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Borges’s composed, carefully wrought, gnarled style is at once the means of his art and its objecthis way of ordering and giving meaning to the bizarre and terrifying world he creates: it is a brilliant, burnished instrument, and it is quite adequate to the extreme demands his baroque imagination makes of it . . . . Absolutely and most vividly original.”Saturday Review
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal’s abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges’s Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal’s abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges’s Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.
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Ficciones
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Borges’s composed, carefully wrought, gnarled style is at once the means of his art and its objecthis way of ordering and giving meaning to the bizarre and terrifying world he creates: it is a brilliant, burnished instrument, and it is quite adequate to the extreme demands his baroque imagination makes of it . . . . Absolutely and most vividly original.”Saturday Review
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal’s abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges’s Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.
The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the gargantuan powers of imagination, intelligence, and style of one of the greatest writers of this or any other century. Borges sends us on a journey into a compelling, bizarre, and profoundly resonant realm; we enter the fearful sphere of Pascal’s abyss, the surreal and literal labyrinth of books, and the iconography of eternal return. More playful and approachable than the fictions themselves are Borges’s Prologues, brief elucidations that offer the uninitiated a passageway into the whirlwind of Borges’s genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy. To enter the worlds in Ficciones is to enter the mind of Jorge Luis Borges, wherein lies Heaven, Hell, and everything in between.
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Somehow I have never read Borges, perhaps because I studied French, Italian, and history in school. And everyone I knew who studied Spanish read him and dreaded it. I actually found this very interesting--but I can only imagine how difficult it would be for a student of Spanish reading the original.I found these stories to be very interesting. They are also intense and not easy reading. Strange, unpredictable, and uncomfortable. They read more like essays than short stories, but they are very much fiction. How to describe Borges? An original, who I suspect influenced both Calvino and Mieville. My favorite of the bunch is The Garden if Forking Paths. I wonder if this story influenced Kate Atkinson in writing Life after Life.
Rating: 4I generally stay away from short stories. For some reason I tend not to enjoy them, but I made an exception here because I've heard so many fantastic things about this particular collection. I'm so very glad that I did. Borges combines fantasy with the world of books in a way that makes me absolutely giddy: reviews of books that don't actually exist, the discovery of an encyclopedia detailing a country that never was, the description of a(n) (possibly) infinite labyrinthine library that includes every possible book that could ever possibly be written,... And he does it all so beautifully. If heaven itself were a book, it would look something like this.
Rating: 5One of the earliest memories of reading that I have is one of Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. The idea that there is another world beyond or through the mirror in one's parlor is a fabulous way to introduce the flights of fancy that little Alice was prone to engage in as I had learned in Carroll's earlier book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I am reminded of this experience because of the importance of mirrors in the writing of Jorge Luis Borges as he privileges the mirror and his stories as books appear as mirrors for reality. Just as in Carroll the mirror image presents a reflection that is backwards and always seems a bit wrong; however, it is wrong in a way that one only senses and cannot actually identify with any hope of specificity. My own dreams, and perhaps yours, often seem to be similarly twisted, even absurd, reflections of reality.In Ficciones Borges has included nine short fictions in part one and ten even shorter works called "artifices" in part two. I like every story in the first part but my favorite has to be "The Library of Babel" which, for readers, has to encompass the notions of heaven and hell all in one twisted story. The first story in this collection, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, is an example of the importance of mirrors as it begins with the following sentence: "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia."(p 5). Additional stories share favorite places of Borges whether they be a garden in the case of "The Garden of Forking Paths", or the library as in "The Library of Babel". The latter of those two stories would have to be my favorite, and perhaps the favorite of many readers as readers who love libraries. Borges' library is a cheerless and even fearful place. With its incalculably vast size suggesting infinity it can seemingly be a nightmare more than a dream. Yet there is always the possibility of finding hope hidden in the vastness of infinite space. While Borges himself spent several years in a dull library job cataloging books the imaginary library of Babel seems to defy any cataloging. Just like a world reflected in a mirror, "absurdities are the norm" in this library while disorder reigns. Conundrums also abound as with the notion that everything that has already been written, yet there are always new and definitively different books that one may encounter. The worlds depicted in Borges' stories are filled with blank spaces, the ideas and ideals are abstract rather than personal, yet they yield a personal response. Those unwilling or unable to fill in some of the blank spaces with their own imaginations may find something lacking. No amount of further writing would help though all of the stories are short, even as short stories go with the second part filled with "Artifices" that are typically no more than two or three pages long. Just as the stories beckon with suggestions of ruins, lotteries, libraries, and gardens; so do the artifices with titles that invite you to partake of death, miracles, swords, differing visions of Judas, and the rise of the Phoenix. Infinite libraries suggest stories from an imagination that also may have been infinite.The world of Borges' fiction expands to encompass more than reality. These short narratives reveal conflicting emotions, motives, and desires shared by all humans and explore what he imagines as a tortured struggle for salvation or perhaps merely redemption. His genius gives rise to flights of the imagination unique in my experience. My love for these narratives stems from their presences as magical works of a literary master.
