Dreamtigers
By Jorge Luis Borges
University of Texas Press 1985
Initially inspired by American poet Walt Whitman, Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) received critical acclaim from the very start of his career. As we approach the twentieth anniversary of his death, the dreamlike musings of Dreamtigers (1960) retain their fierce power. From an early age Borges suffered from health problems, and this collection, written when he was going blind, uses creativity to launch an attack on the ruthlessness of physical deterioration.
At first glance Dreamtigers appears a miscellany, the snippets of reflection loosely held together by themes of the self and the imagination. However, upon closer reading it becomes clear that this disjointedness is what enables the reader to use Dreamtigers as Borges did, as a mechanism for powerful self-revelation.
First published in Buenos Aires in 1960 under the title El Hacedor (meaning ‘maker’), Borges acknowledged Dreamtigers as his most personal work. The collection of poems, parables and short stories is founded upon the ethos that true reflection and vision supersedes physicality. Central to this notion is the belief that the imagination (and its magical products) is immortal, but the body is trapped within the confines of life and death.
Borges tried to live a life of what he called recogimiento – an untranslatable word that expresses acceptance of solitude, and nurturing the self through the soul. Consequently, the image of the solitary man is a prevalent one in Dreamtigers, and visible from the outset. Just as the book is a comment on the fact that physical sight is not a prerequisite for vision, it also implies that the life of the body does not contain the eternal life of the soul.
The philosophy behind Dreamtigers is encapsulated in ‘Dialogue on a Dialogue’, a parable in which friends named A and Z discuss their own mortality. This is a clear reference to beginnings and endings, and implies that life, as symbolised by what lies between the two, is composed of words. Writing and thinking allows the characters (and the reader) to reclaim power from destructive forces, meaning that, ‘the death of the body is entirely insignificant and dying must perforce be the fact most null and void that can happen to a man.’
El Hacedor also means creator, and it is clear that Borges’ writing is not only unparalleled, but also serves as a creative tool central to his sense of identity. Within the text, ‘the desperation of his flesh’ is contrasted with the power of his ability to create:
A stubborn mist erased the outline of his hand, the night was no longer peopled by stars, the earth beneath his feet was unsure. Everything was growing distant and blurred.
To combat these trials Dreamtigers explores the imagination through dreams and song – forms which offer temporary respite from the burden of physical mortality. Borges suggests that only in dreams can man enjoy tiger-like prowess he yearns for; the idea of ‘reality’ can but impede the sense of craetive possibility that the tiger symbolises as in this extract from his poem ‘The Other Tiger’:
But by the act of giving it a name,
By trying to fix the limits of its world, It becomes a fiction not a living beast,
Not a tiger out roaming the wilds of earth.
