Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

Although Jorge Luis Borges published his first book in 1923--doling out his own money for a limited edition of Fervor de Buenos Aires--he remained in Argentinian obscurity for almost three decades. In 1951, however, Ficciones appeared in French, followed soon after by an English translation. This collection, which included the cream of the author's short fictions, made it clear that Borges was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist--a brilliant, lyrical miniaturist, who could pose the great questions of existence on the head of pin. And by 1961, when he shared the French Prix Formentor with Samuel Beckett, he seemed suddenly to tower over a half dozen literary cultures, the very exemplar of modernism with a human face.

By the time of his death in 1986, Borges had been granted old master status by almost everybody (except, alas, the gentlemen of the Swedish Academy). Yet his work remained dispersed among a half dozen different collections, some of them increasingly hard to find. Andrew Hurley has done readers a great service, then, by collecting all the stories in a single, meticulously translated volume. It's a pleasure to be reminded that Borges' style--poetic, dreamlike, and compounded of innumerable small surprises--was already in place by 1935, when he published A Universal History of Iniquity: "The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." (Incidentally, the thrifty author later recycled the second of these aphorisms in his classic bit of bookish metaphysics, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teris.") The glories of his middle period, of course, have hardly aged a day. "The Garden of the Forking Paths" remains the best deconstruction of the detective story ever written, even in the post-Auster era, and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" puts the so-called death of the author in pointed, hilarious perspective.

But Hurley's omnibus also brings home exactly how consistent Borges remained in his concerns. Aslate as 1975, in "Avelino Arredondo," he was still asking (and occasionally even answering) the same riddles about time and its human repository, memory: "For the man in prison, or the blind man, time flows downstream as though down a slight decline. As he reached the midpoint of his reclusion, Arredondo more than once achieved that virtually timeless time. In the first patio there was a wellhead, and at the bottom, a cistern where a toad lived; it never occurred to Arredondo that it was the toad's time, bordering on eternity, that he sought." Throughout, Hurley's translation is crisp and assured (although this reader will always have a soft spot for "Funes, the Memorious" rather than "Funes, His Memory.") And thanks to his efforts, Borgesians will find no better--and no more pleasurable--rebuttal of the author's description of himself as "a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories." --James Marcus, Amazon.com

Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

The labyrinth that consists of a single straight line, 03 May 2008
Jorge Luis Borges was one of those rare writers who can take even a bizarre, utterly unbelievable idea, and spin it into an exquisite little gem of prose.

And this classic writer was at the peak of his powers when he collected together "Ficciones," whose plain name belies the subtle power and exquisite beauty of Jorges' short stories. Even among Borges' many short stories, few of them can rival this little labyrinth of strange ancient cities, fictional histories, and the eerie depths of the human mind.

"I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." An odd old saying from the Middle-East leads the narrator to seek out the long-lost heretical histories of a fictional world known as Tlon. Its beliefs, language, and metaphysical eccentricities increasingly fascinate the narrator, until it's almost a surprise to realize that Borges invented all of this.

The stories that follow are no less engrossing -- the recounting of a strange, haunting novel, a man who attempts to LIVE as Don Quixote, a man who tries to dream a new being into existence, a lottery that determines the way the people of Babylon are to live, an examination of a brilliant and underrated author, an exploration of the eternal Library of the universe, and a labyrinthine spy story.

The second round of short stories is a bit less enthralling, merely because it focuses more on "typical" Borges short stories. But they are still pretty enthralling pieces of work -- the remembrance of the brilliantly eccentric Ireneo Funes, the story of a scar, a series of murders linked to "the secret Name," a condemned man's begs God for a year to perfect his art, a forgotten heretic, a conversation leading to revenge, the Cult of the Phoenix, and a man entranced by the "Arabian Nights."

Mirrors and labyrinths fill Borges' work -- real and imagined, in word, metaphor and reality. You see them in an endless library, a guitar melody, a contradiction in religious faith, a complex plot, and in the mind of a man who loses himself to an obsession. The mirrors show you the sides of people that they would never see themselves, and the labyrinth twists the mind into new places where it would never normally go.

"Ficciones" explores places where normal fiction would never go -- such as a Babylonian lottery for different places in society, corrupted by greed -- even as it imbues its eulogies, metaphysical ponderings and explanations with the tinge of reality. The cults, deaths, and art that Borges describes seem so plausible, and are given such depth and detail, that it comes as a mild shock when you realize, "Hey, he made all of this up."

Part of that is due to his unique style, full of elegant wordcraft and gently luminous imagery ("a round yellow moon defined two leaf-clogged fountains in the dreary garden"). Even a stabbing is made brutally beautiful, and often dialogue is unnecessary -- the most beautiful and striking stories in here are the ones where Borges (aka the narrator) eagerly explores some invented facet of the world.

And woven through these stories are many of the things that fascinated Borges through his career -- a tragic hero, ancient heresies, an elusive God, and people whose lives he could somehow explore through his own imagination.

If you could criticize anything at all, it's that few of the characters -- aside from the Borges "narrator" -- are much more than walking symbols of a murky little message. But hey, you could simply see this entire book as an exploration of Borges' own imagination by himself. He happily recounts countries that are nonexistant, books that were never written, geniuses who never were.

"Ficciones" is about the dullest name you can possibly give to a work of genius -- an intricate little web that is all mirrors and mazes. Absolutely stunning.

i cant believe it has taken me 46 years to discover borges., 25 Jan 2008
i recently read a book called 'the tango singer' about an american who moves to buenos aires to do research about borges for his phd. i really enjoyed that book..but the best thing about it was that it made me want to read borges..someone i had heard of, but never really knew anything about. and ay caramba, im just entranced by borges. he is not your average writer..he expects a lot of his readers, doesnt pander, but is not smug in a post-modern way either as he was to early for that. at first i cant deny, i was bewildered by the idea of writing reviews of books that didnt exist, but now im just surprised that no one has ever thought of writing those 500 page novels he couldnt be bothered to write.
the circular ruins, and death and the compass are just two of the most memorable short stories ive ever read..and boy have i read a lot of them. i think it is the ultimate literary form. i know this, or any of these reviews, are not very helpful if you are thinking of buying this book..but its really hard to say what borges is about..mirrors, labyrinths, dreamlike stories, laced with wit, so many literary references you will be reeling, and the ending you just didnt expect. so much of the reference is fantasy, but then again so much is real..you have to work out which is which. totally amazing writing is what it comes down to..i cant recommend this enough. dont be scared...you know you want it or you wouldnt be here...