Rating: 4I'm pretty sure I'm too dumb to understand everything, but the parts I do get are amazing!
Rating: 4Have read it in Spanish and in Borges' own translation into English. Two different books as he uses the older concept of translatio imagii rather than slavishly translating word-for-word. Got me into the whole realm of magical realism and almost made me double-major in Spanish,except that I could not do that and minor in writing. He has yet to be bested.
Rating: 5Borges' Ficciones consists of two "books" of 17 short works of fiction published mostly in the 1940s. I'm told they're landmarks in not just Latin American fiction but modernist literature. Woven throughout the stories are fantastic elements I can well imagine fed into magical realism. I can't say I adored these--they are odd certainly, often surreal, dealing with such recurring devices as labyrinths, "illusory encyclopedias" and an "infinite library," which I'm told inspired both Umberto Eco and Terry Pratchett--I can see that. I do admire the inventive way in which Borges plays with time and reality. Many of these short works seem to toy with concepts of physics as much as using the fantastical. I think what distanced me was the style; it made for an emotionally arid experience. Some of the 17 shorts felt more like essays on imaginary subjects or puzzle pieces than stories; often they're pedantic, laden with literary allusions and including footnotes and even equations--yet rarely dialogue. At times the "I," present in most of these works, is identified as "Borges" himself and I found myself irked at times at such literary bagatelles--I couldn't sink into these stories. I (mildly) liked "The Circular Ruins," "The Garden of Forking Paths" and ""The Secret Miracle" (which is said to be the inspiration for the film, Inception) but by and large didn't find the stories engaging. Maybe something was lost in the translation? Also, after a while I found the plots rather predictable. When the twist came in "The Garden of Forking Paths" I wasn't the least bit surprised. The story might have had more impact if I'd read it in isolation, but by then a definite pattern had emerged. This anthology doesn't make me want to seek out more of Borges.
Rating: 3I once stumped the great Don Miller (of Blue Like Jazz fame) with a story from this collection. Miller had a theory that "all fiction has a setting." I pulled out the story "The Babylonian lottery," (which sets itself up as a non-fiction piece but is all an elaborate piece of fiction - and thus does NOT have a setting). But this review is not about bashing other authors. This review is about this wonderful collection of Borges short stories, essays, and what not. If you don't like Borges, you might not like this collection. If you are already a Borges fan, then you probably have read this piece.What am I getting at, read it. Borges cannot be described in words, so I don't know why I even tried.
Rating: 3I would classify Ficciones as fiction for philosophers. Actually, a more contemporary term for philosophers is information scientists, and Borges' short stories are all about thought experiments concerning information, regardless of context. The most striking example is The Infinite Library, which starts with the very simple premise that the information contained in the Universe is infinite, and then describes specific situations arising from that premise. In each story, you can find an abstract hypothesis that, if applied to a real life context, yields the dramatic unfolding of the story. Of course, it can be said of any fiction work that it materializes an abstract idea. However, with Borges, it's as if this idea is presented to us in its most bare, abstract form.
