[In the following interview, Borges addresses a number of his favorite themes—labyrinths, tigers, books—and talks about his short story "Funes the Memorious."]

[Alifano]: Borges, I would like to talk with you about two images which seem to obsess you and which you repeat throughout your work. I am referring to labyrinths and to the figure of the tiger. I suggest we start with the former. How did labyrinths enter your literary work; what fascinates you about them?

[Borges]: Well, I discovered the labyrinth in a book published in France by Garnier that my father had in his library. The book had a very odd engraving that took a whole page and showed a building that resembled an amphitheater. I remember that it had cracks and seemed tall, taller than the cypresses and the men that stood around it. My eyesight was not perfect—I was very myopic—but I thought that if I used a magnifying glass, I would be able to see a minotaur within the building. That labyrinth was, besides, a symbol of bewilderment, a symbol of being lost in life. I believe that all of us, at one time or another, have felt that we are lost, and I saw in the labyrinth the symbol of that condition. Since then, I have held that vision of the labyrinth.

Borges, what has always intrigued me about labyrinths is not that people get lost within them, but rather that they are constructions intentionally made to confound us. Don't you think that this concept is odd?

Yes, it is a very odd idea, the idea of envisioning a builder of labyrinths, the idea of an architect of labyrinths is indeed odd. It is the idea of the father of Icarus, Daedalus, who was the first builder of a labyrinth—the labyrinth of Crete. There is also Joyce's conception, if we are looking for a more literary figure. I have always been puzzled by the labyrinth. It is a very strange idea, an idea which has never left me.

Various forms of labyrinths appear in your stories. Labyrinths placed in time, like the one of "The Garden of Forking Paths," where you tell about a lost labyrinth.

Ah, yes, I do speak of a lost labyrinth in it. Now, a lost labyrinth seems to me to be something magical, and it is because a labyrinth is a place where one loses oneself, a place (in my story) that in turn is lost in time. The idea of a labyrinth which disappears, of a lost labyrinth, is twice as magical. That story is a tale which I imagined to be multiplied or forked in various directions. In that story the reader is presented with all the events leading to the execution of a crime whose intention the reader does not understand. I dedicated that story to Victoria Ocampo …

Do you conceive the image of losing ourselves in a labyrinth as a pessimistic view of the future of mankind?

No, I don't. I believe that in the idea of the labyrinth there is also hope, or salvation; if we were positively sure the universe is a labyrinth, we would feel secure. But it may not be a labyrinth. In the labyrinth there is a center: that terrible center is the minotaur. However, we don't know if the universe has a center; perhaps it doesn't. Consequently, it is probable that the universe is not a labyrinth but simply chaos, and if that is so, we are indeed lost.

Yes, if it didn't have a center, it wouldn't be a cosmos but chaos. Do you believe that the universe may have a secret center?

I don't see why not. It is easy to conceive that it has a center, one that can be terrible, or demonic, or divine. I believe that if we think in those terms unconsciously we are thinking of the labyrinth. That is, if we believe there is a center, somehow we are saved. If that center exists, life is coherent. There are events which surely lead us to think that the universe is a coherent structure. Think, for example, of the rotation of the planets, the seasons of the year, the different stages in our lives. All that leads us to believe that there is a labyrinth, that there is an order, that there is a secret center of the universe, as you have suggested, that there is a great architect who conceived it. But it also leads us to think that it may be irrational, that logic cannot be applied to it, that the universe is unexplainable to us, to mankind—and that in itself is a terrifying idea.

All those aspects of the labyrinth fascinated you then?

Yes, all of them. But I have also been attracted by the very word labyrinth, which is a beautiful word. It derives from the Greek labyrinthos, which initially denoted the shafts and corridors of a mine and that now denotes that strange construction especially built so that people would get lost. Now the English word maze is not as enchanting or powerful as the Spanish word laberinto. Maze also denotes a dance, in which the dancers weave a sort of labyrinth in space and time. Then we find amazement, to be amazed, to be unamazed, but I believe that labyrinth is the essential word, and it is the one I am drawn to.

Let's go on to the other image: the image of the tiger. Why do you, in choosing an animal, usually choose the image of the tiger?

Chesterton said that the tiger was a symbol of terrible elegance. What a lovely phrase, don't you think so? The tiger's terrible elegance…. Well, when I was a child and was taken to the zoo, I used to stop for a long time in front of the tiger's cage to see him pacing back and forth. I liked his natural beauty, his black stripes and his golden stripes. And now that I am blind, one single color remains for me, and it is precisely the color of the tiger, the color yellow. For me, things may be red, they may be blue; the blues may be green, etc., but the yellow is the only color that I see. That is why, since it is the color I see most clearly, I have used it many times and I have associated it with the tiger.