This is wonderful, 09 Jan 2003
I really read this book and appreciated it first when I was 14 and I loved it. I sat reading it on the grass in front of the oxfor natural history museum and I have been re reading it ever since ( admittedly only a year and a half ago) He is a God of literature. Few writers are capable of weaving the complicated plots that we bear witness to in the library of Babel a and tlon uqbar and orbis tertius. And who can so ably present the argument for taking a second look at the world around us in Pierre Menard auther of don quixote. If the garden of the forking paths was made compulsary reading for all mystery and crime writers, actually just compulsary reading for everyone, the world would be a better place! This book should be taught in schools! Hurrah for Borges

Not happy with Hurley, 20 May 2002
As Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are becoming ubiquitious some criticism of their style is called for. I see I have been (ably) beaten to it, so this can serve as a footnote to the earlier reader review. I can't compare the translations with the original Spanish, so can only observe that for the English reader of English they are spoiled by jarring Americanisms. Perhaps one might argue that American English is appropriate for translating a New World writer, but it is the product of a society very different to Borges's own, and its democratic, colloquial tone often works against his urbanity, fastidiousness, ironic pedantry and self-mocking snobbishness. Like the previous reviewer I have only docked one crown, because Borges is indispensable, whatever the shortcomings of his translators.

Great original, poor version, 19 Sep 2000
Perhaps the greatest Spanish language writer of the century, says the fly-leaf. And it is not an exaggeration. But why did anyone let Andrew Hurley loose on this collection? A complete fictions in English was long overdue, but Hurley's translation lets Borges down. His prose style is leaden, and his translations often eccentric or just plain wrong. Borges was influenced by writers such as Burton, Chesterton and Henry James, and transposed their style into Spanish. Hurley, however, has translated Borges into twentieth century American English, which is clearly contrary to both the style and intent of the orignial. This book is well worth buying for the sake of having all the stories in one place and in English, but Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translations of Dr Brodie's Report and the Book of Sands are far superior. If only di G had tackled the Aleph or Ficciones, there would be little need for this amateur-ish effort at all...

Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

The labyrinth that consists of a single straight line, 03 May 2008
Jorge Luis Borges was one of those rare writers who can take even a bizarre, utterly unbelievable idea, and spin it into an exquisite little gem of prose.

And this classic writer was at the peak of his powers when he collected together "Ficciones," whose plain name belies the subtle power and exquisite beauty of Jorges' short stories. Even among Borges' many short stories, few of them can rival this little labyrinth of strange ancient cities, fictional histories, and the eerie depths of the human mind.

"I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." An odd old saying from the Middle-East leads the narrator to seek out the long-lost heretical histories of a fictional world known as Tlon. Its beliefs, language, and metaphysical eccentricities increasingly fascinate the narrator, until it's almost a surprise to realize that Borges invented all of this.

The stories that follow are no less engrossing -- the recounting of a strange, haunting novel, a man who attempts to LIVE as Don Quixote, a man who tries to dream a new being into existence, a lottery that determines the way the people of Babylon are to live, an examination of a brilliant and underrated author, an exploration of the eternal Library of the universe, and a labyrinthine spy story.

The second round of short stories is a bit less enthralling, merely because it focuses more on "typical" Borges short stories. But they are still pretty enthralling pieces of work -- the remembrance of the brilliantly eccentric Ireneo Funes, the story of a scar, a series of murders linked to "the secret Name," a condemned man's begs God for a year to perfect his art, a forgotten heretic, a conversation leading to revenge, the Cult of the Phoenix, and a man entranced by the "Arabian Nights."

Mirrors and labyrinths fill Borges' work -- real and imagined, in word, metaphor and reality. You see them in an endless library, a guitar melody, a contradiction in religious faith, a complex plot, and in the mind of a man who loses himself to an obsession. The mirrors show you the sides of people that they would never see themselves, and the labyrinth twists the mind into new places where it would never normally go.

"Ficciones" explores places where normal fiction would never go -- such as a Babylonian lottery for different places in society, corrupted by greed -- even as it imbues its eulogies, metaphysical ponderings and explanations with the tinge of reality. The cults, deaths, and art that Borges describes seem so plausible, and are given such depth and detail, that it comes as a mild shock when you realize, "Hey, he made all of this up."

Part of that is due to his unique style, full of elegant wordcraft and gently luminous imagery ("a round yellow moon defined two leaf-clogged fountains in the dreary garden"). Even a stabbing is made brutally beautiful, and often dialogue is unnecessary -- the most beautiful and striking stories in here are the ones where Borges (aka the narrator) eagerly explores some invented facet of the world.

And woven through these stories are many of the things that fascinated Borges through his career -- a tragic hero, ancient heresies, an elusive God, and people whose lives he could somehow explore through his own imagination.

If you could criticize anything at all, it's that few of the characters -- aside from the Borges "narrator" -- are much more than walking symbols of a murky little message. But hey, you could simply see this entire book as an exploration of Borges' own imagination by himself. He happily recounts countries that are nonexistant, books that were never written, geniuses who never were.