Rating: 5Borges is a writer who I find hard to describe. His stories are highly intellectual, full of allusions to history and literature and religion and philosophy, and the subjects often deal with esoteric and philosophic matter. They defy being categorized in a particular genre. This book is a compilation of two collections of short stories. These tales are fantastical in nature, but not in a way that I usually associate as fantasy. The realm of the unnatural tends to occur in people's minds, or sometimes in complex societal structures that are unspoken and secret and seem to transcend time and place, and are subtle on the surface but extremely complex beneath.For instance, one story tells of a man that is facing the death sentence during World War II. After experiencing various emotions about his impending death, he realizes that the one thing he wishes more than any other is to be able to complete the drama he was composing. He prays to God for enough time to finish the task, and God grants his wish, if not in the way anticipated. At the moment that the bullets are fired, all motion around him ceases. He is able to live in his mind for years and years, until he has completed his masterpiece. At that moment, time resumes, and bullets cut him down. Or there is the story of a man that escapes to a forgotten temple ruin in the middle of the jungle, lays down, and dreams. His ambition is to dream another man into existence. He is successful, but becomes consumed with fear that his child will realize he is not like other men, that he is, in fact, just another man's dream. This anxiety is forgotten, however, when he finds that fire can not touch him, and learns that he himself is another man's dreamed creation.Other stories transcend the individual level. Borges writes of the library of Babel, for instance, that is a never ending structure of connecting hexagons, ascending and descending into infinity. More astounding, though, are the books, which contain every possible piece of written text in all of time and history. Librarians work various sections of this institution, and have developed theories about life based on the library. Cults have been formed, pilgrimages undertaken, extremists and heretics have arisen, and even such crimes as murder have been committed, all in the pursuit of understanding the library. Contrast this to the tongue-in-cheek story about the cult of the Phoenix, a society of believers that can be found in all countries, all ethnicities, all periods of time, built solely around a simple secret tradition that some are too superstitious to even practice. Borges slyly neglects to describe what this secret is. No one can deny Borges's genius as a writer. His short fiction is intelligent, inventive, and entirely his own. The closest comparison I can make to other writers is to those that write magical realism, because of the way Borges writes grandiose philosophical impossibilities and fantasies with such normality, as if he finds them not surprising at all, and neither should we. This is the type of literature that truly benefits from a close analytical study, which I did not do, but read straight through them instead. I still appreciated their artistry, and was engaged with the plots as well as the themes that I did glean, but I'm sure that I missed a great deal. The motif of literature, being bound by the written word and yet boundless, of the way it shapes us rather than us shaping it, of the various relationships between reader and text, between writer and text, and between writer and reader, is present throughout most of the stories. The power of language and writing is a theme Borges explores consistently. Also repeatedly evoked were the ideas of who we are in connection to our mental capacities, our philosophy and religion, and how what we create can take life beyond us. Borges likes to play with the vagaries of the mind. I am certain that there are many more metaphors and messages that others have discovered in these writings.For this particular book, I would have liked a volume that had footnotes. Borges has so many references in his stories that I know I missed some of the meaning of the various works by not catching them all. I read one of the stories from this book - "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" - in an anthology of short fiction, which was heavily annotated, and was able to understand a lot more of his obscure allusions, some of which did indeed pertain to the meaning of the story. I imagine I will have to make an exception and reread this collection at some point (I have so many books that I rarely reread, unless it's a particular favorite), with more time and resources devoted to it, to do the writing justice. As it is, I consider this high quality writing, very complex, and a worthy author to read for those wishing to expand their literary frontiers.
Rating: 4This is my favourite exploration of the philosophical implications of language and literature. I am in love with Borges.
