory journey into a moment of Borges’ past, we are mesmerized by the quiet beauty of the man behind the creator. And we keep envying all reading long those lucky enough to have been in Columbia University auditorium 40 years ago…
January 31, 2025
This book was my introduction to Borges' work. I read it in my leisure time over my first year of college. I was impressed and intrigued, but I think I failed to appreciate Borges' genius at the time. I felt a bit of offense at Borges' attitude toward writing longer works of fiction, but he may have been way ahead of his time. Additionally, I appreciate that he was honest about his love of adventure fiction. I think the world of letters should work harder to merge great stories with the psychological depth and stylistic invention of literary fiction. However, Borges also offer an alternative route - rendering philosophical thought experiments as narrative. I recommend this work to anyone who wants an introduction to Borges or a refresher on his oeuvre.
April 29, 2020
متن سخنرانی بورخس در دانشگاه کلمبیا در سال 1972؛ سه روز و سه سخنرانی در مورد قصهنویسی و شعر و ترجمه. بورخس میگوید در آستانۀ هفتادوسه سالگی به عقل سلیم برگشته و به جای گیج کردن خواننده با عبارات مطنطن، مطلب را هر چه بیشتر برای خواننده آسان میکند
December 29, 2017
Este libro recopila las charlas de Borges con estudiantes de la Universidad de Columbia en 1971. En su seminario, Borges trató temas como los cuentos, la traducción y la poesía, éste libro es la transcripción de esas conversaciones.
Disfruté mucho la lectura de éste libro porque es tener una irada cercana a la vida del escritor y traductor, a sus mañas, prejuicios, decisiones, leyes propias y conjeturas. Es como hablar con Borges cara a cara (no por nada soñé teniendo una conversación con él mientras leía el libro). Éste libro tiene un gran valor literario para todo aquel que quiera acercarse a los métodos y pensamiento de Borges, particularmente (y personalmente) la sección de traducción fue fascinante: las decisiones y motivos para escoger una palabra sobre otra, lo difícil y bonito de traducir poesía, el trabajo conjunto entre autor y traductor.
Este libro me dio más ganas de estudiar traducción y ahondó mi convicción sobre lo importante de este oficio.
Disfruté mucho la lectura de éste libro porque es tener una irada cercana a la vida del escritor y traductor, a sus mañas, prejuicios, decisiones, leyes propias y conjeturas. Es como hablar con Borges cara a cara (no por nada soñé teniendo una conversación con él mientras leía el libro). Éste libro tiene un gran valor literario para todo aquel que quiera acercarse a los métodos y pensamiento de Borges, particularmente (y personalmente) la sección de traducción fue fascinante: las decisiones y motivos para escoger una palabra sobre otra, lo difícil y bonito de traducir poesía, el trabajo conjunto entre autor y traductor.
Este libro me dio más ganas de estudiar traducción y ahondó mi convicción sobre lo importante de este oficio.
July 22, 2023
To unlock the mind/brain of Jorge Luis Borges is a good thing, and his collection of essays on literature or writing is a good book to have around you. What I found interesting is his essays on the popular Detective novel. Especially on a writer like Ellery Queen. Borges reacts not only works of the past, but also during his current or contemporary times as well.
December 10, 2015
I would recommend it firstly because Borges is able to articulate his extraordinarily precise comprehension of words and how they work together and from it I'm able to get an inkling into how to read more closely. He makes the point in one of the essays on translation that a translator reads more closely and accurately than anyone else. Nothing tests my grasp of a passage more than trying to put it into another language.
Something else I found interesting is that his perspective as a thoughtful reader to whom the nature of the twentieth century was not a given (he was born in 1899) gave him some distance from the developments of the twentieth century. For example, he saw the rise of the detective novel and science fiction as the birth of forms that were dominated by the intellect rather than the spirit.
I found his thinking fascinating. I'll try to demonstrate it with a quote from a review a book of fairy tales from Turkestan.