"Ficciones" is about the dullest name you can possibly give to a work of genius -- an intricate little web that is all mirrors and mazes. Absolutely stunning.

i cant believe it has taken me 46 years to discover borges., 25 Jan 2008
i recently read a book called 'the tango singer' about an american who moves to buenos aires to do research about borges for his phd. i really enjoyed that book..but the best thing about it was that it made me want to read borges..someone i had heard of, but never really knew anything about. and ay caramba, im just entranced by borges. he is not your average writer..he expects a lot of his readers, doesnt pander, but is not smug in a post-modern way either as he was to early for that. at first i cant deny, i was bewildered by the idea of writing reviews of books that didnt exist, but now im just surprised that no one has ever thought of writing those 500 page novels he couldnt be bothered to write.
the circular ruins, and death and the compass are just two of the most memorable short stories ive ever read..and boy have i read a lot of them. i think it is the ultimate literary form. i know this, or any of these reviews, are not very helpful if you are thinking of buying this book..but its really hard to say what borges is about..mirrors, labyrinths, dreamlike stories, laced with wit, so many literary references you will be reeling, and the ending you just didnt expect. so much of the reference is fantasy, but then again so much is real..you have to work out which is which. totally amazing writing is what it comes down to..i cant recommend this enough. dont be scared...you know you want it or you wouldnt be here...

This is wonderful, 09 Jan 2003
I really read this book and appreciated it first when I was 14 and I loved it. I sat reading it on the grass in front of the oxfor natural history museum and I have been re reading it ever since ( admittedly only a year and a half ago) He is a God of literature. Few writers are capable of weaving the complicated plots that we bear witness to in the library of Babel a and tlon uqbar and orbis tertius. And who can so ably present the argument for taking a second look at the world around us in Pierre Menard auther of don quixote. If the garden of the forking paths was made compulsary reading for all mystery and crime writers, actually just compulsary reading for everyone, the world would be a better place! This book should be taught in schools! Hurrah for Borges

Not happy with Hurley, 20 May 2002
As Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are becoming ubiquitious some criticism of their style is called for. I see I have been (ably) beaten to it, so this can serve as a footnote to the earlier reader review. I can't compare the translations with the original Spanish, so can only observe that for the English reader of English they are spoiled by jarring Americanisms. Perhaps one might argue that American English is appropriate for translating a New World writer, but it is the product of a society very different to Borges's own, and its democratic, colloquial tone often works against his urbanity, fastidiousness, ironic pedantry and self-mocking snobbishness. Like the previous reviewer I have only docked one crown, because Borges is indispensable, whatever the shortcomings of his translators.

Great original, poor version, 19 Sep 2000
Perhaps the greatest Spanish language writer of the century, says the fly-leaf. And it is not an exaggeration. But why did anyone let Andrew Hurley loose on this collection? A complete fictions in English was long overdue, but Hurley's translation lets Borges down. His prose style is leaden, and his translations often eccentric or just plain wrong. Borges was influenced by writers such as Burton, Chesterton and Henry James, and transposed their style into Spanish. Hurley, however, has translated Borges into twentieth century American English, which is clearly contrary to both the style and intent of the orignial. This book is well worth buying for the sake of having all the stories in one place and in English, but Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translations of Dr Brodie's Report and the Book of Sands are far superior. If only di G had tackled the Aleph or Ficciones, there would be little need for this amateur-ish effort at all...

Everywhere and nowhere, 17 Mar 2007
Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes two different books of Borges', very different in their styles -- one is rich and epic, while the other is sort of short and quirky. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

And in the second book, he spins up a long string of very, VERY short stories (some only a paragraph). Some are musings on his toes, and nothing much more. But there are also brief stories of startling depth, such as God speaking to Dante and the "Divine Comedy's" leopard, and assuring them of their literary immortality.

The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories in the first portion of the book are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

The labyrinth that consists of a single straight line, 03 May 2008
Jorge Luis Borges was one of those rare writers who can take even a bizarre, utterly unbelievable idea, and spin it into an exquisite little gem of prose.

And this classic writer was at the peak of his powers when he collected together "Ficciones," whose plain name belies the subtle power and exquisite beauty of Jorges' short stories. Even among Borges' many short stories, few of them can rival this little labyrinth of strange ancient cities, fictional histories, and the eerie depths of the human mind.

"I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." An odd old saying from the Middle-East leads the narrator to seek out the long-lost heretical histories of a fictional world known as Tlon. Its beliefs, language, and metaphysical eccentricities increasingly fascinate the narrator, until it's almost a surprise to realize that Borges invented all of this.

The stories that follow are no less engrossing -- the recounting of a strange, haunting novel, a man who attempts to LIVE as Don Quixote, a man who tries to dream a new being into existence, a lottery that determines the way the people of Babylon are to live, an examination of a brilliant and underrated author, an exploration of the eternal Library of the universe, and a labyrinthine spy story.

The second round of short stories is a bit less enthralling, merely because it focuses more on "typical" Borges short stories. But they are still pretty enthralling pieces of work -- the remembrance of the brilliantly eccentric Ireneo Funes, the story of a scar, a series of murders linked to "the secret Name," a condemned man's begs God for a year to perfect his art, a forgotten heretic, a conversation leading to revenge, the Cult of the Phoenix, and a man entranced by the "Arabian Nights."

Mirrors and labyrinths fill Borges' work -- real and imagined, in word, metaphor and reality. You see them in an endless library, a guitar melody, a contradiction in religious faith, a complex plot, and in the mind of a man who loses himself to an obsession. The mirrors show you the sides of people that they would never see themselves, and the labyrinth twists the mind into new places where it would never normally go.

"Ficciones" explores places where normal fiction would never go -- such as a Babylonian lottery for different places in society, corrupted by greed -- even as it imbues its eulogies, metaphysical ponderings and explanations with the tinge of reality. The cults, deaths, and art that Borges describes seem so plausible, and are given such depth and detail, that it comes as a mild shock when you realize, "Hey, he made all of this up."