Rating: 5Ficciones is comprised of two anthologies, the Garden of Forking Paths and Artifices. The first is absolutely brilliant, the second more conventional but still good. Borges had a talent for transforming reality within the context of his stories, then exploring its boundaries and horizons. Every story is the pursuit of an idea, the characters and plot - when there is a plot - merely tools to do so. Some stories appear more straightforward but feature some detail, a trick ending or final sentence that changes how the rest is viewed. Borges' style is largely telling rather than showing, but it is such very good telling that it works without a hitch.Here are the stories in this volume. The attached ratings are purely a reflection of my subjective enjoyment. My rating system is even more questionable when considering that at least some of the stories inform one another and often explore different facets of similar ideas (e.g. shared identities, labyrinths, etc.) The introduction to my 1993 Everyman's Library edition (by John Sturrock) is brilliant, shedding light on the author and providing insight into nearly every piece. It's well worth reading in advance of jumping in. I also recommend the Wikipedia entries. * Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius - rare books are discovered which prove to have a very unusual relationship, and foreshadow the world's future. Love how mysteries unfold in this one, it's a great introduction to this master stylist. Note, 1947 was a future setting at the time of this story's writing. (5/5)* The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim - Borges never wrote a novel ("laborious and impoverishing extravagance", he called them) and he gets around it here in a short story disguised as the review of a (fictional) novel. (4/5)* Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote - literature is interpreted according to the time, place and by whom it was written. So much for objectivity. (4/5)* The Circular Ruins - a man dreams another into existence. Later stories will have you circling back. (4/5)* The Babylon Lottery - a story about A, where I thought he should have taken it to B. Turns out he'd thought of B, and this was actually about C. Got me there. (5/5)* An Examination of the Works of Herbert Quain - interesting look at unusual story structures for novels, the flaws and pluses. The ending reveals its relevance. (3/5)* The Library of Babel - this is all about the concept; an infinite (maybe) library with volumes containing every permutation of the alphabet. Incidentally there are experimental (fan?) web sites that simulate samples of this library's contents. (4/5)* The Garden of Forking Paths - a German spy must somehow get a message to his superiors, with an agent close on his tail. (5/5)I found the second portion "Artifices" to be not as strong. The stories in this half largely steer away from the thought experiments pattern:* Funes, the Memorious - a man suffers from remembering every detail of his life. (4/5)* The Form of the Sword - a Uruguayan immigrant explains the enormous scar on his face. (4/5)* Theme of the Traitor and Hero - the details of a man's death find mysterious echoes in history and literature. (4/5)* Death and the Compass - a Poirot-like sleuth follows the clues from three murders to anticipate a fourth. (5/5)* The Secret Miracle - a man facing a firing squad makes one final request of God. (4/5)* Three Versions of Judas - explores a theological idea involving Judas Iscariot of the Bible, and the fate of that idea's perpetrator. (3/5)* The End - this was not a story I can fully appreciate, not having read the poem "Martin Fierro" that it is based upon and offers insight into. (3/5)* The Sect of the Phoenix - an exercise demonstrating that virtually anything can be made mysterious if presented so. We see this all the time today on the Internet. (4/5)* The South - as the author notes in his preface, this can be read as a straightforward story or in another way. You know if Borges puts a character in a sanatorium, things are going to get interesting. (4/5)With few exceptions, these stories have made a lasting impression and their imagery will stick with me for a long time to come. That's not something I say after every short story collection I read. Read him for his influence on other artists, which has been far-reaching and pervasive. Perhaps he will influence you as well.
Rating: 5If ever a book deserved a six star rating, this is yet. Borges writes ten page stories that have more packed into them philosophically, intellectually, and entertainingly than any 600- or 1000-page novel I can think of. He could have written Foucault's Pendulum in about 8 pages. These are stories you will read over and over again, and some of the ones that don't grab you at first, such as "The South" will end up haunting you with their inevitability. My own favorites are "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote", which is a marvel of taking a somewhat absurd idea to its logical extreme - treating it absolutely seriously - and leaving the reader with both a profound sense of wonder and a silent bit of hysterical laughter just trying to get out, "The Babylon Lottery", "The Library of Babel", "The Garden of Forking Paths" - one of the great noir stories, "Funes the Memorious", and "Theme of the Traitor and the Hero". And the others are great, too.
Rating: 5After hearing so many good things about Borges, I decided to read this book. Unfortunately I found it to be rather unexciting. Some seem to take a lot more from this book than I did, but to each their own.
Rating: 3For me, a great introduction to Borges. Some very persistent ideas with a mythical quality: realities, labyrinths, the nature of 'knowledge', plot arcs, storytelling, feedback loops. I already have JLB's Labyrinths lined up to read next.Highly recommended.
Rating: 4Beautiful, compelling writing. Very dense little stories, Borges is a master of brevity and depth.
