I had a small window of time the other day to run to the library, and since I hadn't planned on going, I forgot to bring my list of call numbers of books I wanted to check out. I figured that, since their Spanish language collection is grouped by country, I would be able to find what I was looking for without the call numbers. Unfortunately, I was unable to make sense of the order that the countries were in (it seemed like Central America was together, but I didn't find Bolivia where I expected it to be, after Argentina), and I ended up with an increasing sense of desperation as the minutes ticked away and I'd only found one of the books I'd come for. I ended up staring at a couple of shelves of books by Leopoldo Lugones, knowing that I was already in danger of running late but unable to make a choice. I've had reservations about Lugones due to the totalitarian stance he adopted later in life, but I also knew that he was an extremely important early figure in Argentine literature, and now that I had my choice of any of the many books he published, I couldn't decide where to begin. I then saw a thin little edition whose cover read LEOPOLDO LUGONES, and below that, BORGES. I generally avoid biographies of authors I haven't read, preferring to familiarize myself with their work before delving into their past lives. However, in this case I thought, who better than Jorge Luis Borges to introduce me to Lugones and help me figure out where to begin, as well as why I should read and appreciate Lugones's work.

This was a good choice: I was reminded of how much I enjoy Borges when he writes about Argentine topics that are close to his heart. The book has a friendly, inviting tone, highlighting the brilliance of Lugones's language and the importance of his works while offering an apology for his shortcomings. Borges begins by summarizing the poetic currents of the second half of the 20th century in order to show how Lugones fit into the modernizing movement of European and Latin American poetry. Many of Lugones's books show his connection to French and Latin American poets who came before him, and Borges points out that, while these influences are apparent and relatively clear, the originality of Lugones is indisputable and his intense poetry prefigured future Argentine literary production. This manner of creating original work based on clear influences makes me think of one of his contemporaries: Horacio Quiroga. It's easy to think of Quiroga as an Argentine Edgar Allen Poe, but that does not make him unoriginal. He uses Poe's short stories as a blueprint for depicting the terrible power that nature has over man in the wilderness of northeastern Argentina, writing stories of death and madness and of man's often losing struggle against the natural elements that work to overcome him in isolated parts of the world. I hope that Lugones is similar to Quiroga, in that his employment of foreign influences helped him create poetry that is original and important in its own right.

Borges especially admires Lugones's literary criticism of Martín Fierro, entitled El payador, as well as his short stories, which are early examples of Latin American fantastic short fiction (a genre that Borges himself wrote in to great acclaim). He sees Lugones as a patriotic man who loved Argentina and worked tirelessly to delve into its past and interpret the importance of the great figures of the 19th century. To that end, he also wrote an extensive biography of Sarmiento. When I go back to the library, I´ll try to grab El payador and the Cátedra edition of his short works I saw on the shelf, because not only do they carry Borges´s recommendation, but they also align with my interests. I'm intrigued to see how his fantastic short stories from the early 20th century relate to the Argentine authors who came after him, and I'm hoping to see glimpses of Borges, Cortázar, Bioy Cásares and company in his short works. I hope that El Payador gives me a better idea of Martín Fierro's importance, and that Lugones's Argentine passion and technical ability make it an entertaining and informative read.

Lugones is painted as a tireless writer who always came off as a bit cold and unrelatable to his readers. In books like this one, Borges is able to not only tell me about Lugones's creations and his importance in the canon of Argentine literature; he is also able to make me feel like he is my friend. There is a warmth and familiarity to his writing that I really appreciate, and he seems to be saying here that Lugones lacked these qualities. His eventual suicide is imagined in the closing of the book as, in part, an admission of his failure to connect with others:

"Perhaps he is worthy of deeper investigation. Perhaps it is worth reading behind the lines, guessing, or simply imagining the story; the story of a man who, without knowing, refuted passion and laboriously erected tall and illustrious verbal edifices until he was overcome by coldness and solitude. Then, that man, master of all words and of all of their splendor, felt in his heart that reality is not verbal and can be incommunicable and appalling, and he went, silently and solitarily, as the sun set over an island, to seek death." ( )