Maybe there are two Borges in the world, existing at the same time. One is the fiction writer we know, the lover of paradox, the trickster, the forger, the artist who describes fantastical events with straight-faced authority, using the syntax and tone of academia; and then there is this other Borges, the critic, who writes reasonably and clearly, companionably and insightfully, about high-brow and esoteric subjects, whose aim is elucidation rather than bewilderment.
Jorge Luis Borges, a titan in the canon of magical realism, is often remembered for the succulent precision of his short fiction that features labyrinthine philosophical concepts. In a number of his stories, Borges writes about meeting himself. Over at Lit Hub, Jonathan Russell Clark remembers the surreal mirror-encounters Borges fantastically narrates and imagines the kind of artistic/academic dual nature that the author embodied.