Rating: 5more from this brilliant, and under-rated (in english language cultures) author
Rating: 5I got along with Fictions a lot better than with The Book of Imaginary Beings; while it's still composed of various short pieces, each one has a plot and a purpose. The writing is beautiful; if the translation does any justice to the original, it must be gorgeous in its simplicity, while describing plots and settings that are anything but simple. I could almost go learn Spanish just to read Borges' own words -- though this Penguin translation by Andrew Hurley is a good one, and makes the stories accessible and clear.
Can you even pick a favourite from this volume? I suppose maybe I can -- 'The Library of Babel', maybe, or 'The Lottery in Babylon'. I'm going to keep this book around and reread it sometime, slower, in a different order, whatever. Just dip in and out see what else I find in these stories that I didn't see this time. And it's high praise for me to say that I am sure there's a lot I didn't see.
Rating: 5Can you even pick a favourite from this volume? I suppose maybe I can -- 'The Library of Babel', maybe, or 'The Lottery in Babylon'. I'm going to keep this book around and reread it sometime, slower, in a different order, whatever. Just dip in and out see what else I find in these stories that I didn't see this time. And it's high praise for me to say that I am sure there's a lot I didn't see.
Read the first time in grad school. Still one of the best.
Rating: 5I read this in a bilingual (Spanish - French) edition, but I found the Spanish to be at advanced level, a bit too hard for the intermediate speaker I am. What can I say... Borges has created (a) very special world. The stories show a lot of thought about the process of writing (many deal with texts that don't actually exist, or might not exist). I was not able to predict how any of the stories would go.
Rating: 51040 Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges translated from the Spanish by Emece Editores (read 10 Jan 1970) In the final issue of Time in the Sixties there appeared a list of 20 Notable Books of the Sixties. Three of the ten Fiction items I have already read: Catch-22, Pale Fire, and Herzog. (The complete list is reproduced in my review here on LibraryThing of The First Circle, by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.] Now I have read this book which is on the list. It is a book of short stories. The stories are odd, and I am sure I got little from them. The book is obsessed by time, with snatches of brilliance. But intelligent discussion by me of this book is not possible. My reading of it was too superficial.
Rating: 1Wow. Just WOW.
I'm going to have to read these again. They're so complex and multilayered and unbelievably rich. I don't think that anyone can claim to have extracted all of their meaning in one sitting.
And still, nothing about them even remotely sounds pretentious. Everything's so finely tuned and so well crafted - you never doubt that whatever you haven't quite grasped is entirely your fault.
Yes, I'm definitely reading it again. But for now, WOW.
Rating: 5I'm going to have to read these again. They're so complex and multilayered and unbelievably rich. I don't think that anyone can claim to have extracted all of their meaning in one sitting.
And still, nothing about them even remotely sounds pretentious. Everything's so finely tuned and so well crafted - you never doubt that whatever you haven't quite grasped is entirely your fault.
Yes, I'm definitely reading it again. But for now, WOW.
"In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke."
Rating: 5There is something about South American writing I just don't seem to get. I found these stories strange & while not disagreeable, I couldn't really understand the purpose of many of them. Borges often uses the device of a labyrinth or maze & many of the stories revolve around a discussion of another (imaginary) book, which also struck me as a kind of maze (a story in a story in a story). Are these layers representing personality or reality or religion or something like that? I suppose so... I will have to think it over some more.
Rating: 3An excellent cross-section of the Master's work; you get a good look at his preoccupations, the scope and erudition of his unique oeuvre...
Rating: 4My first foray into Jorge Luis Borges and least of it is that I am very intrigued and heartedly desire to read more of his work. The Library of Babel being my favorite, but The South is all parts great. Like Eco, hard to nail it down, and most definitely worthy of re-reads. Would benefit from outright discussion and an exegesis of the text, but who to talk to about it? (Interesting Note: Considered Chesterton a heavy influence, though widely differing world-view). Like GK in plots of stories: fantastical. But more advanced in literary adeptness and more focused on philosophy.
Rating: 5 Maybe this was me starting to get used to his style, but I think this colleciton improved as it went through. It all feels a bit odd and contrived at times, the early stories particularly. Later they feel to have more flow. The later stories also have sly little connections, the author of the (fictional?) book that's the subject of one story is mentioned in a later story, the character of one appears as a reference in another. This helps tie it together as a colleciton. There's enough here to be interesting, but it's not exactly light bedtime reading, it needed some attention.
