By César Chelala | January 23, 2016
During a
recent trip to Argentina I was talking with an old friend, a successful
psychiatrist, about Jorge Luis Borges, the famous Argentine writer. She told me
about the only time she had met him. “I had gone to a lecture by Borges at a
cultural center in Buenos Aires. I was a 14-year old student planning to study
literature at the university and become a writer and Borges was a hero to me.
“I was
enraptured by Borges strong personality. However, there was a big discrepancy
between his physical appearance and the quality of his speech. I saw him as an
old man who looked very tired—a sensation increased by the poor lighting in the
place—but the magic of his words transported me to another world, the world of
the imagination.
“After the
lecture I decided that I wouldn’t study literature, since I would never be able
to write like him. On my way out, there were several books on sale. On an
impulse I bought a book called ‘Psychosomatic Medicine,’ by Eric Wittkower and
Hector Warnes. I was so taken by it that after reading it I decided to become a
psychiatrist, a decision I never regretted. I can truly say that although I saw
Borges only that one time, he dramatically changed my life.”
I can truly
say that although I saw Borges only that one time, he dramatically changed my
life.
Although in
reading Borges one may think he was a very serious person, he was actually a
man who loved jokes and always had unexpected responses to everyday events.
Mario Rojman, a friend I met in Buenos Aires, told me that Borges visited Peru
when he was an attaché at the Argentine Embassy. Because he loves poetry, both
he and Borges would recite some of the writer’s poems aloud, each one a line at
a time. They were having a lot of fun, said Rojman. During that visit, the King
and Queen of Spain decided to visit Peru. When Rojman told Borges the news he
replied, with a mischievous smile, “I hope they won’t bother us…”
Antiquarian
manuscripts by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges diplayed at a book fair in
Frankfurt, Germany, on Oct. 8, 2010. (Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images)
Antiquarian
manuscripts by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges diplayed at a book fair in
Frankfurt, Germany, on Oct. 8, 2010. (Daniel Roland/AFP/Getty Images)
His sense
of irony never left him. Says María Esther Vazquez, who was his secretary and
then his partner (in the book “The Other Borges” by Mario Paoletti), that on
one occasion, when he was with a group of ladies and as he walked to the
bathroom, Borges said, “I am going to shake Monsignor’s hand.” When Borges returned
from the bathroom one of the ladies reproached him, “Georgie, you don’t shake
hands with a Msgr. When you meet him you have to kiss his ring.”
On another
occasion, during an interview in Rome, an Italian journalist tried to embarrass
him. As he failed to do so he asked Borges, “Do you still have cannibals in
your country?” Borges replied, “No, we don’t. We ate them all…”
An Italian
journalist trying to embarrass Borges asked, ‘Do you still have cannibals in
your country?’ Borges replied, ‘No, we don’t. We ate them all…’
I had the
honor of meeting Borges personally. In 1970, I was doing biomedical research in
Buenos Aires, on a fellowship from Tucumán, my hometown in the northern part of
the country. For my wife and me, living in Buenos Aires was a far cry from the
provincial kind of life we had been leading in Tucumán.
We didn’t
have much money or personal contacts which made our daily life difficult and
dull. Life was also stressful due to the demands of working in a world class
research institute where the director, Dr. Luis F. Leloir, had received the
Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1970. To make ends meet my wife was working in jobs
far below her professional capacity as a university graduate. At the time, she
was also taking language and literature courses at the Instituto de Lenguas
Vivas in Buenos Aires.
A man looks
at pictures of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges during the International Book
Fair in Lima, Peru, on July 20, 2006. (Eitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty Images)
A man looks
at pictures of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges during the International Book
Fair in Lima, Peru, on July 20, 2006. (Eitan Abramovich/AFP/Getty Images)
One of her
professors was an American named Donald A. Yates, a professor emeritus of
Spanish-American literature at Michigan State University (East Lansing). He is
the translator of both novels and short stories by many Spanish-American
authors, including “Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings” by Jorge
Luis Borges.
One day,
Prof. Yates invited both of us to join him and Borges for dinner at an upscale
restaurant in Buenos Aires. For us, it was a wonderful change from our daily
life. And Borges didn’t disappoint us. He was practically the only person who
spoke the whole evening, always full of charm and knowledge.
Learning
that my wife was of Basque descent from both sides of her family, he talked a
lot about Basque history. He had come to dinner alone and was virtually blind.
He ordered a pair of fried eggs, which were brought to him in a deep dish with
a spoon. All evening he kept trying to catch the eggs with the spoon, and only
succeeded in pushing them to the side of the dish.
Although we
felt bad about seeing this, Borges didn’t seem to mind at all, and kept talking
as if nothing unusual were happening. For a blind person used to living on past
memories, perhaps the life of the imagination was for him more important than
real life. And yet his life and work had a singular impact on the life of many.
César
Chelala, M.D., Ph.D., is a global public health consultant for several U.N. and
other international agencies. He has carried out health-related missions in 50
countries worldwide. He lives in New York and writes extensively on human
rights and foreign policy issues, and is the recipient of awards from Overseas
Press Club of America, ADEPA, and Chaski, and recently received the Cedar of
Lebanon Gold Medal. He is also the author of several U.N. official publications
on health issues.
Views
expressed in this article are the opinions of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of Epoch Times.
Fuente :Epoch Times
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