Part of that is due to his unique style, full of elegant wordcraft and gently luminous imagery ("a round yellow moon defined two leaf-clogged fountains in the dreary garden"). Even a stabbing is made brutally beautiful, and often dialogue is unnecessary -- the most beautiful and striking stories in here are the ones where Borges (aka the narrator) eagerly explores some invented facet of the world.

And woven through these stories are many of the things that fascinated Borges through his career -- a tragic hero, ancient heresies, an elusive God, and people whose lives he could somehow explore through his own imagination.

If you could criticize anything at all, it's that few of the characters -- aside from the Borges "narrator" -- are much more than walking symbols of a murky little message. But hey, you could simply see this entire book as an exploration of Borges' own imagination by himself. He happily recounts countries that are nonexistant, books that were never written, geniuses who never were.

"Ficciones" is about the dullest name you can possibly give to a work of genius -- an intricate little web that is all mirrors and mazes. Absolutely stunning.

i cant believe it has taken me 46 years to discover borges., 25 Jan 2008
i recently read a book called 'the tango singer' about an american who moves to buenos aires to do research about borges for his phd. i really enjoyed that book..but the best thing about it was that it made me want to read borges..someone i had heard of, but never really knew anything about. and ay caramba, im just entranced by borges. he is not your average writer..he expects a lot of his readers, doesnt pander, but is not smug in a post-modern way either as he was to early for that. at first i cant deny, i was bewildered by the idea of writing reviews of books that didnt exist, but now im just surprised that no one has ever thought of writing those 500 page novels he couldnt be bothered to write.
the circular ruins, and death and the compass are just two of the most memorable short stories ive ever read..and boy have i read a lot of them. i think it is the ultimate literary form. i know this, or any of these reviews, are not very helpful if you are thinking of buying this book..but its really hard to say what borges is about..mirrors, labyrinths, dreamlike stories, laced with wit, so many literary references you will be reeling, and the ending you just didnt expect. so much of the reference is fantasy, but then again so much is real..you have to work out which is which. totally amazing writing is what it comes down to..i cant recommend this enough. dont be scared...you know you want it or you wouldnt be here...

This is wonderful, 09 Jan 2003
I really read this book and appreciated it first when I was 14 and I loved it. I sat reading it on the grass in front of the oxfor natural history museum and I have been re reading it ever since ( admittedly only a year and a half ago) He is a God of literature. Few writers are capable of weaving the complicated plots that we bear witness to in the library of Babel a and tlon uqbar and orbis tertius. And who can so ably present the argument for taking a second look at the world around us in Pierre Menard auther of don quixote. If the garden of the forking paths was made compulsary reading for all mystery and crime writers, actually just compulsary reading for everyone, the world would be a better place! This book should be taught in schools! Hurrah for Borges

Not happy with Hurley, 20 May 2002
As Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are becoming ubiquitious some criticism of their style is called for. I see I have been (ably) beaten to it, so this can serve as a footnote to the earlier reader review. I can't compare the translations with the original Spanish, so can only observe that for the English reader of English they are spoiled by jarring Americanisms. Perhaps one might argue that American English is appropriate for translating a New World writer, but it is the product of a society very different to Borges's own, and its democratic, colloquial tone often works against his urbanity, fastidiousness, ironic pedantry and self-mocking snobbishness. Like the previous reviewer I have only docked one crown, because Borges is indispensable, whatever the shortcomings of his translators.

Great original, poor version, 19 Sep 2000
Perhaps the greatest Spanish language writer of the century, says the fly-leaf. And it is not an exaggeration. But why did anyone let Andrew Hurley loose on this collection? A complete fictions in English was long overdue, but Hurley's translation lets Borges down. His prose style is leaden, and his translations often eccentric or just plain wrong. Borges was influenced by writers such as Burton, Chesterton and Henry James, and transposed their style into Spanish. Hurley, however, has translated Borges into twentieth century American English, which is clearly contrary to both the style and intent of the orignial. This book is well worth buying for the sake of having all the stories in one place and in English, but Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translations of Dr Brodie's Report and the Book of Sands are far superior. If only di G had tackled the Aleph or Ficciones, there would be little need for this amateur-ish effort at all...

Everywhere and nowhere, 17 Mar 2007
Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes two different books of Borges', very different in their styles -- one is rich and epic, while the other is sort of short and quirky. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

And in the second book, he spins up a long string of very, VERY short stories (some only a paragraph). Some are musings on his toes, and nothing much more. But there are also brief stories of startling depth, such as God speaking to Dante and the "Divine Comedy's" leopard, and assuring them of their literary immortality.

The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories in the first portion of the book are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

Imagination, 03 Feb 2007

"The Book of Imaginary Creatures" seems like kind of a flimsy book for a great author like Jorge Luis Borges -- a bestiary of creatures from myth, religion and literature. But the book becomes deeper and more intriguing as it goes on, tapping into philosophy and common imaginings around the world.

There are several religion-based creatures -- the Biblical Levithian, Swedenborg's angels and demons, Mohammed's heavenly steed Buraq, Judaical golems (which aren't quite the same as other creatures, since people have to make them), and supernatural versions of real animals, like the white elephant that appeared before the birth of Buddha or Chinese foxes.

But even more numerous are the mythic creatures, from the usual (centaurs, unicorns, hellhounds, gryphons) to the obscure (the A Bao A Qu, an insubstantial little thing that follows people up the stairs). These are a more colourful bunch, especially since many of them -- dragons, the hare in the moon, the basilisk -- recur in different countries, and Borges told readers of most of those.

And to round it off, Borges included creatures invented in literature -- Homer and Dante's mythic creatures, Poe's Antarctic creatures, Kafka, Lewis Carroll's version of a Cheshire cat, and C.S. Lewis's alien creatures from the "Space Trilogy." These authors all created creatures that were almost too weird, but which also seemed relatively likely (as invented animals go).