Rating: 3Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
Published 1944
3 stars
Ficciones by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges is really a work of a master. The work is a series of short stories by this incredibly intelligent author. These short stories have some common themes including libraries, books, philosophy, God reality and unreality. Borges was gradually growing blind and he also served as a librarian. The author was educated in Europe and while he is Argentinian his stories have various settings and various nationalities. He is truly a international author. The various stories that comprise Ficciones sometimes read as essays, are mixed with many non fictional characters and elements and require careful, slow reading and probably should be read many times to really appreciate the authors genius. I enjoyed some of these stories, some were difficult to read. I gave it 3 stars because I do think the author is great and that these stories represent a mastery and a forerunner of magical realism but it was also hard to read. I especially enjoyed Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius though it was struggle to read. I also enjoyed Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, The Circular Ruins, The Babylon Lottery, Funes, the Memorious, Death and the Compass and Three Versions of Judas. Wikipedia provides a synopsis of each story and I found this very helpful.
Rating: 3Published 1944
3 stars
Ficciones by Argentine author Jorge Luis Borges is really a work of a master. The work is a series of short stories by this incredibly intelligent author. These short stories have some common themes including libraries, books, philosophy, God reality and unreality. Borges was gradually growing blind and he also served as a librarian. The author was educated in Europe and while he is Argentinian his stories have various settings and various nationalities. He is truly a international author. The various stories that comprise Ficciones sometimes read as essays, are mixed with many non fictional characters and elements and require careful, slow reading and probably should be read many times to really appreciate the authors genius. I enjoyed some of these stories, some were difficult to read. I gave it 3 stars because I do think the author is great and that these stories represent a mastery and a forerunner of magical realism but it was also hard to read. I especially enjoyed Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius though it was struggle to read. I also enjoyed Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote, The Circular Ruins, The Babylon Lottery, Funes, the Memorious, Death and the Compass and Three Versions of Judas. Wikipedia provides a synopsis of each story and I found this very helpful.
It took me nearly a year to complete Borge's collection of short stories called Ficciones. This compilation, cited often as the best introduction to the Argentinian writer's oeuvre, has about 20 stories, written in the mid-20th century, that range between fantasy and satire, psychological thriller and eerie psychosis.The provenance of this volume (can you call a paperback book a volume? I'd like to) was my aunt Catherine, on one of her remarkably frequent visits (she travels between Ireland and the west coast of the US more frequently than I make it to Seattle). She wanted me specifically to read The Library of Babel, which describes a universe comprised of an infinite library, hexagonal chamber after hexagonal chamber of books.These are the literary equivalents of M.C. Escher drawings. There is an emphasis on impossible figures, impossible logic, impossible sequence. Cause and effect are reversed, dream and reality switched. There are time loops and secret societies. Much of the content was composed in the 1940s, and aches with the barbarities of the Second World War. Borges' Europe is one of pogroms, his Argentina a surreal magic kingdom (not always benign) full of tall, dark strangers and wizards.When you understand the twists of Borges' stories, it makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up in a thrill reminiscent of 'I see dead people.' If I understood it consistently, I would love the entire colection. But sometimes I just feel stupid. Some of the stories are so deeply erudite as to be in effect hermetically sealed against casual readers. 'Three Versions of Judas', though only a few pages long, is a tortuous marathon of theology, rambling footnotes in French (untranslated), and Scandinavian/Protestant 20th century political-religious satire. The majority of the stories require careful attention and an eye for the subtleties of Borges' humor. As his reader, you are assumed to be well-read, to the point of making you feel distinctly under-read.Borges thrives in describing off-kilter dream states. He explores sacred geometries—labyrinths, rhombuses—through which his characters move toward heroic or anti-heroic transformation. Weird stuff. Captivating, strange, difficult.
