Wednesday, August 28

Borges is over for dinner, back from Montevideo.

BORGES: "In Montevideo everything is as it used to be. Everyone there was really nice. You go there and see that world of writers, so occupied in their local problems, as if they held reality. They're in hell and they don't notice it. We're in another hell: we know that they are in one and don't know it, and that reminds us that we must be in one similar yet distinct. We feel like returning right away in order to put an end to these disagreeable visions and intuitions. The writers there live in a false world, with ideas like the cosmic destiny of Uruguay. The journalists who called on me are much better: they read wire reports from all over the world and have a better idea of how things are. The writers believe they should not say anything simply. I spoke with an intelligent journalist, accompanied by a young writer who didn't understand anything. Regarding the Lawrence of Arabia film, I told them, 'If the character of the hero is a bit ambiguous, it can be attributed partly---for Lawrence was ambiguous---to the modesty the English have in not showing very heroic heroes. Imagine if you all made a film on Artigas or if we made one on San Martin...' 'That's what I'm saying,' complained the young poet,  'Why doesn't Argentinian cinema exalt the great national myths,  San Martin and the gaucho?' 'Okay, okay...,' went the journalist."

Pedro Leandro Ipuche

He was with Ipuche, the author of La defensa de Paysandu: "He's become Catholic. He is tall, a creole of the city or a peasant of the fields, with the air of an artisan whom one addresses as señor. Very proud and honorable. He would always come to see me at the hotel. I would invite him to eat but he wouldn't accept. The Uruguayan government has bought the rights to his books, in order to publish the complete works. The pay is a monthly annuity, sort of like a pension. They probably won't publish his works. 'They have enough expenses in paying me,' he explained. In his book on the Cycle of Paysandu, a few unintentionally funny lines jump out, like, 'In Paysandu there remained only two inscrutable Indians, frightening the solitude.' He compares Rafael Hernandez to a teru teru: 'Brother of the immortal  teru teru'. He doesn't know anything about many of his characters. He covers them with praise, but one finds they should be be obscure characters. What a difference with the author of the Alamo who draws attention to common people overcoming their mediocrity and acting heroically in the moment of battle: it is the effect that can be taken from the situation. Ipuche doesn't believe it that way, or the possibility hasn't occurred to him, and he awkwardly insists that all were extraordinary people. If he has to say that someone was promoted to captain, he writes, 'They awarded him the romantic title of captain.'  He knows little of the Charruas. The names he knows come from Barco Centenera, where Zorilla de San Martin got his information. Barco Centenera mentions an Indian, Capican, of whom only remains a name. Well, Ipuche speaks of the capican destiny of Uruguay. According to Ipuche, things turned out well for Zorilla de San Martin, who had good models in Becquer and Carlyle. On the other hand, things didn't turn out well for Dr. Carlos Roxlo, whom everyone praises....He doesn't read much and his model of writing is Quintana. According to Ipuche, Silva Valdes believes he has evolved because now he is writing vulgar couplets, and Ipuche objects with, 'Everyone writes vulgar couplets.'"

BORGES (to his nephew Miguel): "You, you're a history buff, have you read Ipuche's book?"
MIGUEL: "It's not a book for reading."
BIOY: "A while ago many books were published that weren't for reading. I myself have written a few of them. I want to believe that we have progressed in that regard and today such books are infrequent."

Borges relates, "In Tucuman they made a saber as a gift for Artigas. They sent it, but the saber remained in Cordoba, because the civil wars of the Banda Oriental made the carrier's journey hazardous. Someone, long after the death of Artigas, looked for the saber in Cordoba and brought it to Uruguay. It was enough for Ipuche to see it and reanimate himself and redeem his ways. I don't know why they venerate such an object that Artigas never even saw. Well, okay, the curved saber of San Martin must not have had much more contact with its owner either."

Fernan Silva Valdes

Sometimes I have wondered if the preference of Borges for Ipuche might have something to do with a policy, perhaps not at all conscious, of supporting the lesser acclaimed of two writers who are often named together. Now I think not: I think he feels that at times in Silva Valdes there is even less merit or that even Ipuche is more original in his modest poetry.

BORGES: "Silva Valdes told me about a thug from the barrio of Cerro who, in his conquest of women, would introduce himself with his fly open and say, 'There it is. Get on it if you want it.' One could qualify this guy as a misogynist. Dabove told me of another thug who at the moment of leaving would say, 'Attention, I am leaving.'"
BIOY: "What a wretch. To think that perhaps you were a feared thug."
BORGES: "Well, it's the same: a wretch."

Clara Silva mentioned that it bothered her that Victoria was an opponent of Uruguay.
BORGES: "An opponent? Why?"
CLARA: "Because she doesn't publish Uruguayan books in Sur."
Afterwards, Borges observes, "How do you explain that she doesn't have a geographical criterion?"

Apparently Mastronardi published in some magazine or little-read newspaper an article against Zum Felde entitled 'Ego Zum Felde'.
BORGES: "If that pun would occur to you, it would be difficult to contain yourself and not write the article. "
In Uruguay, the article went down well.

On Emir Rodriguez Monegal, who married a millionaire from an old family and went from comunizante to old-fashioned conservative, Borges says, "It seems like he is getting out of hand. He is corrompu, riche et triumphant."

Arturo Humberto Illia

BORGES: "Are you going to see Illia Thursday with that group of writers?"
BIOY: "What makes you ask?"
BORGES: "Mother went the other day, but really, why suppose a visit to Illia will be something memorable? It will be an uncomfortable moment, nothing more. I'm not going. It seems that Illia said that he could not protect the arts, but only understand them. It's a phrase that wants to be modest, that has already passed into history according to those who have already seen him, but in reality and without any doubt of error, he is arrogant. As president Illia can protect the arts, but do you think that he can understand them admiringly? That he can make a great critic?"
BIOY: "Did your mother find him to be a weak and finished man?"
BORGES: "No. Why? Because Paquette is already impatient?"
BIOY: "Do you remember, when in the days prior to the election of 45, we visited Dr. Gallo, candidate for vice president? I haven't forgotten that visit: what a poor thing of a man, how nice the little house in the neighborhood, how disastrous the results of the immediate elections, how contrary to our hopes. It's a pathetic memory, of a moment in Argentina's history. I congratulate myself for going. It is clear that the man wasn't Gallo, but Mosca."
BORGES: "That error in zoology put things in order. It's not important."