Joyce in a Nutshell
The American critic and translator Suzanne Jill Levine has convincingly demonstrated that ‘the Joyce “legend” that Borges fixes on [in his concise biography ‘James Joyce’] is one that reflected Borges’s own life’.56 In this way, she argues that at the heart of Borges’s biography lies a deliberate interweaving of dates and biographical events that mirrored his own life. Indeed, Levine’s claim is corroborated at the beginning of ‘James Joyce’: ‘A los nueve años publicó un folleto elegíaco sobre el caudillo Charles Stewart Parnell’ (OC4 251); [At the age of nine wrote and published an elegiac pamphlet on the Irish leader Charles Stewart Parnell]. Undoubtedly, Borges stresses the precociousness of Joyce’s literary career and the important fact that, like Joyce, he had also translated and published at the tender age of nine the story ‘The Happy Prince’ by another Irish writer, Oscar Wilde. Almost forty years later, a blind and elderly Borges recalls this decisive event as a watershed in his life: ‘When I was nine or so, I translated Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” into Spanish, and it was published in one of the Buenos Aires dailies, El País’ (A 26). It is not surprising, thus, that the multilingual Borges was also fascinated by the account that: ‘[Joyce] publicó — a los diecisiete años un largo estudio sobre Ibsen en la Fortnightly Review. El culto de Ibsen lo movió a aprender el noruego’ (OC4 251) [Aged seventeen he [Joyce] published a long study on Ibsen in the Fortnightly Review. The love of Ibsen led him to the study of Norwegian]. It is clear that at this point Borges was thinking of his teenage years in Geneva, when his fondness for German literature and philosophy led him to the study of the German language. Both Norwegian and German were, of course, self-taught.
Whereas Borges’s concise biography of Joyce, as we have been able to see thus far, creates a fascinating overlapping with his own life, it also relied on biographical details drawn from Charles Duff’s James Joyce and the Plain Reader. For example, Borges perpetrated Duff’s inaccuracy in which he claimed that Joyce married Nora at the age of twenty-two.57 In this sense, an unaware Borges erroneously reports, ‘en 1904 se había casado con Miss Norah Healy, de Galway’ (OC4 251) [‘in 1904 he married Miss Norah Healy, of Galway’], and alludes to Nora Barnacle by her maternal surname, ‘Healy’, as well as spelling her Christian name with an ‘h’. Borges’s attentiveness to Duff’s narrative also compelled him to conclude that Joyce’s early works ‘no son importantes. Mejor dicho, únicamente lo son como anticipaciones del Ulises o en cuanto pueden ayudar a su inteligencia’ (OC4 251) [are unimportant or, in other words, are only important if viewed as an anticipation of Ulysses, or how much they could aid its understanding]. In 1932 Duff had disavowed the value of Dubliners and A Portrait with the unbending remark that: ‘The Portrait is an interesting work in the history of the technique of the novel, but both it and Dubliners pale into insignificance in comparison with the immense conception and wonderful execution of Ulysses’.58
Yet at the same time Borges was keen to emphasize Joyce’s attraction for ‘obras vastas, las que abarcan un mundo: Dante, Homero, Tomás de Aquino, Aristóteles, el Zohar’ (OC4 251) [vast works, those that encompass a universe: Dante, Shakespeare, Homer, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, The Zohar]. Undoubtedly, Borges perceived in Joyce’s vast cultural heritage the type of encyclopaedic works to which he himself was also attracted. One of the main repercussions of this claim is that it reappeared in Borges’s 1941 obituary of Joyce, albeit metamorphosed under the rhetorical guise of one of Borges’s most emblematic epigrams: ‘Como Shakespeare, como Quevedo, como Goethe, como ningún otro escritor, Joyce es menos un literato que una literatura’ (OC4 251) [Like Shakespeare, like Quevedo, like Goethe, like no other writer, Joyce is less a man of letters than a literature] (SNF 221). Thus, Borges elevates Joyce from individual author to the generic category of ‘una literatura’, which is represented by the Western tradition of Shakespeare, Quevedo, and Goethe. Borges’s dictum may also be read as a premonition of the sheer scale of his own work since, like the mythical Joyce, Borges was on his way to become less a man of letters than a literature.
