Activity : Reading comprehension : Jorge Luis Borges (1899- 1986) an outstanding Argentinian writer.The AlepH.

                                Jorge Luis Borges was born on the 24 th of August of 1899  in Buenos Aires. His family included British ancestry and he learned English before Spanish. Jorge Guillermo Borges, his father, was a lawyer and a psychology teacher.

 In the large house was also a library and garden which enchanted Borges'  imagination. Borges'  mother, Leonor Acevedo Haedo, was a translator; she lived far into her 90's. In 1914 the family moved to Geneva, where Borges learned French and German and received his B.A. from the Collège of Geneva.

After World War I the Borges family lived in Spain, where he was a member of avant-garde Ultraist literary group. His first poem, 'Hymn to the Sea,' written in the style of Walt Whitman, was published in the magazine Grecia.

In 1921, Borges settled in Buenos Aires. There, he started his career as a writer by publishing poems and essays in literary journals. Among his friends was the philosopher Macedonio Fernandez, who  influenced his thought. 

                                  Borges' first collection of poetry was FERVOR DE BUENOS AIRES (1923). He contributed to the avant-garde review Martin Fierro, and co-founded the journal Proa (1924-26). For decades Borges was the chief contributor of Sur, Argentina's most important literary journal, which was founded in 1931 by Victoria Ocampo.

 Borges's interest in fantasy was shared by another well-known Argentine writer of fiction, Adolfo Bioy Casares, with whom Borges coauthored under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq several collections of tales.

                                   Later collections include FICCIONES (1944), EL ALEPH (1949), and  EL HACEDOR (1960).One of his most successfull literary works .

    

                                   In Borges' story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion. The story continues the theme of infinity found in several of Borges' other works, such as The Book of Sand.

As in many of Borges' short stories, the protagonist is a fictionalized version of the author. At the beginning of the story, he is mourning the recent death of a woman whom he loved, named Beatriz Viterbo, and resolves to stop by the house of her family to pay his respects. Over time, he comes to know her first cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, a mediocre poet with a vastly exaggerated view of his own talent who has made it his lifelong quest to write an epic poem that describes every single location on the planet in excruciatingly fine detail.

      

Later in the story, a business on the same street attempts to tear down Daneri's house in the course of its expansion. Daneri becomes enraged, explaining to the narrator that he must keep the house in  order to finish his poem, because the cellar contains an Aleph which he  is using to write it. 

Though by now he believes Daneri to be quite insane, the narrator proposes without  waiting for an answer to come to the house and see the Aleph for himself.

Left alone in the darkness of the cellar, the narrator begins to fear that Daneri is conspiring to kill him, and then he sees the Aleph for himself.

                                  Borges' political opinions were not considered inoffensive. Borges was dismissed from his library position for having expressed his opposition to the government of Peron . His sister was imprisoned and his mother was placed under house arrest.

When Juan Perón was again elected president in 1973, Borges resigned as director of the National Library. Despite his opposition to Perón and later to the junta, his support to liberal causes were considered too ambiguous.

                                  Borges'  fictional universe was born from his vast and esoteric  readings in literature, Judaism , philosophy, and theology. He sees man's search for meaning in an infinite universe as a fruitless effort. In the universe of energy, mass, and speed of light, Borges considers the central riddle time, not space. He believed in an infinite series of times, in a growing, dizzying net of divergent, convergent and parallel times.

A recurrent image in Borges ' works is the mirror, which reflects different identities. Also , he   uses  the idea of the double to express his  opinions .In the short story 'Borges y yo'  the narrator discusses himself as if he is two separate persons: "I" and "The other one, the one called Borges."One represents Borges himself and the other represents the “alter ego “. The plot is a subtle mediation on the differences between the "I" and "Borges," and their ambivalent feelings about their relationship.

                                 Through his literary carrer , Jorge Luis Borges received many national and international prizes , he was proposed in several opportunities for the Nobel Prize but he was never awarded it .

Answer these questions   

1 Which pseudonym used Jorge Luis Borges as a writer?

2 Who are the characters in the Aleph?

3 What are  the main sources for his literary works ?

4 which is the recurrent image in Borges' works ?

5 What does the text say about Borges ' political opinions?