Borges and I -by J.L.Borges

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrace hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of proffesors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteen-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrieve his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to noone, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Litlle by litlle, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things. Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but i recongize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious struming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other tings.Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.

I do not know which of us has written this page.

6 iulie/july 2002

„Sunt superior atat cat sa inteleg

ca nu sunt destul de superior,

si nimic mai mult.

Poate, cu trecerea anilor, imbecilitatea mea

va deveni mai mare, si atunci voi fi,

daca nu mai fericit, in orice caz mai putin chinuit.”

Giovanni Papini – Un om sfarsit

/”I am superior just enough to be able to understand

that I am not superior enough,

and nothing more.

Maybe, as the years pass, my imbecillity

will increase, and then I shall be,

if not happier, in any case less tortured.”

Giovanni Pappini – Un uomo finito

7 iulie/july 2002

„That obsession with one’s own image,

that’s man’s fatal immaturity. It is so difficult to

be indifferent to one’s image. Such indifference is

beyond human strength. One becomes capable of it only

after death. And even then it doesn’t happen at once,

but only a long time after death.”

Milan Kundera – Immortality

15 iulie/july 2002

„- Cat curaj iti trebuie oare ca sa te arunci in prapastie?

– Nu iti trebuie curaj, ci o prapastie destul de adanca.”

16 iulie/july 2002

Daca Dumnezeu ar uita pentru o clipa ca nu sunt decat

o papusa de carpa si mi-ar oferi in dar o bucatica de viata,

{cum adica o bucatica de viata? nu a facut-o deja?}

[…] as da valoare lucrurilor marunte, dar nu pentru ce

valoreaza ele, ci mai curand pentru ceea ce ele semnifica.

As dormi mai putin […],

de-abia acum inteleg ca pentru fiecare minut in care

inchidem ochii pierdem saizeci de secunde de lumina.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

18 iulie/july 2002

I dreamed I called you on the telephone

to say: be kinder to yourself

but you were sick and would not answer.

The waste of my life goes on this way

Trying to save you from yourself.

Adrienne Rich – for the Dead

21 iulie/july 2002

Reality is an illusion born by

the lack of enough alcohol…

17 august 2002

Flying is the art of throwing yourself

repeatedly against the ground and missing.

Douglas Adams

18 august 2002

Fereste-te de oamenii cu chiloti albi

cu iepurasi!