In the second paragraph of the note Borges reserves his praise for the historical moment in which Joyce composed Ulysses. Thus he offers a reading that celebrates Joyce’s unfaltering dedication against his own personal vicissitudes and exile, as well as in relation to the larger backdrop of World War I: ‘Joyce trabajó el Ulises en los terribles años que van de 1914 a 1921 [...] Ocho años consagró a cumplir ese juramento’ (OC4 251) [Joyce worked on Ulysses during the terrible years of 1914 to 1921 [...] he dedicated eight years to fulfil this pledge]. In a grand heroic gesture that mingled the perils of warfare, the tests of exile, and the creation of a work of art, Borges dramatically told his readers of El Hogar that: ‘En la tierra, en el aire y en el mar, Europa estaba asesinándose, no sin gloria; Joyce, mientras tanto — en los intervalos de corregir deberes de inglés o de improvisar artículos en italiano para Il Piccollo della Sera —, componía su vasta recreación de un solo día en Dublín: el 16 de junio de 1904’ (OC4 251) [On land, air and sea, Europe was assassinating itself, not without glory; Joyce, meanwhile — in the intervals between correcting English coursework and improvising articles in Italian for Il Piccolo della Sera — composed his vast recreation of a single day in Dublin: 16 June 1904]. Borges’s fondness for elevating Joyce’s status from an individual author to a whole literature acquires even greater proportions here: ‘Más que la obra de un solo hombre, el Ulises parece la labor de muchas generaciones’ (OC4 251) [More than the work of a single man, Ulysses seems the labour of many generations]. Finally, the overall impact of Gilbert’s study reappears at the end of the note: ‘A primera vista [Ulysses] es caótico; el libro expositivo de Gilbert — James Joyce’s Ulysses, 1930 — declara sus estrictas y ocultas leyes. La delicada música de su prosa es incomparable’ (OC4 251) [At first sight it [Ulysses] seems chaotic; the explanatory book of Gilbert — James Joyce’s Ulysses, 1930 — reveals its strict and hermetic laws. The delicate music of its prose is incomparable]. Moreover, by repeatedly emphasizing that the composition of Ulysses took place within the intense political climate of the ‘terrible years’ of 1914–21, Borges not only draws attention to the significant contextual background that magnifies Joyce’s achievement, but is also commenting, time and time again, on events that correspond with his own personal life. In his autobiographical essay, he recalls: ‘We were so ignorant of history, however, that we had no idea that the First World War would break in August. My mother and father were in Germany when it happened, but managed to get back to us in Geneva’ (A 27). In similar circumstances, Joyce and his family were compelled to leave Trieste and move to Zurich where they stayed until 1919. The fact that Borges and Joyce sought refuge in neutral Switzerland during the war remains a decisive historical intersection, which acquires further significance if we consider that later in their lives both writers, by then blind, returned to Zurich and Geneva respectively, their homes from home and, of course, both died and are buried in Switzerland, the cities of their exile.
Towards the end of the note, Borges summarized the cultural legacy of Ulysses and concluded that: ‘La fama conquistada por el Ulises ha sobrevivido al escándalo’ (OC4 251) [The fame conquered by Ulysses outlasted the scandal]. Scandal, of course, refers to the notorious legal history of Ulysses and the gradual lifting of the censorship ban in the United States (1933), Ireland (1934), England (1936) and Australia (1937).59 The ‘fama conquistada’ alludes to the fact that for more than a decade Ulysses had been the constant focus of critical attention — even in a country as distant as Argentina. Therefore, Borges proclaims the victory of Ulysses against legal suits and confiscated copies, and welcomes its recent entry into the literary canon. In this sense, Borges was aware that Gilbert’s study sought to legitimize the canonical aspects of the work. As Joseph Brooker has claimed, ‘Gilbert insists on the classical stasis of Joyce’s work and proved effective in enhancing Joyce’s claim for the modern canon.’60 In th
e final paragraph, Borges announced Joyce’s ensuing enterprise, Work in Progress, which he described as ‘un tejido de lánguidos retruécanos en un inglés veteado de alemán, de italiano y de latín’ (OC4 251) [a tapestry of languid puns in an English interwoven with German, Italian and Latin]. As if anticipating his own inexorable fate, he concluded with a short statement that anticlimactically foreshadowed his future Homeric inheritance: ‘Está ciego’ (OC4 152) [He is blind].
