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The Limitless Stories of Jorge Luis Borges (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Alice Irasari.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm Patrick Woodwood. Spotlight uses a special English method
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Have you ever wondered how time works? What about memory?
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  Speaker 1: Have you thought about the difference between life and dreams?
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  Speaker 2: Some people do not think about these questions, and most
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: writers do not explore them. But the Argentinian writer Jorhe
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Louise Borhes was not like other writers. Most of his
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: writing explored these ideas. To many people. These ideas may
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  Speaker 2: seem strange, but in exploring them, Borhes became one of
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  Speaker 2: the world's most important writers.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Today's spotlight is on the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borhes.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Boyes wrote about many different subjects. Sometimes he wrote about
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  Speaker 2: his own experiences, but often he wrote about subjects like
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  Speaker 2: time and memory. Much of his writing is difficult to define.
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  Speaker 2: It is mysterious, like a dream.
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  Speaker 1: But Borhas's early life did not seem mysterious. The only
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  Speaker 1: unusual thing about young Borhas was his eyesight. Even when
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: he was young, he had a hard time seeing, so
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  Speaker 1: he did not play outside as often as other children,
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  Speaker 1: and he did not make many friends. Instead, he spent
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  Speaker 1: much of his time inside reading from his father's books.
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  Speaker 1: His father had over a thousand books in Metay languages,
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  Speaker 1: and Bores tried to read them all. He read the
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  Speaker 1: Christian Bible and stories from ancient Greece. He even read
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  Speaker 1: books full of facts.
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  Speaker 2: For Borjes, these books were the most important part of
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: his young life. Gloria Lekube was an Argentinian journalist. In
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, she talked to Borjes. She asked when
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: he knew he would become a writer. He said, I.
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  Speaker 3: Think I have always known, maybe because my father had
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: an influence on me. I was raised with my father's books.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: I went to school, but that hardly matters, right. I
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  Speaker 3: was really raised among my father's books. I always knew
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  Speaker 3: that it was what I was meant to do, being
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  Speaker 3: among books, reading them, but it would seem I was
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  Speaker 3: influenced to write as well.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Borhes's father influenced him in other ways too. Borhes's father
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: studied many subjects. He was a lawyer and he also
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: taught students. Often he would speak to his son about
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: very difficult subjects. They would talk about how memory is
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  Speaker 1: not perfect. They would speak about different ways to think
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  Speaker 1: about time.
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  Speaker 2: Borhes would later write about these subjects in his stories.
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  Speaker 2: One of the most interesting is called Funess the Memorius.
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  Speaker 2: An unnamed first person writer believed to be Borhes himself,
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  Speaker 2: tells the story.
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  Speaker 3: The trouble began when Funess fell from the horse. The
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  Speaker 3: boy hit his head on a stone, and the fool
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: broke his back. Today, he sits in his parents' house
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: in the country, unable to move on his own.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Some people would probably love the power to remember, but
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Funess is in a difficult situation. He sits in the
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: same place all day. His new memories are all the same. Instead,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: he spends most of his time in his memories. Each
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: day of his past takes another day to remember. These
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: memories cause problems for him. He finds it hard to sleep.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: He relives his life over and over again. By the
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: time the writer of the story speaks to him, he
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: has gone over his life many times. He is only nineteen.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: It seems as if he has lived many lives, but
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  Speaker 1: it is also as if he has not lived at all.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Bojas began to publish his own work when he was
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  Speaker 2: very young. He was only twenty when he published his
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  Speaker 2: first poem, and his works soon became popular in literary
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: circles around Argentina. People saw that his work was different.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: It played with the idea of what writing was. His
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: ideas were like no one else's.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Boor has found it difficult to make money as a writer.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Many people respected his work, but it did not sell well,
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  Speaker 1: so Boor has found work as a teacher. He spent
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: much of his time reading and translating. What he did
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  Speaker 1: write was very short. Often he wrote more about ideas
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  Speaker 1: than people. He created strange worlds and played with language.
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  Speaker 2: Then, in nineteen forty one, he published one of his
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  Speaker 2: most important stories. It's called The Garden of Forking Paths.
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  Speaker 2: It was his first story translated into English. Before this,
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: only a few people in Argentina knew his work. Now
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: people in other countries began to read. In a very
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  Speaker 2: short time, Bores became well known. He traveled North America
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  Speaker 2: and Europe giving speeches. His work began to win.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Awards, But by the time he was in his thirties,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Borjes's eyesight had begun to fade. The process was slow.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: He lost to the power to see some colors. First,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: at fifty he could not see at all.
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: Later, borhes would write a poem about his experiences of
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  Speaker 2: losing sight. It is called in praise of darkness.
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  Speaker 3: Old age, or so it is called by others, can
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  Speaker 3: be the season of our happiness. The animal has died
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  Speaker 3: or nearly died. The man remains with his soul. I
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  Speaker 3: live among vague and luminous shapes that are not yet darkness.
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  Speaker 3: My friends do not have faces. Women are what they
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  Speaker 3: were so many years ago. The street corners have changed.
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  Speaker 3: There are no letters in the pages of books. All
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  Speaker 3: of this ought to terrify me. But it is a sweetness,
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  Speaker 3: a coming back home from the south, from the east,
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  Speaker 3: from the west, from the north. The roads converge, the
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  Speaker 3: roads that have brought me to my secret center. Those
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  Speaker 3: roads were echoes and footsteps, women and men, death, throws, resurrections,
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  Speaker 3: days and nights, dreams and between dreams, every moment of yesterday,
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  Speaker 3: even the meanest and all of the yesterdays of the world.
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  Speaker 3: Now I can let them go. I have come back
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  Speaker 3: to my center, to my algebra, to my key, to
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  Speaker 3: my mirror. Soon I will know who I am.
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  Speaker 1: He could not see, but Borhesken continued to write. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: he would speak his poems and stories out loud. He
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  Speaker 1: could no longer write long works, so he concentrated on
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  Speaker 1: small papers and poems. By the time he died in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, he had published dozens of books. He
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: wrote almost half of them while blind.
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  Speaker 2: Bores did not think that people would remember him. He
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: thought that his writing was too difficult, or that his
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: subject matter would not be important to them. But his
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: writing had a profound influence on many people. He created
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: the genre of magical realism. His work inspired mathematical theories.
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  Speaker 2: It also influenced science fiction and fantasy. But more than anything,
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  Speaker 2: Bores's work changed Latin American writing.
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  Speaker 1: Marcella Valdez is a literary critic. She spoke to the
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: British Broadcasting Corporation about these changes.
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: Borjeses's influence on Latin American literature is, like Sherwood Anderson's
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  Speaker 4: effect on American fiction, very deep. It has become difficult
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  Speaker 4: to name a major writer who has not been touched
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  Speaker 4: by it.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Have you ever read Borjes Do you have a favorite
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: story or poem? Tell us about it. You can leave
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: a comment on our website or email us at Spotlight
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: English dot com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: and x You can also get our programs delivered directly
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: to your Android or Apple device through our free official
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Spotlight English app.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: was Mityo Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. No AI or
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence was used in this program. Spotlight programs are written, voiced,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: and produced by real people for real people, no matter
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: where in the world you live. This program is called
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: The Limitless Stories of Jorge Luis Borhaz.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye,