READIN

Sunday, May 24th, 2009

🦋 Subjunctive

Huh: weird! I happened on this poem today, attributed to Borges and with a translation attributed to Alastair Reid. I was kind of taken with it, especially with the way the whole poem is subjunctive and the return to declarative voice in the final line feels kind of crushing. Checking for links with more information about this poem I find many, many pages reprinting the poem and attributing it to Borges, and also two articles (one by Iván Almeida, published in Borges Studies Online, and a shorter one by Eugenio Siccardi which refers to Almeida's piece) denying that Borges wrote this poem. I haven't read Almeida's whole article -- it's late and I'm tired, and I don't speak Spanish -- but he looks to know what he's talking about. Interesting -- what strikes me as really weird about this is attributing a translation of the fraudulent poem to Reid. I hope to have another go at the article tomorrow and see how this plays out.

Instantes

(no por Borges)

Si pudiera vivir nuevamente mi vida.
En la próxima trataría de cometer más errores.
No intentaría ser tan perfecto, me relajaría más.
Sería más tonto de lo que he sido, de hecho
tomaría muy pocas cosas con seriedad.
Sería menos higiénico.
Correría más riesgos, haría más viajes, contemplaría
más atardeceres, subiría más montañas, nadaría más ríos.
Iría a más lugares adonde nunca he ido, comería
más helados y menos habas, tendría más problemas
reales y menos imaginarios.
Yo fui una de esas personas que vivió sensata y prolíficamente
cada minuto de su vida; claro que tuve momentos de alegría.
Pero si pudiera volver atrás trataría de tener
solamente buenos momentos.
Por si no lo saben, de eso está hecha la vida, sólo de momentos;
no te pierdas el ahora.
Yo era uno de esos que nunca iban a ninguna parte sin
termómetro, una bolsa de agua caliente, un paraguas y un paracaídas;
Si pudiera volver a vivir, viajaría más liviano.
Si pudiera volver a vivir comenzaría a andar descalzo a principios
de la primavera y seguiría así hasta concluir el otoño.
Daría más vueltas en calesita, contemplaría más amaneceres
y jugaría con más niños, si tuviera otra vez la vida por delante.
Pero ya tengo 85 años y sé que me estoy muriendo.

A little more: Almeida says Reid did publish this translation, in Queen's Quarterly of Autumn 1992, and seems to be a bit mystified as to why he would have done that. "Perhaps the history of literature is the history of grand errors in reading." Almeida finds the original author of this poem to be Nadine Stair of Kentucky, published in the March 27 1978 issue of Family Circle (Almeida bizarrely calls the magazine Family Circus). ...According to Bryon Crawford, the author's real name was Nadine Strain.

posted evening of Sunday, May 24th, 2009: 3 responses
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Monday, May 25th, 2009

🦋 Subjunctive Attributions

I did not quite catch this last night; but it is hilarious: Almeida's article is titled "Jorge Luis Borges, author of the poem 'Moments'"; and it is prefaced with a highly relevant quotation from "Pierre Menard".

posted morning of Monday, May 25th, 2009: Respond
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🦋 Hoaxing

Here is what is confusing me about "Instantes": what was the impetus for Mauricio Ciechanower to publish the poem under Borges' name, and for Elena Poniatowska to back him up (if I'm reading correctly) with a fabricated interview? Were they playing a joke? If so it is an excellent one -- if they were attempting a fraud in earnest it just seems really weird: why? what is the profit for them?... And then if it was a joke, was Alastair Reid in on the joke, or was he duped? He is alive and one could ask him (Poniatowska is also still kicking, don't know about Ciechanower); I don't understand why Almeida did not.

posted morning of Monday, May 25th, 2009: Respond
➳ More posts about Jorge Luis Borges
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➳ More posts about Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote