ESSAY

JOYCE & BORGES

James Aloysius Joyce is not a household name; nor is Jorge Luis Borges. A list of the 100 best books of all time compiled in 2002 by Norwegian Book Clubs, and as voted on by 100 writers in 54 different countries, puts Joyce's Ulysses at number 26 and Borges' Ficciones at number 40. Just one such list among many does not constitute consensus. Obviously, the key to any such listing is the criteria used. Both men are considered among the most influential writers of the 20th century. Borges had read parts of Ulysses and was influenced as much by Joyce's literary vision as by his work. Joyce, seventeen years older, had never read Borges, dead before Borges was graced with fame.

Reading the early essay on Ulysses that Borges penned, the impression given seems to be one of ambivalence with a touch of sycophancy. He praises certain phrases of Joyce, descriptions and dialogue; but apparently is so overwhelmed by the sheer number of words that he is not able to finish the book.

Finnegan's Wake, Joyce's magnum opus, leaves Borges disillusioned and dismayed; and he makes no attempt to read the book. He will wait, he writes, for Stuart Gilbert's explication. He could not read Proust, saying that ' ...  Proust's books had many pages that were as tedious as life itself.'

Ironically, an early Borges’ essay extolled the virtue of either short prose pieces or, for longer works, the ability to break the long works down into manageable sections---chapters, stanzas, whatever. As an example, he mentions Milton's Paradise Lost. In effect, he recommends formatting longer works as short stories to make them more manageable.

Applying the concept to Joyce, Ulysses becomes a work of 18 short stories. If the reader has a general idea of the book's intent, reading each chapter separately is quite workable. Some have done just that, with success; and a few have done so back to front, the last chapter to first, Penelope to Martello Tower.

The same process can be used on Finnegan's Wake. The book does have divisions, and with the help of a guide, can be read not as a feast (which it is), but rather as one tantalizing snack after another.

When asked why he had not written a novel himself, Borges answered: 'I think that there are two specific reasons: first, my incorrigible laziness and second, the fact that I am not very confident makes me want to keep an eye on what I write. It is easier to keep an eye on a story, because of its brevity, than to keep an eye on a novel.'

Borges’ masterly short fiction is not without echoes of Joyce’s encyclopedic approach to creating Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake. Several of Borges’s characters are portrayed as Ulysses’ ideal readers—figures with infinite memories, such as Ireneo Funes, whom Borges mentioned in his 1941 obituary for Joyce. 

Throughout his life, Borges would praise Joyce’s relation to time, his ability to merge dream and waking and so create a separate reality. But Borges also characterized Ulysses almost as a monstrosity, a text so expansive and elaborate that it was impossible to read or understand in its entirety.

Both writers were intent on capturing the essence of time, Time if you prefer. Caught by dualistic concepts, each man approached the subject from opposite ends of the beast: Joyce had its tail; Borges had its snout. Joyce was the alchemist changing gold into lead. Borges was the gnostic whose reality was always awash in waves of the metaphysical. Joyce built literary cathedrals while Borges sculpted miniatures of poetic prose.

Each man created a style that served his literary vision; and the styles created revealed the  man wielding the pen putting the words on paper. In his conclusion to Elements Of Style, E. B. White writes:

Style takes its final shape more from attitudes of mind than from principles of composition, for an elderly practitioner once remarked, "Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar." If one is to write, one must believe---in the truth and worth of the scrawl, in the ability of the reader to receive and decode the message.

If faith translates to style as words fill a page, it also reveals the character, the identity, of the writer. Joyce thought the written word was capable of encapsulating all that was known or could be known. He honed his craft with a few short stories and A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man, then boldly began his quest for the comprehensive telling of one man's day. Ulysses does not tell all; arguably, between telling and alluding, the book captures a day in the life of Leopold Bloom. Finnegan's Wake tells no tale per se (the story riverruns beginning to end and back again through the reeds and rushed underground and over, never over, always suggested, never told), but alludes to every known thing under the sun including, I believe, the kitchen sink.

Borges did not publish his first book until 1923. He was twenty-four years old. With a poet's sensibility he crafted his stories choosing just the right word time and again. For Borges, the totality of the words was far less important than precisely the right word. He was particular about his adjectives. He wrote: "No one saw him slip from the boat in the unanimous night." The italics are added to emphasize the incongruity of the word. The ambiguity remains in the original Spanish: "Nadie lo vio desembarcar en la uninime noche" Uninime translates to 'unanimous' unequivocally. Unanimous is defined by Webster's as: 1. formed with or indicating unanimity : having the agreement and consent of all 2. being of one mind : agreeing. And the unanimous night? A phrase that is beyond denotation, one that Borges relied entirely upon the reader to receive and decode.

As distinct as their styles, so too were their personalities. Joyce, the profligate wordsmith, lived an unsettled, expatriate life, settling, finally in Paris amid personal, physical, and, to large extent, financial squalor. Borges, though educated in Switzerland, returned to live his life in Buenos Aires. He wrote several works of biography and history, and eventually took a position with the national library. He did suffer under the Perón tyranny, but returned to the library in 1955. His life reflected the same meticulous attention to detail that can be found in his writing.

A common denominator is the onset of blindness. Joyce was essentially blind by 40; Borges was 56. Both continued to write through dictation.

The most important element in the creation of any work of art, be it literary, visual, auditory, or otherwise, is arguably the character of the artist. Inevitably, the artist appears in the art, be it Michaelangelo or Loreena McKinnitt, the artist cannot hide in his or her work.

Joyce and Borges? Read their work: There they are.

NOTES:

William Strunk, Jr, & E. B. White, The Elements Of Style. The MacMillan Company, New York. 1959. p70.