“Shakespeare – according to his own metaphor – enclosed the events of many years in the turning of a water clock. Joyce, with a mollifying gesture, defers the flight of time and unfolds over seven hundred long-winded pages the day in the life of a man. The time that governs these stories is neither the rushing time of Shakespeare nor the maniacally dragged-out time of Joyce: it is time undefined, light, not weighing upon the events, and we do not know whether we should measure it by years or by days, by calendars, or sunsets.”
For a modern to be able to conceive of time as "undefined, light" is unusual. It reminds me of the ending of an old Slavic poem/letter that strikes me as surprising (and delightful) whenever I read it:
"Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there..."
Something else I found interesting is that his perspective as a thoughtful reader to whom the nature of the twentieth century was not a given (he was born in 1899) gave him some distance from the developments of the twentieth century. For example, he saw the rise of the detective novel and science fiction as the birth of forms that were dominated by the intellect rather than the spirit.
I found his thinking fascinating. I'll try to demonstrate it with a quote from a review a book of fairy tales from Turkestan.
“Shakespeare – according to his own metaphor – enclosed the events of many years in the turning of a water clock. Joyce, with a mollifying gesture, defers the flight of time and unfolds over seven hundred long-winded pages the day in the life of a man. The time that governs these stories is neither the rushing time of Shakespeare nor the maniacally dragged-out time of Joyce: it is time undefined, light, not weighing upon the events, and we do not know whether we should measure it by years or by days, by calendars, or sunsets.”
For a modern to be able to conceive of time as "undefined, light" is unusual. It reminds me of the ending of an old Slavic poem/letter that strikes me as surprising (and delightful) whenever I read it:
"Now we'll conclude, for we don't know the date and don't own a calendar; the moon's in the sky, the year in the book, the day's the same over here as it is over there..."
January 23, 2018
Esto es lo más cerca que estaré de tener una clase con Borges
January 6, 2025
SI el último libro del 24 fue "Último round", de Cortázar, qué gusto que el primero del 25 sea un Borges, aunque esté fuera del canon borgiano. Es otro borges oral, el último o penúltimo, "El aprendizaje del escritor", publicado por primera vez en 2015 y originariamente en inglés en 1972. Son el resultado del la transcripción y edición de una visita al departamento de Artes de la Universidad de Columbia, en la que Borges, junto a su traductor al inglés Norman Thomas de Giovanni, dieron tres clases magistrales. Una dedicada a la narrativa y la prosa, otra a la poesía y finalmente, una dedicada a la traducción, que quizá es la más interesante técnicamente. Uno se queda con ganas de más, y de escuchar más a Borges, y no deja de recordar el estupendo libro de María Esther Vázquez de entrevistas y recopilaciones. Pero pese a eso, un poco de Borges es mucho, y aunque a veces el traductor Di Giovanni nos suena a que se pasa de listo en sus bromas, mientras que Borges es muy respetuoso con su colaborador y no duda en lanzarse las invectivas contra sí mismo, pese a eso, no deja de ser un libro del cuál se puede recuperar mucho para todos aquellos a los que les interesa Borges y la literatura y el arte de la creación.
December 6, 2020
Boy, and I thought reading Borges' FICTION made me feel dumb! Incredible insights into the art of writing, translation, and narratives from the master.
December 2, 2024
No wonder these were transcripts from a course taught at Columbia because they were mostly confusing
November 4, 2020
I read it like sipping nectar from a cup, as I have heard a lot about Borges' genius from fellow readers, and this book really gave me opportunity to peep in the writer's working mind.
I couldn't enjoy much of the Translation portion, simply because my Spanish is limited to Hola and Gracious, but I did enjoy Fiction and Poetry parts.
I would like to recommend it to every would be writer.
I couldn't enjoy much of the Translation portion, simply because my Spanish is limited to Hola and Gracious, but I did enjoy Fiction and Poetry parts.
I would like to recommend it to every would be writer.
