August 06, 2004

Manguel on Borges

Canada's Globe and Mail has published a short review of Alberto Manguel's new volume With Borges, which describes the four years its author spent reading out loud to everyone's favorite blind Argentine librarian. Here's an excerpt from the review:


To that end, this book offers readers any number of Easter eggs in the form of anecdotes, sometimes first-hand, sometimes not, like the one about Borges going to an old Saxon chapel near Lichfield in England and reciting the Our Father in Old English, "to give God a little surprise." If you find that just about the coolest thing ever, you'll like this book. If you think it's banal, you'd best choose some more serious fare, something by Ted Hughes about Shakespeare, perhaps.

The review as a whole didn't really tempt me to read Manguel's book, but the passage above did intrigue me, I have to admit...

Update: Michael Dirda has reviewed a new Borges biography in The Washington Post, noting that the book "left me at least a sadder if wiser reader: I will miss picturing the author of 'Death and the Compass' as a lovable scholarly antiquarian rather than as this self-tormented mama's boy."

Posted by Ed at August 6, 2004 03:13 PM
Comments

Manguel's edited anthology, Black Water is perhaps the finest collection of fantastic literature - with a few choice Borges pieces. Thanks for linking this, I am sure to pick it up.

Posted by: sepoy at August 6, 2004 10:05 PM
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