NONFICTION - Nov. 27, 1994

WHO’S WRITING THIS? Notations on the Authorial I edited by Daniel Halpern (Ecco Press: $22; 185 pp.) “I live, I agree to go on living, so that Borges may fashion his literature”; so wrote Jorge Luis Borges in “Borges and I,” his famous reflection on the ambiguous relationship between a writer’s person and his persona, his private self and his public voice. It was a minor stroke of genius for Daniel Halpern, poet and proprietor of Ecco Press, to ask scores of thoughtful writers to set down their own appreciations of Borges’ theme; how could they resist taking on one of literature’s most difficult, most avoided questions? There are few duds among these 57 brief essays, most of the authors beguiled by the opportunity to lament the damages of literary fame, acknowledge alienation toward their previously published work, confess that readers are a necessary evil. Gail Godwin compares her writing self to a vampire, “constantly venturing abroad to gorge on lives that are not mine”; Allan Gurganus contrasts his “public gasbag author” skin with the one in which he is more comfortable, that of the “cringing, self-critical, hyper-private writer”; Susan Sontag reports that most practiced writers eventually feel themselves possessed by a secret sharer, “both Dr. Frankenstein and the monster”; James Salter calls his non-writing side “a caddie” to his more public alter-ego, knowing “everything about him and as much about the game.” More, probably. “Who’s Writing This?” will appeal primarily to other writers, but few of the essays are insular, applicable only to the scribbling trade. When Cecil Brown writes of the incompatibility between his tobacco-town, black homeboy self who says “You dig?” and the educated, writer self he displays at parties, or Cynthia Ozick embodies her Borgesian division through a story about separated Siamese twins, their schizophrenia will strike a chord in many readers.