June 8, 2014
Este libro corresponde a la transcripción de unas charlas en la Universidad de Columbia, las que están agrupadas en ficción, poesía y traducción. En cada una de éstas se analizan en detalle ejemplos de la obra de Borges en relación a lo que están explicando, y podemos ver reflejado a cabalidad el estilo minucioso, preciso y detallista de Borges, quien no deja nada al descuido. Me sorprendió especialmente la sección correspondiente a la traducción de las obras de Borges al inglés, por la tremenda complejidad y el cuidado que se debe tener ante las pequeñas sutilezas del lenguaje y de la intención de su obra. El tremendo amor de Borges por la literatura, su aprecio por el orden, su mirada conservadora, se ven reflejados a cabalidad en sus intervenciones. Quizás está de más lo condescendiente de su interlocutor (Di Giovanni), incluso ante la autocrítica del propio autor. Para los interesados en escribir, y para los estudiosos de la obra de Borges, un imprescindible. Para quienes admiramos su obra, un interesante aporte que nos permite conocer la técnica y motivaciones de un grande de la literatura universal.
September 26, 2022
Esta calificación es solamente sobre el apartado de ficción, ya que no leí la parte de poesía y traducción porque actualmente no son de mi interés. El formato del libro es amigable, primero aparece el cuento de "El otro duelo", después el ponente lo recita y Borges va deteniendolo para hacer comentarios sobre el porqué escribió cada cosa. Posteriormente, hay una sección de preguntas y respuestas de parte del alumnado. Es bueno el libro, uno aprende varios trucos y datos curiosos sobre Borges, las preguntas son interesantes y las respuestas también. Me hubiese gustado que el seminario fuese sobre otro cuento, ya que este es disfrutable pero muy conciso y no da mucho para profundizar. La mayoría de anotaciones son sobre regionalismos del cuento, como bien lo dice su autor, actualmente es más directo, lo digamos "rebuscado" quedo en el antiguo Borges. Podemos notar los antes mencionado en las preguntas del alumnado, la mayoría son sobre otros de sus cuentos. En fin, recomendaría este apartado para alguien que le gusta Borges más qué para alguien que busca material o una dirección para escribir.
June 16, 2020
Es un libro que contiene las transcripciones de las conversaciones que Borges sostuvo con uno de sus traductores al inglés, Norman Thomas di Giovanni, y los alumnos de este en la Universidad de Columbia, en New York, en 1971.
Está divido en tres partes: una dedicada al cuento, otra a la poesía y una a la traducción. Tiene la novedad de que en cada caso se lee, párrafo por párrafo, un cuento y un poema de Borges. Y Borges, que es un interruptor compulsivo, va comentando.
Después estuve averiguando y Di Giovanni es un personaje un poco “complejo”. Fue un gran impulsor de la obra de Borges en los Estados Unidos, logrando que se publicaran varios de sus cuentos en periódicos y revistas importantes, pero parece que en algún punto se creyó un poco co-autor de los textos de Borges (incluso, cobraba el 50 % de la regalías de Borges en inglés). Llegó, incluso, a escribir unas memorias de su relación con Borges bastante mezquinas. Les dejo un artículo que escribió Antonio Muñoz Molina al respecto https://elpais.com/cultura/2014/11/04...
Está divido en tres partes: una dedicada al cuento, otra a la poesía y una a la traducción. Tiene la novedad de que en cada caso se lee, párrafo por párrafo, un cuento y un poema de Borges. Y Borges, que es un interruptor compulsivo, va comentando.
Después estuve averiguando y Di Giovanni es un personaje un poco “complejo”. Fue un gran impulsor de la obra de Borges en los Estados Unidos, logrando que se publicaran varios de sus cuentos en periódicos y revistas importantes, pero parece que en algún punto se creyó un poco co-autor de los textos de Borges (incluso, cobraba el 50 % de la regalías de Borges en inglés). Llegó, incluso, a escribir unas memorias de su relación con Borges bastante mezquinas. Les dejo un artículo que escribió Antonio Muñoz Molina al respecto https://elpais.com/cultura/2014/11/04...
February 5, 2015
El comienzo del libro con la lectura del cuento y las interrupciones me ha parecido un material poco apropiado para convertir en texto. Pero las otras dos partes (poesía y traducción) sí te introducen en la atmósfera de las charlas que mantuvieron con los estudiantes. Todo el libro, eso sí, refleja, indirectamente, una biografía literaria espléndida unida a la interesante labor de Di Giovanni (su traductor)
September 29, 2016
Transcripts from university seminars, and that's how it reads: shallow but occasionally fascinating, but mostly soothing.