"The Book of Imaginary Beings" is actually very well-rounded, with lots of bizarre or relatively unknown creatures. You'd expect a bunch of typical mythic creatures just tossed together, but fortunately Borges goes way behind the call of duty, from the A Bao A Qu to the Zaratan (a carnivorous living island).

Borges obviously had great respect for these various legends, since he treats them as seriously as if they were scientifically proven. And he did his research, including duplicates and variations from across the world (not all of them, though), such as the Guardians of the four directions: for the Chinese, it was four tiger spirits, while it was four angelic beasts for the kabbalists.

Borges writes this in a solemn, scholarly manner, but it's still very easy to read ("It is a monster of form, inspired by the devil of symmetry in the imagination of sculptors, potters and ceramicists"). He also includes translations of the beings' names, and quite a few snippets of text and poetry that describe them. Even ancient nonfiction, such as Lucretius insisting that a creature like the centaur couldn't exist. Okay, whatever.

"The Book of Imaginary Beings" seems like a rather minor work for a legendary author. But taken on its own, this little mythic bestiary is a solid little read.

Borges's own D&D Monster Manual, 24 May 2003
A curious little book. Many of the entries are interesting, notably the one about the Lamed Wufniks, who are the real powers in the world but don't realise it! Many are funny, my favourites being the creatures imagined by lumberjacks, such as the hidebehind and the pinnacle grouse (which lays square eggs). I feel though that fans of Borges would be better off reading his fiction, and the true market for this book is more likely to be found among players of fantasy role-playing games.

pointlessly elegant fun, 04 Dec 2000
By turns amusing, intriguing, poignant or just plain absurd, Borges trawls the Biblioteca Nacional for examples of imaginary beasts, and summarises what is known (or believed) about them. Odd, but lovely. One to dip into.

Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

The labyrinth that consists of a single straight line, 03 May 2008
Jorge Luis Borges was one of those rare writers who can take even a bizarre, utterly unbelievable idea, and spin it into an exquisite little gem of prose.

And this classic writer was at the peak of his powers when he collected together "Ficciones," whose plain name belies the subtle power and exquisite beauty of Jorges' short stories. Even among Borges' many short stories, few of them can rival this little labyrinth of strange ancient cities, fictional histories, and the eerie depths of the human mind.

"I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." An odd old saying from the Middle-East leads the narrator to seek out the long-lost heretical histories of a fictional world known as Tlon. Its beliefs, language, and metaphysical eccentricities increasingly fascinate the narrator, until it's almost a surprise to realize that Borges invented all of this.

The stories that follow are no less engrossing -- the recounting of a strange, haunting novel, a man who attempts to LIVE as Don Quixote, a man who tries to dream a new being into existence, a lottery that determines the way the people of Babylon are to live, an examination of a brilliant and underrated author, an exploration of the eternal Library of the universe, and a labyrinthine spy story.

The second round of short stories is a bit less enthralling, merely because it focuses more on "typical" Borges short stories. But they are still pretty enthralling pieces of work -- the remembrance of the brilliantly eccentric Ireneo Funes, the story of a scar, a series of murders linked to "the secret Name," a condemned man's begs God for a year to perfect his art, a forgotten heretic, a conversation leading to revenge, the Cult of the Phoenix, and a man entranced by the "Arabian Nights."

Mirrors and labyrinths fill Borges' work -- real and imagined, in word, metaphor and reality. You see them in an endless library, a guitar melody, a contradiction in religious faith, a complex plot, and in the mind of a man who loses himself to an obsession. The mirrors show you the sides of people that they would never see themselves, and the labyrinth twists the mind into new places where it would never normally go.

"Ficciones" explores places where normal fiction would never go -- such as a Babylonian lottery for different places in society, corrupted by greed -- even as it imbues its eulogies, metaphysical ponderings and explanations with the tinge of reality. The cults, deaths, and art that Borges describes seem so plausible, and are given such depth and detail, that it comes as a mild shock when you realize, "Hey, he made all of this up."

Part of that is due to his unique style, full of elegant wordcraft and gently luminous imagery ("a round yellow moon defined two leaf-clogged fountains in the dreary garden"). Even a stabbing is made brutally beautiful, and often dialogue is unnecessary -- the most beautiful and striking stories in here are the ones where Borges (aka the narrator) eagerly explores some invented facet of the world.

And woven through these stories are many of the things that fascinated Borges through his career -- a tragic hero, ancient heresies, an elusive God, and people whose lives he could somehow explore through his own imagination.

If you could criticize anything at all, it's that few of the characters -- aside from the Borges "narrator" -- are much more than walking symbols of a murky little message. But hey, you could simply see this entire book as an exploration of Borges' own imagination by himself. He happily recounts countries that are nonexistant, books that were never written, geniuses who never were.

"Ficciones" is about the dullest name you can possibly give to a work of genius -- an intricate little web that is all mirrors and mazes. Absolutely stunning.

i cant believe it has taken me 46 years to discover borges., 25 Jan 2008
i recently read a book called 'the tango singer' about an american who moves to buenos aires to do research about borges for his phd. i really enjoyed that book..but the best thing about it was that it made me want to read borges..someone i had heard of, but never really knew anything about. and ay caramba, im just entranced by borges. he is not your average writer..he expects a lot of his readers, doesnt pander, but is not smug in a post-modern way either as he was to early for that. at first i cant deny, i was bewildered by the idea of writing reviews of books that didnt exist, but now im just surprised that no one has ever thought of writing those 500 page novels he couldnt be bothered to write.
the circular ruins, and death and the compass are just two of the most memorable short stories ive ever read..and boy have i read a lot of them. i think it is the ultimate literary form. i know this, or any of these reviews, are not very helpful if you are thinking of buying this book..but its really hard to say what borges is about..mirrors, labyrinths, dreamlike stories, laced with wit, so many literary references you will be reeling, and the ending you just didnt expect. so much of the reference is fantasy, but then again so much is real..you have to work out which is which. totally amazing writing is what it comes down to..i cant recommend this enough. dont be scared...you know you want it or you wouldnt be here...