You must have derived from that the title of one of your books of poems, The Gold of the Tigers. Am I right?

Yes, that is right. And in the last poem of that book, which has the same title as the book, I speak of the tiger and the color yellow.

       Until the hour of yellow dusk
       How often I looked
       At the mighty tiger of Bengal
       Coming and going in his set path
       Behind the iron bars,
       Unsuspecting they were his jail.
       Later, other tigers came to me,
       Blake's burning tyger;
       Then, other golds came to me,
       Zeus's golden and loving metal,
       The ring that after nine nights
       Gives birth to nine new rings and these, to nine more,
       In endless repetition.
       As the years passed
       The other colors left me
       And now I am left with
       The faint light, the inextricable shadow
       And the gold of my beginnings.
       Oh dusks, tigers, radiance
       Out of myths and epics.
       Oh and even a more desired gold, your hair
       That my hands long to hold.

.…

Borges, I am interested to know the circumstances that led you to write that wonderful story, "Funes the Memorious." Could we talk about that strange character who compensates for his deficiencies with his extraordinary memory. Is it true that it relates to a period of insomnia you suffered?

Yes, it is true. And I can remember in great detail the circumstances under which I wrote that story. During a time that I had to spend in a hotel, throughout the day I feared the coming of night, because I knew that it was going to be a night of insomnia, that each time I dozed my sleep would be interrupted by atrocious nightmares. I knew that hotel very well; I had lived there as a child. The building has already disappeared; its architecture was full of all the images of the labyrinth. I remember the many patios, the corridors, the statues, the gate, the vast deserted halls, the huge main door, the other entrance doors, the carriage house, the eucalyptus trees, and even a small labyrinth built there. And I particularly remember a clock that punctuated my insomnia, for it inexorably struck every hour: the half hour, the quarter hour and the full hour. So I had no way of deceiving myself. The clock acted as a witness with its metallic ticktock.

I remember that I used to lie down and try to forget everything, and that led me, inevitably, to recall everything. I imagined the books on the shelves, the clothes on the chair, and even my own body on the bed; every detail of my body, the exact position in which my body lay. And so, since I could not erase memory, I kept thinking of those things, and also thinking: if only I could forget, I would certainly be able to sleep. Then I would recall the belief that when one sleeps, one becomes everyone, or, better said, one is no one, or if one is oneself, one sees oneself in the third person. One is, as Addison said, the actual theater, the spectators, the actors, the author of the drama, the stage—everything simultaneously.

Forgetfulness would have been a way to free yourself and to fall asleep?

Yes. But my insomnia prevented that, and I kept on thinking: continuously imagining the hotel, thinking of my body and of things beyond my body and the hotel. I would think of the adjoining streets, of the street leading to the train station, of the neighboring houses, of the tobacco shop…. Later I reached this conclusion: it is fortunate my memory is fallible, fortunate my memory is not infinite. How terrifying it would be if my memory were infinite! It would undoubtedly be monstrous! In that case I would remember every detail of every day of my life, which of course amounts to thousands—as Joyce showed in Ulysses. Each day countless things happen, but fortunately we forget them, and furthermore, many of them are repetitions. And so, from that situation I derived the notion of a person who no longer embodied the traditional definition of human faculties (that is, memory and will)—an individual who possessed only memory. Thus, I came upon the idea of that unfortunate country boy, and this was the birth of the story "Funes the Memorious."

One of the most admirable parables on insomnia ever written.

Well, I don't fully agree with your judgment, but there it is! Now, I will reveal something to you that perhaps would be interesting to psychologists. It is strange that after having written that story—after having described that horrible perfection of memory, which ends up destroying its possessor—the insomnia which had distressed me so much disappeared.

So that the completion of that fantastic tale had a therapeutic effect on you. There are many people who assert that that story is autobiographical; it certainly is, since it is sort of an elaboration of a mental state of yours. Do you agree?

Yes. All I did was to write down "Funes" instead of "Borges." I have omitted some aspects of myself and, obviously, I have added others that I don't possess. For example, Funes, the country boy, could not have written the story; I, on the other hand, have been able to write it and to forget Funes and also—though not always—that unpleasant insomnia. Now, I believe that that story is powerful because the reader feels that it is not simply a fantasy, but rather that I am relating something that can happen to him or her, and that happened to me when I wrote it. The entire story comes to be a sort of metaphor, or as you pointed out, a parable of insomnia.

