Games of Inheritance: Kabbalah, Tradition, and Authorship in Jorge Luis Borges

Games of Inheritance explores the thought of Argentine author and public intellectual Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) on questions of authorship and literary tradition. The book focuses on Borges’s engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions, highlighting the role of this engagement in developing and expressing his views on these questions. The book argues that the primary relevance of Borges’s persistent reference to “the Judaic” is not for understanding his attitude toward Jews and Judaism but for understanding his position in contemporary Argentinian debates about nationalism and literature, empire and postcolonialism, and populism and aesthetics. By broadening the frame of Borges and the Judaic, this book shifts the scholarly focus to the poetic utility of Borges’s engagement with Jewish literary and intellectual traditions. This allows a better understanding of the nuance of his views on the issues that most animate his oeuvre: authorship and writing, literature and tradition.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Introduction: A Game of Inheritance The Judaic From Kabbalah to Tradition (the Structure of the Argument) Methodological Notes Section I: Kabbalah Chapter 1: Kabbalistic Stories Kabbalistic Methodologies Encountering Scholem Chapter 2: The Ideal Author A Vindication of the Author What is an Author? Another Creation Story Cabal and Complot A Comment on Literature and Conspiracy Chapter 3: The Ideal Reader Borges’ Parable of the Cave The Narrator and the Kabbalist Kabbalah and Tradition Section II: Tradition Chapter 4: The Trouble with Tradition Literary Tradition Jewish Tradition National Tradition Tradition in the Historical Sense The Postwar Question of Tradition Chapter 5: What is Jewish Tradition? First Rejection: The Essential Second Rejection: The Original Third Rejection: The Rupture The Departure from Tradition Veblen, An Imbalanced Analogy Veblen, An Evolving Analogy Chapter 6: Tradition and Local Color Between Jewish and Israeli Literature “The Memory of Israel is in Agnon” Between Tradition and Local Color Bring on the Camels Section III: Authorship Chapter 7: Authorship and its Metaphors Hasidism The Sphere of In-Between Kafka and his Precursors A New Metaphor for Authorship Conclusion: Borges and his Kafkaesque Precursors Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments ix Introduction: A Game of Inheritance 1 The Judaic 4 From Kabbalah to Tradition (the Structure of the Argument) 7 Methodological Notes 10 Part I Kabbalah 1 Kabbalistic Stories 15 Kabbalistic Methodologies 17 Encountering Scholem 22 2 The Ideal Author 29 A Vindication of the Author 31 What is an Author? 33 Another Creation Story 37 Cabal and Complot 39 A Comment on Literature and Conspiracy 42 3 The Ideal Reader 51 Borges’s Parable of the Cave 54 The Narrator and the Kabbalist 59 Kabbalah and Tradition 68 Part II Tradition 4 The Trouble with Tradition 73 Literary Tradition 75 Jewish Tradition 78 National Tradition 79 Tradition in the Historical Sense 82 The Postwar Question of Tradition 87 5 What Is Jewish Tradition? 91 First Rejection: The Essential 93 Second Rejection: The Original 95 Third Rejection: The Rupture 96 The Departure from Tradition 98 Veblen, an Imbalanced Analogy 104 Veblen, an Evolving Analogy 108 6 Tradition and Local Color 113 Between Jewish and Israeli Literature 115 “The Memory of Israel Is in Agnon” 118 Between Tradition and Local Color 123 Bring on the Camels 126 Part III Authorship 7 Authorship and Its Metaphors 135 Hasidism 138 The Sphere of In-Between 142 Kafka and His Precursors 144 A New Metaphor for Authorship 148 Conclusion: Borges and His Kafkaesque Precursors 155 A Sidenote on Another Precursor 157 Jewish Literature after Borges 158 Notes 161 Bibliography 195 Index 000

About the Author :
YITZHAK LEWIS is an assistant professor of humanities at Duke Kunshan University, China. He is the author of A Permanent Beginning: R. Nachman of Braslav and Jewish Literary Modernity.

Review :
"Lewis' study of what he calls the Judaic 'web of allusions' in Jorge Luis Borges' writing opens new interpretative possibilities implied in the positing of a marrano gesture at the dead center of twentieth-century Latin American literature. Lewis' endeavor engages with a Borgesian literary politics on the other side of national allegories or any kind of identity postulation. Borgesian dissidence establishes a horizon of and for literature that still today remains unthought in the Latin American and Spanish archive." - Alberto Moreiras (author of Uncanny Rest: For Antiphilosophy) "Games of Inheritance dares scholars to shift their thinking from questions of accuracy and influence in Borges's engagement with the Jewish textual tradition and focus instead on Borges's imagined invention of 'the Judaic.' Lewis's speculative and novel claim will inspire scholars both inside and outside Jewish studies, Latin American studies, and comparative literature to move beyond biography in order to rethink Borges under the sign of a modern 'kabbalistic prophet.'" - Kitty Millet (author of Kabbalah and Literature)