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Borges
A Life
by Edwin Williamson
Short story writer, essayist, and poet Jorge Luis Borges (18991986) revolutionized the literature of Latin America almost single-handedly and left a legion of readers and admirers worldwide. Based on an unprecedented range of interviews and on research into previously unknown or unavailable resources, this is the first biography in any language to encompass the entire span of Borgess life and work. [Viking Press]
Viking Books, 574 pages
08/05/2004
$34.95
ISBN: 0670885797
Nonfiction
Biographies & Memoirs
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Atlantic Monthly Christopher Hitchens
An altogether first-rate biography...Williamson's biography passes what I consider to be a small but by no means paltry test. It is absolutely solid wherever it can be checked against this reviewer's knowledge.
Booklist Donna Seaman
A richly psychological, dynamically intellectual, and deeply affecting portrait of an often anguished and inhibited man who, through heroic perseverance and spiritual conviction, found salvation in writing and transformed literature for all time. [July 2004, p.1811]
Kirkus Reviews
A literary life of major importance, authoritatively told in an exceptionally fine biography.
Library Journal Nedra Crowe-Evers
The expectations and experiences of Borges's ancestors dominate his prose, with the pen representing his success as a writer and philosopher, which would vanquish the sword, symbolizing the military prowess and heroism of preceding generations, traits Borges knew he could never live up to. [Aug 2004, p.82]
Los Angeles Times Alfred Mac Adam
The best guide to the intertwined life and writings of the most important Spanish-language author of the 20th century.
Publishers Weekly
Replete with the most detailed facts about the air surrounding Borges, the book maintains human drama without overloading on unnecessary facts.
The Guardian Adam Feinstein
Making admirable use of previously unavailable sources, Williamson practises his own potent alchemy to shed startling new light on Borges's work.
Wall Street Journal Lauren Weiner
Mr. Williamson, an Oxford don and noted scholar of Spanish and Latin American literature, restores the chronology and thereby reveals how the limitless vistas of the fiction were shaped by the all-too-human limitations and failures -- romantic, literary, political -- of Argentina's most celebrated writer.
The Independent Michael Jacobs
It is difficult to imagine how anyone could write a better biography of this most elusive 20th-century icon.
Boston Globe Julio Ortega
On occasions, it is difficult to share Williamson's biographical reading of the stories, but his vast store of testimonies, recollections, and correspondence, and his piecing together of material, seem to reveal the probable face of the Argentine master.
Daily Telegraph Christopher Tayler
Obsessively scanning the stories and poems for autobiographical symbolism, Williamson has no time for the qualities that make us interested in the first place - although he might argue that this was not his job.
Daily Telegraph Theo Tait
Williamson manages to subsume nearly everything into his one grand plan: the theory is trotted out ad nauseam, often accompanied with a minute and tendentious exegesis of the less interesting stories. This begins to seem not only misguided, but also slightly mad, like an elaborate Borgesian joke.
Salon Allen Barra
The limitations of Williamson's workmanlike approach to biography become apparent, though, as Borges' life becomes more complex. On some points, Williamson is almost embarrassingly obtuse.
The Economist
This is convincing, although the deconstructions are a little laboured and repetitive.
The Spectator Edgardo Cozarinsky
Williamson probes into Borges' writings for the elaboration of biographical facts and, mostly, psychological hypotheses. Some interpretations are far-fetched, others prove far-reaching, really illuminating.
Washington Post Michael Dirda
In the end, Williamson's biography, for all its readability and extensive research, simply feels too programmatic, at times almost Freudian, while also underplaying the importance of books and scholarship to Borges's existence.
The Independent Robert Hanks
An objective biographer has no business to be peddling this sort of romanticised twaddle. I learned much from this book; but now I think I'll be sticking to the stories.
The New York Times Book Review David Foster Wallace
The big problem with 'Borges: A Life' is that Williamson is an atrocious reader of Borges's work; his interpretations amount to a simplistic, dishonest kind of psychological criticism.
San Francisco Chronicle Bob Blaisdell
Williamson distrusts, it seems, talk and documents, and paraphrases almost every source, even when elsewhere Borges has himself succinctly and brilliantly highlighted his own problems with the life of consciousness. Instead of Borges' memories and descriptions, instead of the great revealer revealing himself, the psychoanalyzing Williamson shrink-wraps the lovely, ever-fascinating great man.
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