One notes, moreover, a definite concreteness throughout the story. That is, the character is placed in a specific location and his drama unfolds there.

I believe that I succeeded in making "Funes the Memorious" a concrete story. Yes, it does take place in a specific location; that location is Fray Bentos in Uruguay. When I was a child, I spent some time there, in the home of one of my uncles; so I do have childhood memories of the place. Then I chose a very simple character, a simple country boy. As I had to justify his condition in some way, I described a fall from a horse. Really, there are a number of little novelistic inventions that do not harm anyone. Finally, I entitled the story "Funes el memorioso"; a title that suits the story.

Borges, in English, "Funes the Memorious" must sound odd since the word "memorious" does not exist.

True, that word does not exist in English, and it does give the story a grotesque character, an extravagant character. On the other hand, in Spanish—although I don't know if anyone has used the word "memorioso"—if one heard a man from the country say: "Fulano es muy memorioso" (that fellow is very memorious), one would certainly understand him. So that, as I said, I think that the original title goes well with the story. Now, if one seeks an equivalent in another language, for example in French, by using the word "memorié" or some other similar word, the reader is led to see it as a mental state. Thus this title evokes the story of a very simple and unfortunate character killed at an early age by insomnia.

..…

There is a theme I would like us to speak about: the theme of books. I know that it is one of your obsessions. I would be interested to hear your opinions on the subject.

Well, last night, in fact, I had a very strange dream. I dreamed of the burning of a great library—which I believe may have been the library of Alexandria—with its countless volumes attacked by flames. Do you believe this dream may have some meaning?

Perhaps, Borges. Could it be that you owe your readers a book on the history of the book? Have you ever thought of writing such a book?

Dear me, no! But it is an excellent idea. It would be wonderful to write a history of the book. I'll keep it in mind; although I don't know if an eighty-three-year-old man can set such a project for himself. I don't know if I am qualified, and to be qualified for such a task is no easy matter; but, in any case, that work should not be approached merely as a physical labor. I, for one, am not much interested in the physical nature of books; particularly in bibliographical books, which are generally excessively long. I am interested in the various appreciations a book has received. However, I now remember that Spengler, in his Decline of the West, predates my attempt, for in it he writes remarkable comments on books.

Well, you have also written some remarkable commentary on books. I remember the essay "El culto de los libros" (The Cult of Books) in your book Otras inquisiciones (Other Inquisitions), where you synthesize much of your opinions on the subject; and I also remember a poem entitled "Alexandria, 641 A.D.," which refers precisely to the library of Alexandria and to the caliph Omar, who burned it.

Ah, yes, in that poem I conceived the notion of having the caliph express things which most likely he never did; for he was a caliph, and a caliph would not have expressed himself thus. But, thank God, poetry (generally all literature) allows such a thing, and so why couldn't we imagine the caliph speaking. He imagines that the library of Alexandria is the memory of the world; in the vast library of Alexandria everything is found. And then Omar orders the library burned, but he thinks that is unimportant, and says: "Si de todos / No quedara uno solo, volverìan / A engendrar cada hoja y cada lìnea, / Cada trabajo y cada amor de Hércules, / Cada lección de cada manuscrito." (If of all these books / None remained, men would, once again, / Engender each page, each line, / All labor and all of Hercules's love, / Each reading of each manuscript.) In other words, if all the past is in the library, the entire past came from the imagination of men. That is why I believe that beyond its rhetorical virtue, if a work truly possesses it, each generation rewrites anew the books of earlier generations. The differences are found in the cadence, in the syntax, in the form; but we are always repeating the same fables and rediscovering the same metaphors. So that, in some respects, I concur with the caliph Omar—not the historical one, but the caliph I sketched in my poem.

Nowadays, you must have noticed it, there is a cult of books; a cult which the ancients didn't have. What are the reasons for it, Borges?

I believe there are two reasons. First, that all the great masters of mankind, curiously, have been oral; and second, that the ancients saw in the book a substitute for the oral word. I recall a phrase which is often quoted: "Scripta manent verba volant" (The written word stays, the spoken word flies). That phrase doesn't mean that the spoken word is ephemeral, but rather that the written word is something lasting and dead. The spoken word, it seems to me now, is somewhat winged and light—"something winged, light and sacred," Plato said in defining poetry. I think that we can apply that concept to the spoken word.