Rating: 4I have the Everyman's Library edition of Ficciones, published in 1993. The original was published in 1956 by Emecè Editores S.A., of Buenos Aires.I imagine the Buenos Aires of 1956, and suspect that what exists in my imagination shares little more than a name and perhaps a few incidental details (some pavement, a few trees) with the actual city in Argentina. Of course, my pavement and trees are unavoidably more Platonic than their counterparts in the southern hemisphere.The Everyman's edition of Ficciones includes a chronology providing the interested reader with some biographical data of uneven relevance. There are some worthwhile facts. Borges was born on August 24, 1899. His first attempts at writing, imitating Cervantes, were made when he was six. But the fact that the first eight stories of Ficciones, published under the title, The Garden of Forking Paths, occurred in the same year as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor is a conjunction of events whose significance is less obvious.If we include the two Prologues, Ficciones contains nineteen fictions, the second being Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. In Tlön's first sentence there are references to both a mirror and an encyclopedia. The former is promptly indicted as an abomination. The latter — a questionable attempt at universality — is a clue to the existence of an entire world.The role of the character Herbert Ashe is inadvertent. With droll humor, we learn that Ashe is capable of long silences and that he is the quintessential tourist. "Every so many years, he went to England to visit — judging by the photographs he showed us — a sundial and some oak trees."One of the schools in Tlön "has it that the history of the universe, which contains the history of our lives and the most tenuous details of them, is the handwriting produced by a minor god in order to communicate with a demon." The history of the universe, it seems, is very much like those photographs taken by Ashe.Tlön is the world of Berkeley's metaphysics, minus one detail: God's all-seeing eye. "Things duplicate themselves in Tlön. They tend at the same time to efface themselves, to lose their detail when people forget them. The classic example is that of a stone threshold which lasted as long as it was visited by a beggar, and which faded from sight on his death. Occasionally, a few birds, a horse perhaps, have saved the ruins of an amphitheatre."Borges' prose leans toward the cerebral. He was an autodidact who cultivated an idiosyncratic erudition that was probably as out of place in his own time as it is in ours. I wonder if in the future, when "English, French, and mere Spanish... disappear from this planet" and our world has become Tlön, will Borges be there?
Rating: 5I'm not a huge fan of short stories, so I wasn't that thrilled when I picked this up and realized that's what I was in for. It was an odd collection - musings on reality, fate, chance, knowledge, faith, fate, to name a few. The stories vary in length and complexity (well, I believe they're all pretty complex; his writing is dense and multi-layered). Some are difficult to penetrate, some lead you right in. Themes, words, events and characters recur in various guises. The word "labyrinth" appears frequently, and appropriately (and yes, his book Labyrinths is also on the 1001 Books list).At times, I wondered if I was really up to the task of reading these stories. Even his introductions to them (the stories are in two sections) are occasionally intimidating. He understates: "One of [the stories], "The Babylon Lottery," is not entirely innocent of symbolism." Of another, he says, "let it suffice for me to suggest that it can be read as a direct narrative of novelistic events, and also in another way." These are like the intros to puzzles, which is certainly appropriate.I tell you all of that to tell you that I'm not sure I'm properly equipped to really have an opinion on this book. I'm positive some of it (much of it?) went over my head, and there are layers of meaning I would only approach on re-reading. The stories defy simple one-line synopses, so I'll only talk about a couple of them. One of my favorites was "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote," which is about a man determined to recreate Cervantes' masterpiece. Not reproduce, but recreate - he is trying to find a way to spontaneously write the same book (in the same archaic Spanish, of course). This leads to an amusing comparison between the works. The narrator of the story quotes Cervantes, and judges his words essentially unimaginative, but when the exact same words are quoted from Menard's version, "the idea is astounding." Parallels can be drawn to so many arts. Does it make a work more significant depending on who produced it and when? Does doing something the hard way make it more meaningful? Another story I enjoyed was "The Library of Babel," about an infinite library containing all the books which can possibly be created. In this one, I found an echo of Lewis Carroll's words for Humpty Dumpty: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.''The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'"Borges says, "An n number of possible languages makes use of the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library admits of the correct definition ubiquitous and everlasting system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and the seven words which define it possess another value. You who read me, are you sure you understand my language?" (Especially rich for those of us who are reading in translation.)Recommended for: people who like to use the word "meta," people who are interested in books that never existed, poetry lovers, non-believers in "reality," and people who enjoy cryptic crosswords.
Rating: 4