BORGES, JORGE LUIS. (Buenos Aires, 1899-1986). Argentine writer of world recognized renown. On one occasion, Borges wrote his own epitaph to appear in a hypothetical edition of the Enciclopedia Sudamericana to be published in Santiago, Chile in the year 2074. In this ironic text, Borges reproduces the errors and mistakes of a careless edition:

"BORGES, JOSÉ FRANCISCO ISIDORO LUIS. Author born in 1899 in the city of Buenos Aires, at that time capital of Argentina. Borges was self-taught. The date of his death is unknown as the newspapers, the literary genre of the time, disappeared during the major conflicts local historians are presently compiling. His father was a teacher of psychology . He was brother of Nora Borges (q.v.). His preferences were literature, philosophy and ethics. Proof of the former is what he has left us of his works, which show certain incurable limitations. For example, he never really finished liking Hispanic literature, in spite of his habit of reading Quevedo. He was in favor of the thesis of his friend Luis Rosales, who argued that the author of the inexplicable Trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda could not have written the Quijote. Furthermore, this novel was one of the few enjoying Borges' indulgence: others were those of Voltaire, Stevenson, Conrad and Eca de Queiroz. Short stories pleased him, a trait that reminds us of the verdict of Poe: There is no such thing as a long poem, confirming the use of poetry by certain oriental nations. Regarding metaphysics, we should remember a certain Clave de Baruch Spinoza, 1975. He held chairs at the Universities of Buenos Aires, Texas and Harvard, without any official degree other than a vague Genevan bachelor's degree, that critics are still investigating. Cuyo and Oxford universities awarded him an honoris causa doctorate. Tradition says that he never asked any questions at examinations, inviting the students to chose and consider any aspect of the subject. He never asked for dates, stating that he himself did not know them. He abhorred bibliography, which excludes students from the sources.

He enjoyed belonging to the bourgeoisie, witnessed by his name: plebeians and aristocrats, those devoted to money, gambling, sports, nationalism, success and publicity, seemed to him to be almost identical. Towards 1960 he became a member of the Conservative Party because (he said) 'it is undoubtedly the only one that cannot inspire fanaticism'.

The renown enjoyed by Borges during his life, documented by a cumulus of monographies and polemics, amazes us today. We know that the first person to be amazed was Borges himself, and he always feared that he would be declared an impostor or a shoddy worker or a singular mixture of both. We will inquire into the reasons for this renown, that today seems so mysterious.

In the first place it should not be forgotten that the years of Borges corresponded to a decline in the country. He was from military stock and felt nostalgia for the epic destiny of his forefathers. He considered that bravery is one of the few virtues mankind is capable of, but his worship led him, like so many others, to a reckless veneration of men from the underworld. Thus his most read story was Hombre de la esquina rosada, whose narrator is a murderer. He wrote the words of milongas commemorating congeneric homicides. His lines, verses of a popular nature, are an echo of Ascasubi, unearthing the memory of knives, very reasonably forgotten. He wrote a pious biography of a minor poet, whose only feat had been to describe the rhetorical possibilities of the 'conventillo'. Farcical writers had already set up a world that was essentially that of Borges, but cultivated people could not enjoy these shows with an easy conscience. It is forgivable that they should applaud the person who authorized them to enjoy this taste. His secret and perhaps unconscious effort, was to weave the mythology of a Buenos Aires that never existed. Thus, throughout the years, he unwittingly contributed to the exaltation of what is barbarian, culminating in the cult of the Gaucho, Artigas and Rosas.

Let us look at another side of the picture. In spite of Lugones' Las fuerzas extrañas (1906) Argentine narrative prose did not generally overcome allegation, satire and a chronicle of customs. Borges, under the tutorship of his northern readings, took them up to the fantastic. Groussac and Reyes taught him to simplify vocabulary, until then hindered by a curious ugliness: complicated, aggressiveness , alienation, search, to make aware, conduction, conjectural, generational, groupal, negotiated, self-promotion, reception, feel motivated, feel fulfilled, situationalism, verticality, personal experience... The academies that might have advised against the use of such horrors, did not dare to do so. Those who condescended to this jargon, publicly exalted Borges' style.

Did Borges ever feel the intimate discordance of his destiny?

We suspect that he did. He did not believe in free will and he liked repeating one of Carlyle's thoughts: 'Universal history is a text that we are obliged incessantly to read and to write and in which we are also being written'."

(From Obras completas, Emecé, Buenos Aires)