This is wonderful, 09 Jan 2003
I really read this book and appreciated it first when I was 14 and I loved it. I sat reading it on the grass in front of the oxfor natural history museum and I have been re reading it ever since ( admittedly only a year and a half ago) He is a God of literature. Few writers are capable of weaving the complicated plots that we bear witness to in the library of Babel a and tlon uqbar and orbis tertius. And who can so ably present the argument for taking a second look at the world around us in Pierre Menard auther of don quixote. If the garden of the forking paths was made compulsary reading for all mystery and crime writers, actually just compulsary reading for everyone, the world would be a better place! This book should be taught in schools! Hurrah for Borges

Not happy with Hurley, 20 May 2002
As Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are becoming ubiquitious some criticism of their style is called for. I see I have been (ably) beaten to it, so this can serve as a footnote to the earlier reader review. I can't compare the translations with the original Spanish, so can only observe that for the English reader of English they are spoiled by jarring Americanisms. Perhaps one might argue that American English is appropriate for translating a New World writer, but it is the product of a society very different to Borges's own, and its democratic, colloquial tone often works against his urbanity, fastidiousness, ironic pedantry and self-mocking snobbishness. Like the previous reviewer I have only docked one crown, because Borges is indispensable, whatever the shortcomings of his translators.

Great original, poor version, 19 Sep 2000
Perhaps the greatest Spanish language writer of the century, says the fly-leaf. And it is not an exaggeration. But why did anyone let Andrew Hurley loose on this collection? A complete fictions in English was long overdue, but Hurley's translation lets Borges down. His prose style is leaden, and his translations often eccentric or just plain wrong. Borges was influenced by writers such as Burton, Chesterton and Henry James, and transposed their style into Spanish. Hurley, however, has translated Borges into twentieth century American English, which is clearly contrary to both the style and intent of the orignial. This book is well worth buying for the sake of having all the stories in one place and in English, but Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translations of Dr Brodie's Report and the Book of Sands are far superior. If only di G had tackled the Aleph or Ficciones, there would be little need for this amateur-ish effort at all...

Everywhere and nowhere, 17 Mar 2007
Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes two different books of Borges', very different in their styles -- one is rich and epic, while the other is sort of short and quirky. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

And in the second book, he spins up a long string of very, VERY short stories (some only a paragraph). Some are musings on his toes, and nothing much more. But there are also brief stories of startling depth, such as God speaking to Dante and the "Divine Comedy's" leopard, and assuring them of their literary immortality.

The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories in the first portion of the book are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

Imagination, 03 Feb 2007

"The Book of Imaginary Creatures" seems like kind of a flimsy book for a great author like Jorge Luis Borges -- a bestiary of creatures from myth, religion and literature. But the book becomes deeper and more intriguing as it goes on, tapping into philosophy and common imaginings around the world.

There are several religion-based creatures -- the Biblical Levithian, Swedenborg's angels and demons, Mohammed's heavenly steed Buraq, Judaical golems (which aren't quite the same as other creatures, since people have to make them), and supernatural versions of real animals, like the white elephant that appeared before the birth of Buddha or Chinese foxes.

But even more numerous are the mythic creatures, from the usual (centaurs, unicorns, hellhounds, gryphons) to the obscure (the A Bao A Qu, an insubstantial little thing that follows people up the stairs). These are a more colourful bunch, especially since many of them -- dragons, the hare in the moon, the basilisk -- recur in different countries, and Borges told readers of most of those.

And to round it off, Borges included creatures invented in literature -- Homer and Dante's mythic creatures, Poe's Antarctic creatures, Kafka, Lewis Carroll's version of a Cheshire cat, and C.S. Lewis's alien creatures from the "Space Trilogy." These authors all created creatures that were almost too weird, but which also seemed relatively likely (as invented animals go).

"The Book of Imaginary Beings" is actually very well-rounded, with lots of bizarre or relatively unknown creatures. You'd expect a bunch of typical mythic creatures just tossed together, but fortunately Borges goes way behind the call of duty, from the A Bao A Qu to the Zaratan (a carnivorous living island).

Borges obviously had great respect for these various legends, since he treats them as seriously as if they were scientifically proven. And he did his research, including duplicates and variations from across the world (not all of them, though), such as the Guardians of the four directions: for the Chinese, it was four tiger spirits, while it was four angelic beasts for the kabbalists.

Borges writes this in a solemn, scholarly manner, but it's still very easy to read ("It is a monster of form, inspired by the devil of symmetry in the imagination of sculptors, potters and ceramicists"). He also includes translations of the beings' names, and quite a few snippets of text and poetry that describe them. Even ancient nonfiction, such as Lucretius insisting that a creature like the centaur couldn't exist. Okay, whatever.

"The Book of Imaginary Beings" seems like a rather minor work for a legendary author. But taken on its own, this little mythic bestiary is a solid little read.

Borges's own D&D Monster Manual, 24 May 2003
A curious little book. Many of the entries are interesting, notably the one about the Lamed Wufniks, who are the real powers in the world but don't realise it! Many are funny, my favourites being the creatures imagined by lumberjacks, such as the hidebehind and the pinnacle grouse (which lays square eggs). I feel though that fans of Borges would be better off reading his fiction, and the true market for this book is more likely to be found among players of fantasy role-playing games.

pointlessly elegant fun, 04 Dec 2000
By turns amusing, intriguing, poignant or just plain absurd, Borges trawls the Biblioteca Nacional for examples of imaginary beasts, and summarises what is known (or believed) about them. Odd, but lovely. One to dip into.

Borges at his best, 27 Mar 2002
Borges is not an easy read, but "ficciones" is somehow the most "adventerous" of his novels, and therefore "well to do". As always his stories are masterworks, and it might well be that this book is the most extraordinary collection of short stories ever written. Read "the library of Babel" for a grasp of infinity and "the babylon lottery" for faith/chance explained...