Nice to know Borges, like me, isn't so keen on literature that's visual. No coincidence that he was blind, and I'm really short sighted, but still: "I think if you are too vivid you're really creating unreality, because the fact of seeing things in that way blurs them."
Nice to know Borges, like me, isn't so keen on literature that's visual. No coincidence that he was blind, and I'm really short sighted, but still: "I think if you are too vivid you're really creating unreality, because the fact of seeing things in that way blurs them."
August 21, 2020
Para mí, que me falta lo que se necesita para entender por ejemplo, la alta filosofía que te lleva a la mente de los pensadores, tener la oportunidad de un paseo relajado en la cabeza de un autor de gran estatura es como una caminata de tardecita desocupada.
December 9, 2014
Borges is an author that you grow with and constantly surpasses any previous expectations. No?
August 9, 2021
'BORGES: When I think of my grandfather who died in action, when I think of my great-grandfather who had to fight his kinsmen in the wars of the dictator Rosas, when I think of people in my family who had their throats cut or who were shot, I realize I’m leading a very tame kind of life. But really I’m not, because after all they may have just lived through these things and not felt them, whereas I’m living a very secluded life and am feeling them, which is another way of living them—and perhaps a deeper one, for all I know. In any case, I shouldn’t complain of being a man of letters. There are harder destinies than that, I suppose."
January 13, 2021
Basically a transcript of a class he taught at Columbia, reading and commenting on his work and answering questions. Really liked the section on the gaucho short story.
July 3, 2025
4.5/5
March 2, 2012
I picked up this book looking for an introduction to Borges and instead I received an assortment of his short essays with no central theme other than to convey what a brilliant and well read man he was.
Borges traverses a wide canvas in this book: the exploration of words, metaphors, translation, narrative, reading, critical reviewing and a section for his favourite genre, the detective story. His sources are wide and varied; from Whitman to Woolf, James (Henry) to Joyce (James), Kafka to Melville, Flaubert to Wells, Poe to Conan Doyle, he plucks examples with confidence, losing us in his complex sentences and thought patterns.
I picked up a few of his insights which I thought might be useful to mention:
1. “Art happens, it cannot be crafted” (this was a quote from Walt Whitman – one of Borges’s brilliant pluckings).
2. All meaningful metaphors have already been created.
3. Economy of words is better than lavishness.
4. All poetry is confession.
5. Immortality is sometimes achieved by association of place (e.g. Burns of Scotland).
6. The domain of passion is still open to claim. No single poet can lay claim to it.
7. A writer creates his precursors because his latest work dates what has come before
8. Conan Doyle cheated on the detective story by not concealing who-done-it.
9. The integrity of the novel lies in prophecy, in magic, not in cause and effect.
10. Kafta’s writing is like a moving body that never reaches its destination, an expedition to the North Pole.
I found Borges’s handful of short reviews that were included in this book to place more emphasis on the writer than on the work. And here too Borges draws from a wide selection of sources outside the writer and his work to make his points.
A whole section is dedicated to the detective story, from its origins with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” to its evolution since. Borges posits six principles for the crafting of the perfect detective story and elevates the genre to high art, an intellectual exercise for the reader. He observes that England still promotes the intellectual detective novel while in America the genre has drifted towards sex and violence.
This is a book that will send you on a goose hunt for other books mentioned within. Borges generates curiosity in the reader with his astute observations. He is a writer who makes you think, and work, and think again, as you read. Suffice to say that I went out and bought the collected works of Jorge Luis Borges which I will look forward to reading in the days ahead.
Borges traverses a wide canvas in this book: the exploration of words, metaphors, translation, narrative, reading, critical reviewing and a section for his favourite genre, the detective story. His sources are wide and varied; from Whitman to Woolf, James (Henry) to Joyce (James), Kafka to Melville, Flaubert to Wells, Poe to Conan Doyle, he plucks examples with confidence, losing us in his complex sentences and thought patterns.
I picked up a few of his insights which I thought might be useful to mention:
1. “Art happens, it cannot be crafted” (this was a quote from Walt Whitman – one of Borges’s brilliant pluckings).
