EJ & Borges (was: RE: Glass Bees discussion)

[Richard Brem <llr@magnet.at>]

-- [ From: Richard Brem * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] --

>Mr. Brem,
>
>Where has this conversation between Jünger and Borges been >published? Has
it been translated to English or Spanish( or perhaps >French)? I´ve seen
pictures from this interview in Wilflingen but >never read the conversation
betwen my two favourite writers.

EJ gives a summary in "Siebzig verweht 3" (see the entry on 27 October 1982)
. As Bertil pointed out, it doesn't record the whole conversation. 
Spanish translation - I don't know. There should be a French translation,
though (presumably "Soixante-dix s'efface vol. 3") 
There exists an as yet unpublished English translation, which was done by
John Whaley for the forthcoming Curfew Press anthology on EJ. Here it is:
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Wilflingen, 27 October 1982

We had the joy and honour of entertaining Jorge Luis Borges here – meeting a
poet has become almost as rare as an encounter with an almost extinct or
even mythical animal, a unicorn say. 
     Borges has been almost completely blind for years; he was accompanied
by a young man assigned to him by the Foreign Affairs Ministry and by his
own lady assistant. The few hours here in the house were enough for us to
appreciate that she was not only a priceless help for the blind man but had
become his 'alter ego'. She guided his hand to the glass when he wanted to
drink, and to a piece of cake before he asked for it, and acted in all
respects like one of his own specially adapted organs.
     As we sat in the library the conversation between the five of us was
polyglot; German, Spanish, French and English sentences crossed over each
other. Borges recited Angelus Silesius in German, also Old English verse; as
he did so his voice became clearer, as if he were drawing on his youth. I
explained my regret that I had not learned Spanish so as to be able to read
Cervantes and Quevedo in the original – and Borges, of course. 
     We talked about Schopenhauer to whom we both owe much from our young
days on, then about Kafka, Don Quixote, A Thousand and One Nights, Walt
Whitman, Flaubert. Whitman's 'Leaves of Grass'show Democracy in all its
strength – Flaubert's 'Bouvard et Pécuchet' show its infamy.
     Then about Huxley – I took the view that the 'Weltgeist' had solved the
problem of political order better in the case of the insects than we had
done for us. Borges replied: 'Maybe so as far as concerns the interests of
the State, but the single ant counts for nothing.'
     But against that one could argue that all are provided for. They have a
place to live in, food and full employment, also a long hibernation sleep in
the winter. 
     Most of them are excluded from a sexual life, which could perhaps even
be a relief. But from love as well? When I stood in front of one of their
ant-hills in the noon-time sun and put my hand over them and it became
moistened as they scurried about and waved their feelers I believed I could
feel that they are happy. There should be some research into that; but we
agreed that zoologists are hardly in a position to do it. 
    For sixty years Borges has followed my development. The first of my
books that he read was 'Bajo la Tormenta de Acero' ['The Storm of Steel'],
the translation of which in 1922 was commissioned by the Argentinean Army.
'For me that was a volcanic eruption.' 
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I wonder if Borges has recorded the encounter as well, perhaps in his diary 
(if he kept one), or in an interview or in his letters. Are there any Borges
experts on the list? Perhaps they could tell us.   

Regards, 
RBR