Read Borges and you'll never be the same again.

A classical of latinoamerican literature, 19 Feb 1998
This is the best book of the best argentinian writer of all times.

Pure Genius, 07 Jul 2007
I could go on praising Borges for many, many pages, but (just as he was), I will be short:
Borges style and content are utterly original: his metaphysical themes, his detached wit and wry humour, his extremely concise writing. Borges predicted the many-worlds interpretation of quantum physics in "The Garden of Forking Paths" almost 20 years before Everett and DeWitt. Borges was writing about reader response in "Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote" more than 20 years before it became a method of literary criticism. In his stories, he often shows off his biblically immense erudition

Every word in Borges short stories have been carefully chosen, weighed and evaluated, and it shows: in just a few pages he manages to present varied, multi-layered themes that many other writers don't manage to fit in a novel.

His themes include, but are never limited to: the infinite, time, books and manuscripts, strange objects, the world seen from unexpected points of view, theology, and idealism.

While his main medium is the short story, he also wrote many non-fiction essays (some of the best of which, such as the exceptional "A New Refutation of Time", are included in "Labyrinths"), poetry, translations, and he excelled in the highly uncommon genre of the literary forgery.

Each page contains a sparkling gem, 21 Feb 2007
This collection of short stories has long been a favourite of mine. Borges is a master of the genre, packing more into a single line than some authors manage in a chapter. Time, death, love and religion are recurring themes, each handled with skill and awe-inspiring perspicacity.

Personally I think the first story is a bit of a shot to the head if you're not used to his style. Maybe try The Immortal for starters. After one or two, you'll be hooked and Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius won't make your brain hurt. Well, that's what it did to me ! !

This is definitely one of the books you should have read before you die.

infinity within a book., 05 May 2003
Borges claimed 'if you can summarise something in ten minutes, then why should you do anything else?' and true to this he has made his name by writing amongst the most exquisitely formed short stories of all time. Each story deals with grand themes: In Tlon Uqbar a plan is revealed to pervert the real world, by making it believe in an alien civilisation, whose systems of believe focus upon philosophy rather than religion. Thus, bizarre instances occur, such as people believing, rather ironically, that time and movement do not exist. The Library of Babel is a story set inside a mysterious library, where people's sole purpose is the examination and exegesis of an effectively infinite collection of books filled with every possible permutation of words and non-words. Cults thrive around books containing only three letters and myths are spread among the people of books tellling their future... given the endless possibilities of the library's contents such a book surely exists for every person.
Every short story though, is as good as the next. Each has its own self-contained idea or outlook on the world, yet each is in some way or another a Labyrinth. This collection is a masterpiece. The essays are just as good as the stories, because they too, almost peturbingly, seem to cope with the idea of the infinite effortlessly, whilst leaving you exhilerated.

A fantastic, thought provoking read, 05 Feb 2003
'Labyrinths' is a tremendously successful attempt to merge metaphysics and literature. Combining philosophy and storytelling is rarely done well (maybe Camus and Sartre are the best examples), but Borges achieves it in these stories. It is metaphysics that creates the labyrinths of the title, labyrinths of the perception of 'truth'. Despite being short, each story contains layers of deception from which there is no escape. These begin with the 'historical' gravitas given to each story by Borges' claim to have discovered a manuscript, or to be retelling fact. We are then plunged into a metaphysical fantasy in which the idea of 'the truth' becomes meaningless (or at least relative). It is the success with which Borges' achieves this, rather than the style in which he does, that is the strength of this collection. I came to Borges through reading Umberto Eco, who is shamelessly influenced by the Argentinian (in 'The Name of the Rose' Borge-esque motifs such as the labyrinth - both physical and metaphysical, false trails leading to the truth, the discovery of a manuscript, etc., are prominent, as is the monk 'Jorge of Burgos'!). Any fan of Eco should try this book, as should anyone who likes their brains to be given a little workout every now and then.
I found the non-fiction at the end a little tedious, but there is not much of this. The rest of the book is a delight. It is not hard to read, but leaves you feeling a little more clever by the finish. Do yourself a favour: read this book.

A book to revisit, 13 Oct 2002
I asked for this book for my 10th birthday...a bit advanced I thought when I unwrapped it but I loved the old cover of a spiral staircase reaching into the sky. I struggled with the texts within and got very little out of it apart from the marvellous The Circular Ruins. This remains one of my favourite short stories by Borges but now at 28 I'm in a position to re-evaluate...and I do regularly. I love discovering the worlds of Tlon Uqbar and Orbis Tertius, finding Pierrre Menard again. This book grows with you- it develops as you get older and have more points of reference. It helps when you read other books like Mark Danielewski's House of Leaves. The spiral staircase is appropriate because it reminds us that we revisit the same things time and time again but always have different reference points.

The labyrinth that consists of a single straight line, 03 May 2008
Jorge Luis Borges was one of those rare writers who can take even a bizarre, utterly unbelievable idea, and spin it into an exquisite little gem of prose.

And this classic writer was at the peak of his powers when he collected together "Ficciones," whose plain name belies the subtle power and exquisite beauty of Jorges' short stories. Even among Borges' many short stories, few of them can rival this little labyrinth of strange ancient cities, fictional histories, and the eerie depths of the human mind.

"I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopedia." An odd old saying from the Middle-East leads the narrator to seek out the long-lost heretical histories of a fictional world known as Tlon. Its beliefs, language, and metaphysical eccentricities increasingly fascinate the narrator, until it's almost a surprise to realize that Borges invented all of this.

The stories that follow are no less engrossing -- the recounting of a strange, haunting novel, a man who attempts to LIVE as Don Quixote, a man who tries to dream a new being into existence, a lottery that determines the way the people of Babylon are to live, an examination of a brilliant and underrated author, an exploration of the eternal Library of the universe, and a labyrinthine spy story.