2. All meaningful metaphors have already been created.
3. Economy of words is better than lavishness.
4. All poetry is confession.
5. Immortality is sometimes achieved by association of place (e.g. Burns of Scotland).
6. The domain of passion is still open to claim. No single poet can lay claim to it.
7. A writer creates his precursors because his latest work dates what has come before
8. Conan Doyle cheated on the detective story by not concealing who-done-it.
9. The integrity of the novel lies in prophecy, in magic, not in cause and effect.
10. Kafta’s writing is like a moving body that never reaches its destination, an expedition to the North Pole.
I found Borges’s handful of short reviews that were included in this book to place more emphasis on the writer than on the work. And here too Borges draws from a wide selection of sources outside the writer and his work to make his points.
A whole section is dedicated to the detective story, from its origins with Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” to its evolution since. Borges posits six principles for the crafting of the perfect detective story and elevates the genre to high art, an intellectual exercise for the reader. He observes that England still promotes the intellectual detective novel while in America the genre has drifted towards sex and violence.
This is a book that will send you on a goose hunt for other books mentioned within. Borges generates curiosity in the reader with his astute observations. He is a writer who makes you think, and work, and think again, as you read. Suffice to say that I went out and bought the collected works of Jorge Luis Borges which I will look forward to reading in the days ahead.
April 26, 2023
Notes: my favourite essays were:
Ultra Manifesto - a few words to live by, wonderfully profound in places (and juvenile in others - they were young when they composed it),
Joyce's Ulysses - a fascinating insight into his insight of the classic's labyrinthine nature.
An Investigation of the Word - brilliant deconstruction of the the perceptual and cognitive interpretation of text we do rapidly when reading.
The Art of Verbal Abuse - how to insult effectively and intelligently. Just rather funny in places. Though, I'd rather learn to not abuse at all.
On Metaphor - his opinions on metaphorical tropes, allegorical pitfalls. Some real words of wisdom for writers, here. I agree emphatically.
Both of the essays on translation - how the minutia of semantic re-interpretation can affect understanding; and a breakdown on Homer.
Kafka and His Precursors - read it twenty times, now - it's brilliant, particularly the closing sentiments.
The Detective Story - discussing Poe and his innovations and his intelligent designs, particularly with Arthur Gordon Pym and The Raven.
When Fiction Lives in Fiction - a think piece on matryoshka narrative - nested stories and infinite games. Ludological. All has been done before!
Ultra Manifesto - a few words to live by, wonderfully profound in places (and juvenile in others - they were young when they composed it),
Joyce's Ulysses - a fascinating insight into his insight of the classic's labyrinthine nature.
An Investigation of the Word - brilliant deconstruction of the the perceptual and cognitive interpretation of text we do rapidly when reading.
The Art of Verbal Abuse - how to insult effectively and intelligently. Just rather funny in places. Though, I'd rather learn to not abuse at all.
On Metaphor - his opinions on metaphorical tropes, allegorical pitfalls. Some real words of wisdom for writers, here. I agree emphatically.
Both of the essays on translation - how the minutia of semantic re-interpretation can affect understanding; and a breakdown on Homer.
Kafka and His Precursors - read it twenty times, now - it's brilliant, particularly the closing sentiments.
The Detective Story - discussing Poe and his innovations and his intelligent designs, particularly with Arthur Gordon Pym and The Raven.
When Fiction Lives in Fiction - a think piece on matryoshka narrative - nested stories and infinite games. Ludological. All has been done before!
April 12, 2020
Antes de ser un libro, "El aprendizaje del escritor" de Jorge Luis Borges fue un seminario dedicado a la escritura, presidida por él mismo en la Universidad de Columbia en el año 1971. En sus páginas, se muestran transcritas las conversaciones entre Borges y su traductor Norman Thomas di Giovanni con los estudiantes en torno a los temas de la ficción, la poesía y la traducción. Con elocuencia y simplicidad, mezcladas con sentido crítico y un poco de humor, los diálogos entre el autor y sus lectores trazan un panorama amplio sobre estos ejercicios del quehacer literario que, aunque particulares en su función con el lenguaje, confluyen en el oficio de los poetas y los escritores de todas las épocas. Más que una exploración hacia el trabajo de Borges en dichos terrenos de la escritura, el libro es una invitación hacia la conversación, discusión, acuerdos y desacuerdos en las formas de pensar y hacer arte mediante la escritura, en su función como vocación y placer en la vida de cualquier aspirante a la literatura.