‘After Centuries of Literature’: Borges's Reception of Finnegans Wake
The most remarkable aspect of Borges’s 1939 review of Finnegans Wake is that it was opportunely released in Buenos Aires on 16 June, Bloomsday. Only an assiduous admirer and aficionado of Joyce’s work would give careful consideration to this type of numerological correspondence. Borges’s review of Joyce’s latest novel, however, sets a marked contrast from the more affirmative tone of his previous 1937 biographical sketch. A baffled Borges begins the note with an allusion to the climate of expectation and speculation that usually arises prior to the publication of a book, particularly of Joyce’s untitled, long awaited, and much debated embryonic project, Finnegans Wake. Thus Borges announced: ‘Ha aparecido, al fin, Work in Progress, que ahora se titula Finnegans Wake, y que constituye, nos dicen, el madurado y lúcido fruto de dieciséis enérgicos años de labor literaria’ (OC4 436) [‘Work in Progress has appeared at last, now titled Finnegans Wake, and is, they tell us, the ripened and lucid fruit of sixteen energetic years of literary labor’] (SNF 195). This is followed by an apathetic observation, ‘lo he examinado con alguna perplejidad, he descifrado sin encanto nueve o diez calembours, y he recorrido los atemorizados elogios que le dedican la N.R.F. y el suplemento literario de Times’ (OC4 436) [‘I have examined it with some bewilderment, have unenthusiastically deciphered nine or ten calembours, and have read the terror-stricken praise in the N.R.F. and the T.L.S.’] (SNF 195). This half-hearted introduction is then injected with an acid judgment: ‘Los agudos autores de esos aplausos dicen haber descubierto la ley de tan complejo laberinto verbal, pero se abstienen de aplicarla o de formularla, y ni siquiera ensayan el análisis de una línea o de un párrafo...’ (OC4 436) [‘The trenchant authors of those accolades claim that they have discovered the rules of this complex verbal labyrinth, but they abstain from applying or formulating them; nor do they attempt the analysis of a single line or paragraph...’] (SNF 195). He then sarcastically continues: ‘Sospecho que comparten mi perplejidad esencial y mis vislumbres inservibles, parciales’ (OC4 436) [‘I suspect that they share my essential bewilderment and my useless and partial glances at the text’] (SNF 195). An inflexible Borges then demanded the emergence of the type of analytical and systematic guide formerly supplied by Gilbert: ‘Sospecho que están clandestinamente a la espera (yo públicamente lo estoy) de un tratado exegético de Stuart Gilbert, intérprete oficial de Joyce’ (OC4 436) [‘I suspect that they secretly hope (as I publicly do) for an exegetical treatise from Stuart Gilbert, the official interpreter of James Joyce’] (SNF 195). The reader’s guide that Borges so anxiously craved for while composing this review took yet another five years to appear. In 1944 the American critics Joseph Campbell and Henry Morton published the full-length study Skeleton Key to ‘Finnegans Wake’. In his 1978 Introduction to English Literature, co-authored with María Esther Vázquez, Borges commented: ‘Al cabo de unos años de labor, dos estudiantes norteamericanos han publicado un libro, desgraciadamente indispensable, que se titula Ganzúa para Finnegan’s Wake’ [sic] (OCC 854)’ [After a few years of work, two North American students published a book, unfortunately necessary, entitled Skeleton Key to Finnegan’s Wake [sic]].61
What are we supposed to make of Borges’s act of reading? It is unquestionable that he was unconvinced by the Wake. If the colossal scope and labyrinthine complexity of Ulysses had so far exceeded the possibility of a total reading, then Borges viewed Finnegans Wake as the ultimate confirmation of an infinite and unintelligible book which overpowered even the most competent of readers.62 Secondly, it should not be forgotten that the carefully manipulated pose of the baffled reader that Borges is selling here fits the overall historical pattern of the early reader of the Wake described by A. Walton Litz:
When Finnegans Wake first appeared in 1939 most readers familiar with Ulysses were confounded by what seemed to be a radical change in Joyce’s style and technique. Superficially, the dense language of the Wake bore little resemblance to even the most complex sections of Ulysses. Only those who had studied the fragments of Joyce’s Work in Progress published during the 1920’s and 1930’s were prepared for the new language, realizing that it had developed gradually and inevitably out of the method of Ulysses.63
Borges’s review of the Wake, however, suffers a drastic change of tone in the second paragraph in which he brushed aside his previous hostile comments, and expounded a more congratulatory assessment of Joyce’s contribution to twentieth-century literature:
Es indiscutible que Joyce es uno de los primeros escritores de nuestro tiempo. Verbalmente, es quizá el primero. En el Ulises hay sentencias, hay párrafos, que no son inferiores a los más ilustres de Shakespeare o de Sir Thomas Browne. En el mismo Finnegans Wake hay alguna frase memorable. (Por ejemplo, ésta, que no intentaré traducir: Beside the rivering waters of, hither and thithering waters of, night.) En este amplio volumen, sin embargo, la eficacia es una excepción
(OC4 436).
