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With Borges

July 10, 2009 by Steve Mentz 1 Comment

This is more of a preview of a future post, but I just picked up a new book called With Borges by Alberto Manguel.  It seems that Manguel, who’s now a famous writer-on-reading (I read The History of Reading some years back & enjoyed it, though I remember thinking it was somewhat Borges-lite), got his start as a teenager by reading books aloud to the blind Borges.  This short memoir is his recounting of what it was like to be a bookish teenager, working in a national library, & then called in to read to an old man who, I can only imagine, must have seemed a bit like God…

Actually sounds like a story by Borges, come to think of it…

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Comments

  1. JMisak says

    July 14, 2009 at 9:00 am

    It does sound a lot like a Borges story. Talk about a dream coming true for someone. I wonder if Manguel put a Borges-esque last line in there.

    Reply

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About Steve

Steve Mentz
Professor of English
St. John’s University
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