March 9, 2021
Borges-On writing
„Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.“
· 🤓Priređivač,Borhesov prevodilac i biograf Norman Thomas di Giovanni daje transkript predavanja na Kolumbija univerzitetu,sažeto ali iscrpno.
· 🤓Na primeru nekih od pripovedaka Borhes o pisanju,od ideje do objavljivanja.
· 🤓O poeziji i zašto je sonete lakše pisati od slobodnog stiha.
· 🤓O prevođenju o saradnji sa prevodiocem.
· 🤓O prevodu pesama.
· 🤓Saveti mladom piscu.
· 🤓Kroz sve je uočljiva Borhesova široka i topla ličnost.
✒ocena🔟
· 🤓Editor-Borges’ translator and biographer gives us the transcript of lectures on Columbia University-concise but thorough.
· 🤓On writing from idea to published work,trough some examples of Borges stories.
· 🤓On why it is easier to write sonneths than free verse.
· 🤓On translation and colaboration with translator.
· 🤓On translating poetry.
· 🤓 Advices to young writers.
· 🤓Through all of this we can see how wide and warm Borges’ personality is.
✒grade🔟
„Writing is nothing more than a guided dream.“
· 🤓Priređivač,Borhesov prevodilac i biograf Norman Thomas di Giovanni daje transkript predavanja na Kolumbija univerzitetu,sažeto ali iscrpno.
· 🤓Na primeru nekih od pripovedaka Borhes o pisanju,od ideje do objavljivanja.
· 🤓O poeziji i zašto je sonete lakše pisati od slobodnog stiha.
· 🤓O prevođenju o saradnji sa prevodiocem.
· 🤓O prevodu pesama.
· 🤓Saveti mladom piscu.
· 🤓Kroz sve je uočljiva Borhesova široka i topla ličnost.
✒ocena🔟
· 🤓Editor-Borges’ translator and biographer gives us the transcript of lectures on Columbia University-concise but thorough.
· 🤓On writing from idea to published work,trough some examples of Borges stories.
· 🤓On why it is easier to write sonneths than free verse.
· 🤓On translation and colaboration with translator.
· 🤓On translating poetry.
· 🤓 Advices to young writers.
· 🤓Through all of this we can see how wide and warm Borges’ personality is.
✒grade🔟
Read
December 20, 2016I did not read every entry in this collection. Mainly, I read those concerning general theory, the writer's craft/role, and only those criticisms of specific authors that I have either read or am currently interested in studying.
Based on this sampling, I find Borges pleasant and easy to read. When it comes to essays, his are notably short. For the most part, there are many phrases (in style) and suggestions (in substance) that are highly interesting. Usually they are underdeveloped and feel incomplete.
I would encourage writers and literary theorists acquaint themselves with him.
Based on this sampling, I find Borges pleasant and easy to read. When it comes to essays, his are notably short. For the most part, there are many phrases (in style) and suggestions (in substance) that are highly interesting. Usually they are underdeveloped and feel incomplete.
I would encourage writers and literary theorists acquaint themselves with him.
August 21, 2017
This book is a wonderful insight into the life and philosophy of Argentinian Author Jorge Luis Borges, who changed the way in which Spanish is written. The sittings with the students and teachers of Columbia University and his official translator Norman di Giovanni are extremely revealing about the way a fiction is created, the ways to read and understand poetry, and the tricks and treats of translation. A must read for all Borges fans and literature freaks!
August 11, 2014
Leer a un grande de la literatura y saber que es igual de inseguro que uno mismo, es a la vez loable y reconfortante.
Un libro necesario para quienes quieren saber más de Borges o para aquellos que se dicen a sí mismos escritores.
Un libro necesario para quienes quieren saber más de Borges o para aquellos que se dicen a sí mismos escritores.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews