Borges, the hedonistic reader

Abstract

In his essays, reviews and notes from the thirties and forties, Borges begins a harsh attack against the realism and psychologism of Argentinean novel. Among the critical interpretations of his statements it is widely believed that Borges vindicates the fantastic genre (for the value that he attributes to its constructive rigour) as opposed to realistic narrative. This work proposes to revise this conclusion from a reading of the author’s essays of the period, based on the veiled dialogue they maintain with certain Stevenson's ideas about realism and novel. The studies that have dealt with the influence of Stevenson on Borgean essays have not reached yet what I consider is the main core of the essays, that is, their ethics. From what I define as an ethic of the hedonistic reader, I will attempt to argue that, rather than a true refutation of realism, both essayists make a strong vindication of imaginative literature, which, at least for Borges, refers not only to the fantastic genre. This dialogue will call into question the hackneyed image of an anti-realist Borges.