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Roger, Sarah. Borges and Kafka: Sons and Writers, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Volume 53, Issue 3, July 2017, Page 377, https://doi.org/10.1093/fmls/cqx031
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This monograph is a fascinating journey tracing the influence of Kafka on Jorge Luis Borges in his development as an author. Roger writes with great clarity, and her enthusiasm for her topic shines through on each page. As she notes, this is the first comprehensive study linking the two writers: although biographical and literary connections have already been made between Borges, Dante and Joyce, her work delves into this new relationship to advocate for its importance for scholars of Kafka and Borges alike. Roger’s biographical perspective takes its cue from Borges himself, analysing the relationships between Jorge Luis and his father, Jorge Guillermo, and Kafka, establishing a triumvirate of literary inspiration, a fundamental mixture of literary and familial heredity. Roger diligently sets out her theoretical position in her introduction, moving deftly from Eliot, Jakobson and Barthes to Fiedler, Jefferson and Bloom to reinforce her biographical approach. Specifically, her method is to use Borges’s own interest in Kafka as the prism through which to appreciate novel influences that Kafka had on Borges’s writing. Roger’s second chapter sets out the positive and productive literary and familial relationship between Borges and his father in the formation of the son’s authorial career, tracing how this bond influenced Borges the younger’s interpretation of Kafka as a response to father–son relationships. This forms the basis of Roger’s close reading of Borges’s stories, identifying and analysing the evidence of Kafka’s influence on Borges in specific texts, which spans the central chapters of the monograph. Roger concludes by offering an analysis of the short text ‘Borges y yo’, in order to demonstrate that Borges admired in Kafka his ability to make his stories speak beyond their initial contexts, transforming the personally biographical into the universal. Roger follows this waxing and waning literary trace through Borges’s own writing. The study therefore provides an illuminating insight into both Borges and Kafka, and will surely be highly useful for future scholars of both.
