“I bequeath
myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love...” Walt Whitman
What a gift from the universe this book is! I
am mesmerized at this encounter. I found Borges and
Me in a Free Little Library in the city where I live. If you don’t know
what free little libraries are, feel free to learn about them here. This
incredible book by Jay Parini was published in the year 2020, but I came across
it recently. I did not know anything about its existence.
Borges and Me starts with the narrator
learning about the death of Jorge Luis Borges at age 86 in June, 1986.
Strangely enough, Borges’s wife, whom he married a few months before his death,
also died at age 86 in the year 2023.
Her name was Maria Kodama.
The
pain of learning about Borges’s death is palpable. He had met Borges in 1971
and they became friends during the week they spent together in Scotland. The
newscaster described Borges as “a writer who blended fact and fiction in a
peerless sequence of narratives that defied all boundaries… as a writer, he
explored the most idiosyncratic spaces in the human experience, a lover of
labyrinths and mirrors, a shapeshifting writer who could never be defined.” From
that point on Jay Parini transports us to the year 1970, when he was a young
man trying to find his place in the world.
Originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Jay Parini wanted to make a living as a writer. After many conflicts and
deliberations, he applied for post-graduate study at the University of St.
Andrews, where he was admitted into the doctoral program. His parents supported
him reluctantly. They all agreed on one point, however: joining the Vietnam war
was not a good idea. The stay in St. Andrews, Scotland, would be a better
choice.
Jay Parini was not sure what his future as a
writer would be like, but he had a special interest in writing poetry, and he
took it seriously, so, while he was in St. Andrews, somebody introduced him to
a poet. His name was Alastair Reid, a man who made translations of Borges’s
literary works. Alastair became Jay Parini’s friend and mentor, and he was the
one who introduced him to Jorge Luis Borges, who at that time was already
blind.
Alastair asked Jay to stay with Borges for a
week. Borges would not be able to stay by himself due to his blindness, and Jay
Parini agreed to do so. Jay had a vehicle and Borges asked him if he could tour
the Highlands of Scotland with him. Borge was excited to see the places there. “Just to
read the map of the Highlands is to recite poetry,” Borges said. “Take me
around Scotland. I want to see the Highlands.”
“But you are
blind, Borges.”
Borges
responded with another question, “Are you blind, too?”
Parini replied that he was not blind, so
Borges responded that he would be his eyes and that they would discover that
wonderland together. Borges referred to him as “Giuseppe” because of the poet
Giuseppe Parini.
“We must take the plunge. What we discover, as
within any labyrinth, will always be ourselves. Wherever you go, Giuseppe,
there is Giuseppe. I go where Borges goes.”
Off they went on their amazing adventures through Scotland. Every conversation and encounter they had was entertaining and even thought-provoking. Borges had an irresistible sense of humor, and he offered whimsical insights and literary references in the most unexpected situations. The emotional rollercoaster of Jay Parini falling in love with a woman in St. Andrews adds more to the tension and intrigue of this memoir in which Jay Parini discovers that he has a lot in common with Jorge Luis Borges, and sharing their life experiences connects them in mysterious ways.
It was
sad to finish this book. I wanted to stay with these characters, to keep
listening to their quaint conversations. I could not get enough of Borges’s wit
and eccentricities. Besides, their literary exchanges, which were rooted to their
historical context, continue to have relevance in today’s conflicts and social
and political situations. It has been truly magical to find this book, and I highly recommend it.
For Parini, meeting Borges was a life
transforming experience, “Our encounter lasted a week or so, but it forced a
shift in me, a change of perspective, hitting me at just the right time. And
all I knew for sure was that my way of being in the world was never quite the
same after Borges.”
It made
me think about how an interaction with somebody can touch and transform us in
so many ways when one is open to that change.
I
marveled at the way Borges navigated his blindness. The richness of his inner world
made up for the lack of eyesight. “Like Crusoe, I wished to isolate myself on a
remote island, but one must be careful, as they say, of what one wishes for.
Blindness is my very own island.” Literature is perhaps the bridge to paths of understanding and meaningful connections, and his fascination for libraries is something that I share with
him.
Borges carried inside himself the sensations
of every place he had been to, the stories and poems of every book he had read,
the reflections of life experiences and even the frustrations that take a toll
on the soul but never stop oneself from moving forward. His inner world
manifested in the vibrant memory of what he had seen, read and experienced. He
made me laugh a lot throughout this story, and I confess that I wept a couple
of times with Borges and Me: at the beginning and close to the end.
I
entered the book with overwhelming curiosity, and I ended it as if floating
in a cloud of melancholy, immersed in a sense of longing and intrigued by embers
of hope. The night I finished it, my mind was loaded with the vivid landscapes
of Scotland and the musical rhythm of the Scottish dance lessons of my
childhood, images flashing like lightning, buoying me up in my own world of
night dreams.
I will keep this book to return to it. It
continues to haunt me. There is also a book by Borges in my book shelf that I
haven’t read yet. It will be part of my list this year.
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