[It is unquestionable that Joyce is one of the best writers of our time. Verbally, he is perhaps the best. In Ulysses there are sentences, there are paragraphs, that are not inferior to Shakespeare or Sir Thomas Browne. In Finnegans Wake itself there are some memorable phrases. (This one, for example, which I will not attempt to translate: ‘Beside the rivering waters of, hither and thithering waters of, night.’) In this enormous book, however, efficacy is an exception
(SNF 195).]
Borges is full of praise for Joyce’s linguistic felicities, but full of scorn for his colossal proportions and his arduous demands on the reader. Consequently, he admires Joyce’s verbal artistry, principally the poetic quality of the closing lines of ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’, which evoke the night-time, riverside scenery of cyclical renewal and metamorphosis. He admires Joyce’s lyrical virtuosity, his ability to conjure up a unique, lofty musicality he deems untranslatable in the Spanish language. Overall, Borges’s aesthetic manoeuvre seeks to dismantle the novelistic canvas of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake in a repeated effort to reinvent Joyce from the standpoint of the fragment, the poem, the aphorism and, occasionally, the ficción. The hardheaded Borges repeatedly finds himself hitting the same brick wall in his insistence on demolishing the novelistic edifice of Joyce’s work in order to appreciate the disjointed, scattered fragments of the construction. Borges’s overall disdain for the novelistic genre is well known, and this pet hate is particularly articulated at the end of his 1954 essay ‘A Defense of Bouvard and Pécuchet’: ‘El hombre que con Madame Bovary forjó la novela realista fue también el primero en romperla. Chesterton, apenas ayer, escribía: “La novela bien puede morir con nosotros.” El instinto de Flaubert presintió esa muerte, que ya está aconteciendo — ¿no es el Ulises, con sus planos y horarios y precisiones, la espléndida agonía de un género?’ (OC1 262) [‘The man who, with Madame Bovary, forged the realist novel was also the first to shatter it. Chesterton, only yesterday, wrote: “The novel may well die with us.” Flaubert instinctively sensed that death, which is indeed taking place (is not Ulysses, with its maps and timetables and exactitudes the magnificent death throes of a genre?]’ (SNF 389). By the same token, in a 1976 colloquium that took place in the University of Michigan, Borges cited the final lines of ALP, which in turn prompted the following observation from Donald Yates: ‘I wonder why you said recently “I can’t accept a novel because I won’t be able to do it and because I’m not interested in it”.’64 Borges’s response is slightly biased. The master of the microcosmic and utterly economical ficción replies that, undoubtedly, yo
u can get as much from a short story as you can get from a novel: ‘I think that the last stories that Kipling wrote are quite as fully packed as any novel. For example, I think that “Children of Antioch” is one of the latest stories he wrote. It is packed as any novel, but it is not more than twenty or thirty pages long.’65 For the miniaturist, Joyce’s Modernist experimentation in the vast field of the novel was a waste of talent. Borges’s anti-novelistic stance is lucidly conveyed by Salgado: ‘Borges commends not the novelist in Joyce, but rather the polished wordsmith who works and reworks scenes and phrases to improve their cadence and musicality, deftly simulating archaic or contemporary prose styles and capturing their peculiar timbre.’66 In his 1982 interview with Richard Kearney and Seamus Heaney, Borges summarized this attitude:
Borges and Joyce Page 11
