With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires: A Memoir [Hardcover]

Willis Barnstone (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 1992

This fresh and poignant portrait of Jorge Luis Borges in his later years combines spirited and philosophical conversations, biographical anecdotes, citations from poetry, and literary analysis. Willis Barnstone, a leading translator of Borges's poems and a privileged friend for more than twenty years, presents the poet-storyteller as a figure of paradox and contradictions. He relates Borges's prodigious feats of textual memory, his wry observations of the Argentinian political scene, and his musings on the events of his long and surprising life. Barnstone also recounts Borges's friendship and deathbed marriage to his one-time student and long-time literary collaborator, Marie Kodama.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The author first met Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) at a New York City poetry reading in 1968; their friendship deepened through the following years in encounters held in Buenos Aires and Cambridge, Mass. In this intimate, invaluable portrait, Barnstone, a professor of comparative literature at Indiana University, presents the poet-storyteller as a figure of paradox and contradictions. Nearly blind in his last decades, Borges longed for his life to end; he was obsessed with the instant after death that, he hoped, would reveal the mysteries of the universe. We see Borges, in place of the popular image of the cerebral metaphysician, as an itinerant sage, a tender lover who married his muse Maria Kodama on his deathbed, a troubled sleeper whose nightmares were filled with mazes. Barnstone's fluent translations of Borges's verses enliven these reminiscences and conversations. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This whimsical account intersperses random recollections of desultory musings on such topics as death, suicide, and, especially, literature, with both pithy sayings ("We are always inventing the past") and snatches of poetry from Argentine master Jorge Luis Borges. As outtakes from Barnstone's journal, transcribed during the 1970s and 1980s, about his worldwide travels and encounters with Borges, the reminiscences smack of deja vu, recalling in particular his more illuminating Borges at Eighty ( LJ 2/1/82. o.p.), from which he has cloned an entire interview. The final product is a work that is too much Barnstone and not enough Borges. Not an essential purchase. (Photos not seen.)-- Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC, Dublin, Ohio
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press; First edition. edition (December 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0252018885
• ISBN-13: 978-0252018886
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,735,238 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautifully written memoir of a kindred mind and friend, May 8, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires: A MEMOIR (Paperback)

Barnstone describes in the book's opening his first meeting with Borges after a reading Borges has given. Surrounded by background noise they speak intimately, of many matters of Mind and Literature. Barnstone raises his voice and Borges says 'piano' that he can hear. The dialogue continues with enthusiasm on both sides. For twenty years more this conversation will continue and it will be the heart of this most intelligent and tasteful memoir.
Barnstone has a great mastery of Borges' work. He understands how Literature is life for Borges. And he says at one point that even Borges' casual sentences are transcribable as true Literature. i.e. It is as if the person Borges embodies Literature itself, and everything he does is thus Literature.
This is a beautifully written tribute truly worthy of its great subject.

4.0 out of 5 stars days and nights with Jorge Luis, July 26, 2010

By 

Robert S. Newman "Bob Newman" (Marblehead, Massachusetts USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: With Borges on an Ordinary Evening in Buenos Aires: A MEMOIR (Paperback)

Jorge Luis Borges was no doubt a great writer, one of those who never got a Nobel Prize, but captivated intellectuals all over the world because he asked the right questions and came up with mysterious non-answers which make you think for yourself. Kabbalistic, Islamic, Gnostic, Buddhist and other systems of knowledge intrigued him. You can bet that there were no ordinary evenings with J L Borges. Literature was Life, and all those 'evenings', over many years, circumnabulated around the written word.
There is a problem. I seldom, if ever, read books like this because I don't like adulation, which I believe should be reserved for God and God alone. We all have our foibles, our little habits, and our shortcomings---whether we are literary honchos or writers of Amazon reviews ! Willis Barnstone, a prominent American poet with wide international experience, writes the best one (of the few such books) I ever read because he at least keeps the adulation down to a dull roar. Argentina in the days of the Dirty War, academic occasions, the Great Writer's comments and witticisms about many subjects, his intimate thoughts----these may interest you or not. Are you a person who would like to (or be able to) spend an entire plane flight discussing Milton and Dante ? If the answer is `yes', you will definitely like this book. I found it alternately interesting and as our Australian friends say, "airy-fairy". It is a delicate subject, well-handled, but it does have its drawbacks. In the end, this IS a case of a man's taking advantage of his acquaintance with a world figure to write a book. The Queen's butler, Mao's doctor, or a dictator's cook might or might not do the same, the main difference being that they wouldn't do it so well and their subject might be less well-read, to say the least. I enjoyed Barnstone's personal experiences of Argentina very much. These, woven into the intense scrutiny of Borges, make the book come alive.