From Publishers Weekly
Only one of the most paradoxical men of 20th-century Spanish-language letters could have authored an equally complicated literary work such as
Labyrinths. And Jorge Luis Borges's life (1899–1986) imitated his art. In this dynamic biography, Spanish literature scholar Williamson (
The Penguin History of Latin America) pieces together the life of Argentina's elusive literary master against a backdrop of the country's history and the author's oeuvre. While Borges was known as a rebel of narrative form and a crusader against conservative politics, Williamson argues that in spite of his ultracerebral writing style, he lived and died with very ordinary regrets. Borges was the son of battling parents from opposing political parties and the grandson of some of Argentina's most revered military generals. Williamson shows the young writer (whom he nicknames "Georgie" for effect) as a weakling and social recluse, unable to defend himself from the world's bullies. Ultimately, Borges chose the pen over the valiant dagger, so often used in his family's bloody history, as a means of protection. Later in life, displeased with his early books of essays, he set out to buy and burn all available copies. With just the right balance of fact and insight to make for a composed and not overly inflated biography, Williamson's psychoanalysis of Borges in love and in alienation is compelling. Replete with the most detailed facts about the air surrounding Borges, the book maintains human drama without overloading on unnecessary facts to create a poignant overview of a peculiar man.
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From Booklist
*Starred Review* Jorge Luis Borges is one of the giants of twentieth-century literature, an Argentine writer of singular vision and talent profoundly inspired by mythology, metaphysics, detective stories, and the deepest, most contrary emotions aroused by family, country, and love. Borges greatly enhanced the philosophical and aesthetic dimensions of fiction in his provocative story-essay hybrids, entwined personal passions with political convictions in his poetry, and made of his life a quest to understand the parameters and significance of the self within the mysterious, labyrinthine universe. The withdrawn, myopic, and bookish son of a literary half-English father and a fiercely class-conscious mother, Borges began writing early on, but neither fame nor happiness found him until his later years, after he lost his sight. Williamson is the first to chronicle in full Borges' tumultuous private life, and, therefore, the first to draw crucial connections between his haunting imagery, momentous themes, and indelible voice and his smothering familial relationships, disastrous love affairs, and valiant opposition to tyranny, especially that of the Peron regime. The result is 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.
Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
