Grice and Borges at Harvard, 1967

J was talking about Borges. So I must just as well join.

J mentions that Borges was a medical student at a time. From what I read in his biography (e.g. Woodall, Williamson), Borges was just a bachelor -- in the sense of bachelor of arts. He was a high school graduate. He graduated from the school which Calvin attended in Switzerland, from what I recall.

When he was in Buenos Aires, during his high-school years, Woodall makes fun of Borges's mother's desire to dress Borges as an Eton scholar -- which attracted all the scorn from his schoolmates.

Because of his father's infirmities, they were forced to travel to Europe, and the Great War found them there. So Borges attended the high school in Geneva (he is actually buried in Geneva) -- where French was the language of education. Matter of fact, he never got very good grades because French was not his native language -- and a few of his school mates would make a point with the teachers that they should be more generous with Borges on the grades front because, hey, he was no Frenchman.

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I counted like 6 visits by Borges to England. I reviewed them when I reviewed this bio by Woodall. The first he was fascinated with London, which he called a 'red labyrinth'. It was a brief visit. He would late return, notably at the expenses of the British Council. On one he payed respects to the grave of his ancestors in Hanley, Staffordshire.

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He never published much, if you can believe this. When I was writing my "mise en abyme" essay (on Borges and Grice) I had to research on first publication dates, and most of his stuff came out in local periodicals, dailies, and stuff -- but not as book themselves. So in this he was a bit like Grice. Borges's books were mainly compilations from stuff he had published in the dailies or weeklies, 1930s-1940s.

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Yes, there's possibly a philosophical idea behind EACH of his stories. E.g. Book of Sand -- or Library of Babel, etc. And J is right: Borges was possibly a sceptic. He would say he was an agnostic (but this as it relates knowledge of the eschatology or the existence of God -- agnostic vs. atheist, say).

I would think his Spanish was ornate. I have his bilingual editions -- published by Penguin, actually. There is a one-volume of his poetical works, which is bilingual, and a one volume of his Fictions, and a one volume of his non-fictions. He seems to be less ornate than other Spanish-language writers. I tend to think his prose resembles British prose -- it seems like he is THINKING 'English'.

He loved etymologies -- and just to contradict the mainstream intelligentsia, he went in, in 1955, for the study of "Anglo-Saxon". Woodall reports that when Borges was in Oxford (at the Randolph, where I also stayed!) and a literary gathering organised in his honour (with Murdoch, and company) he would rather, socially shy as he was, rather remained in his room with one R. Hamer, a Student of Christ Church, whom Borges knew via Hamer's Faber collection of Anglo-Saxon verse. Hamer, who was interviewed by Woodall, recalls that they basically spoke about the metrics of Beowulf.

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Borgesiana has grown, and there are anecdotes around his personality for each occasion. He had a sort of dry sense of humour -- and he was best, apparently, in interviews, as kept in the dailies or as having to do with his opposition to fascism and such. He then was usually hunted by journalists for the odd interview. On Garcia Marquez's winning the Nobel Prize for "Hundred Years of Solitude", Borges was asked his opinion. "Fifty years too long", I think his reply was.

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Philosophically, he did not know much. He would quote from BERKELEY -- his favourite of the trio of British empiricists. And naturally so, because Berkeley turns empiricism into a work of art. Borges was fascinated by the consequences of empiricism -- the esse est percipi for example. He also liked, like his father had, the Locke theory of memory and personal identity. He also liked Condillac -- in his "Book of Imaginary Beings" there is an entry for "Condillac's statue" which may have a connection with what Grice is writing on in "Some remarks about the senses".

My mentor in philosophy, E. A. Rabossi, wrote, for example, on Borges's theory of proper names in "Funes the memorious one". A few philosophers (E. Olaso, as I recall, and Balderston) have tried to identify the different philosophical sources in Borges's writing. But he was NEVER a systematic writer, or reader. He would read as it pleased him.

He would keep notes on his books. While he was stoic about it, the fact that he did become blind in 1955 must have been literal hell for him. He had been director of a library, and he regretted most of all not being able to _read_.

Oddly, when interviewed what book he'd take to a desert island, he said, "The Encyclopedia Britannica", which is a bit of a joke, since this is 24 volumes, I would think. He only cared for the 11th Edition -- complete with illustrations.

When I was doing the "Mise en Abyme" research, I had to research into what books he had actually read as a child. Most of his books were English editions, and they belonged to his father: Encyclopedia Britannica -- world literature in English only, too, English poetry. His father discouraged non-English literature. There is a BBC documentary on this, called "Borges and I" -- and in fact, when in Harvard in 1967 (with Grice, but different departments -- same campus: Grice at Emerson Hall, and Borges at the Classics Hall) -- he would reminisce the lines of English verse he had learned from his father.

Oddly, if Grice's lectures in Harvard in 1967 were copied and circulated, Borges's less substantial lectures were never even transcribed. It was only ages later that a Rumanian, working in Harvard, found the tapes and did the transcription work. The result: This Craft of Verse. Like Grice's "Studies in the Way of Words", the (c) of Borges's "This craft of verse" remains with Harvard College and both pieces are published by H. U. P. -- but that's the end of an almost minimal intersection.