But let's recall another case. The case of Pythagoras, who never wrote so as not to tie himself to the written word, surely because he felt that writing kills and the spoken word fills with life. That is why Aristotle never speaks of Pythagoras but of the Pythagoreans. Pythagoras wished that beyond his physical death his disciples would keep his thoughts alive. Later came that often-quoted Latin phrase: "Magister dixit" (The master has said). Which does not mean that the Master has imposed his opinions on his disciples; it means that the disciples continue to expound on the ideas, but if someone opposes them, they invoke: "the Master has said." That phrase is a sort of formula to find reaffirmation and thus to continue professing the ideas of the Master. Speaking of the Pythagoreans, Aristotle tells us that they professed a belief in the dogma of the eternal recurrence, which, somewhat belatedly, Nietzsche would discover.

That idea of the eternal recurrence or of cyclical time was refuted by Saint Augustine in his City of God, do you remember it?

Yes. Saint Augustine says, in a beautiful metaphor, that the Cross of Christ saves us from the circular labyrinth of the Stoics. That idea of cyclical time was also touched upon by Hume, Blanqui and others.

In one of your essays you quote the words of Bernard Shaw. When asked if he truly believed that the Holy Spirit had written the Bible, Shaw answered: "Every book worth being reread has been written by the spirit."

Ah, yes. I completely concur with that notion, since a book goes beyond its author's intention. Don Quixote, for example, is more than a simple chivalric novel or the satire of a genre. It is an absolute text totally unaffected by chance. The author's intention is a meager human thing, a fallible thing. In a book—in every book—there is a need for something more, which is always mysterious. When we read an ancient book, it is as though we were reading all time that has passed from the day it was written to our present day. A book can be full of errors, we can reject its author's opinions, disagree with him or her, but the book always retains something sacred, something mortal, something magical which brings happiness. In opposition to Macedonio Fernández, who asserted that beauty was something exclusive or given to certain chosen people, I believe that beauty can be found in all things. It would be very strange, for example, if in a book by a Thai poet (I have no knowledge of that country's literature) we could not find a line of poetry that astounds us.

Borges, you have also asserted that books grow with time, and that the readers themselves modify them and enrich them.

Certainly. Books are altered by their readers. For example, the gaucho epic, Martín Fierro, that we read now is not the same one written by its author, José Hernández, but rather the one read by Leopoldo Lugones, who undoubtedly enriched it. Similarly, in regard to Don Quixote or Hamlet; Hamlet is also the play that Goethe and Coleridge and Bradley read and interpreted. That is why I feel it is useful that we should maintain a cult of books, since books are a living thing in constant growth.

In certain ways you profess that cult of books, isn't that so, Borges?

Yes, I do. I will tell you a secret. I still continue pretending that I am not blind, I still buy books—you know that very well, I still go on filling my house with books. I feel the friendly gravitational force of the book. I don't exactly know why I believe that a book brings to us a possibility of happiness. A few months ago I was given a marvelous edition of the Brockhaus Encyclopedia; and the presence of twenty volumes with beautiful maps and engravings, printed in, I am sure, a no less beautiful Gothic type—that I cannot read—filled me with joy. Those books, almost sacred to me, were there, and I felt their pleasant companionship. Well, I do have a cult of books, I admit it; perhaps this may seem somewhat pathetic, but it is not so. It is something genuine, something sincere and truthful.

Borges, there are people who speak of the disappearance of books, and they assert that modern developments in communications will replace them with something more dynamic that will require less time than reading. What do you think of that?

I believe that books will never disappear. It is impossible that that will happen. Among the many inventions of man, the book, without a doubt, is the most astounding: all the others are extensions of our bodies. The telephone, for example, is the extension of our voice; the telescope and the microscope are extensions of our sight; the sword and the plow are extensions of our arms. Only the book is an extension of our imagination and memory.

What you have just said brings to mind that Bernard Shaw, in Caesar and Cleopatra, refers to the library of Alexandria as the memory of mankind.

Yes, I remember that also. And besides being the memory of mankind, it is also its imagination and, why not, its dreams, since it is absurd to suppose that only the waking moments of men engendered the countless pages of countless books.

Well, you state in a memorable passage that literature is a dream.

It is true. Literature is a dream, a controlled dream. Now, I believe that we owe literature almost everything we are and what we have been, also what we will be. Our past is nothing but a sequence of dreams. What difference can there be between dreaming and remembering the past? Books are the great memory of all centuries. Their function, therefore, is irreplaceable. If books disappear, surely history would disappear, and man would also disappear.

Jorge Luis Borges and Roberto Alifano, in an interview in Twenty-Four Conversations with Borges, Including a Selection of Poems: Interviews by Roberto Alifano, 1981–1983, Lascaux Publishers, 1984, 157 p.