The second round of short stories is a bit less enthralling, merely because it focuses more on "typical" Borges short stories. But they are still pretty enthralling pieces of work -- the remembrance of the brilliantly eccentric Ireneo Funes, the story of a scar, a series of murders linked to "the secret Name," a condemned man's begs God for a year to perfect his art, a forgotten heretic, a conversation leading to revenge, the Cult of the Phoenix, and a man entranced by the "Arabian Nights."

Mirrors and labyrinths fill Borges' work -- real and imagined, in word, metaphor and reality. You see them in an endless library, a guitar melody, a contradiction in religious faith, a complex plot, and in the mind of a man who loses himself to an obsession. The mirrors show you the sides of people that they would never see themselves, and the labyrinth twists the mind into new places where it would never normally go.

"Ficciones" explores places where normal fiction would never go -- such as a Babylonian lottery for different places in society, corrupted by greed -- even as it imbues its eulogies, metaphysical ponderings and explanations with the tinge of reality. The cults, deaths, and art that Borges describes seem so plausible, and are given such depth and detail, that it comes as a mild shock when you realize, "Hey, he made all of this up."

Part of that is due to his unique style, full of elegant wordcraft and gently luminous imagery ("a round yellow moon defined two leaf-clogged fountains in the dreary garden"). Even a stabbing is made brutally beautiful, and often dialogue is unnecessary -- the most beautiful and striking stories in here are the ones where Borges (aka the narrator) eagerly explores some invented facet of the world.

And woven through these stories are many of the things that fascinated Borges through his career -- a tragic hero, ancient heresies, an elusive God, and people whose lives he could somehow explore through his own imagination.

If you could criticize anything at all, it's that few of the characters -- aside from the Borges "narrator" -- are much more than walking symbols of a murky little message. But hey, you could simply see this entire book as an exploration of Borges' own imagination by himself. He happily recounts countries that are nonexistant, books that were never written, geniuses who never were.

"Ficciones" is about the dullest name you can possibly give to a work of genius -- an intricate little web that is all mirrors and mazes. Absolutely stunning.

i cant believe it has taken me 46 years to discover borges., 25 Jan 2008
i recently read a book called 'the tango singer' about an american who moves to buenos aires to do research about borges for his phd. i really enjoyed that book..but the best thing about it was that it made me want to read borges..someone i had heard of, but never really knew anything about. and ay caramba, im just entranced by borges. he is not your average writer..he expects a lot of his readers, doesnt pander, but is not smug in a post-modern way either as he was to early for that. at first i cant deny, i was bewildered by the idea of writing reviews of books that didnt exist, but now im just surprised that no one has ever thought of writing those 500 page novels he couldnt be bothered to write.
the circular ruins, and death and the compass are just two of the most memorable short stories ive ever read..and boy have i read a lot of them. i think it is the ultimate literary form. i know this, or any of these reviews, are not very helpful if you are thinking of buying this book..but its really hard to say what borges is about..mirrors, labyrinths, dreamlike stories, laced with wit, so many literary references you will be reeling, and the ending you just didnt expect. so much of the reference is fantasy, but then again so much is real..you have to work out which is which. totally amazing writing is what it comes down to..i cant recommend this enough. dont be scared...you know you want it or you wouldnt be here...

This is wonderful, 09 Jan 2003
I really read this book and appreciated it first when I was 14 and I loved it. I sat reading it on the grass in front of the oxfor natural history museum and I have been re reading it ever since ( admittedly only a year and a half ago) He is a God of literature. Few writers are capable of weaving the complicated plots that we bear witness to in the library of Babel a and tlon uqbar and orbis tertius. And who can so ably present the argument for taking a second look at the world around us in Pierre Menard auther of don quixote. If the garden of the forking paths was made compulsary reading for all mystery and crime writers, actually just compulsary reading for everyone, the world would be a better place! This book should be taught in schools! Hurrah for Borges

Not happy with Hurley, 20 May 2002
As Andrew Hurley's translations of Borges are becoming ubiquitious some criticism of their style is called for. I see I have been (ably) beaten to it, so this can serve as a footnote to the earlier reader review. I can't compare the translations with the original Spanish, so can only observe that for the English reader of English they are spoiled by jarring Americanisms. Perhaps one might argue that American English is appropriate for translating a New World writer, but it is the product of a society very different to Borges's own, and its democratic, colloquial tone often works against his urbanity, fastidiousness, ironic pedantry and self-mocking snobbishness. Like the previous reviewer I have only docked one crown, because Borges is indispensable, whatever the shortcomings of his translators.

Great original, poor version, 19 Sep 2000
Perhaps the greatest Spanish language writer of the century, says the fly-leaf. And it is not an exaggeration. But why did anyone let Andrew Hurley loose on this collection? A complete fictions in English was long overdue, but Hurley's translation lets Borges down. His prose style is leaden, and his translations often eccentric or just plain wrong. Borges was influenced by writers such as Burton, Chesterton and Henry James, and transposed their style into Spanish. Hurley, however, has translated Borges into twentieth century American English, which is clearly contrary to both the style and intent of the orignial. This book is well worth buying for the sake of having all the stories in one place and in English, but Norman Thomas di Giovanni's translations of Dr Brodie's Report and the Book of Sands are far superior. If only di G had tackled the Aleph or Ficciones, there would be little need for this amateur-ish effort at all...

Everywhere and nowhere, 17 Mar 2007
Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes two different books of Borges', very different in their styles -- one is rich and epic, while the other is sort of short and quirky. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

And in the second book, he spins up a long string of very, VERY short stories (some only a paragraph). Some are musings on his toes, and nothing much more. But there are also brief stories of startling depth, such as God speaking to Dante and the "Divine Comedy's" leopard, and assuring them of their literary immortality.

The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories in the first portion of the book are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

Imagination, 03 Feb 2007

"The Book of Imaginary Creatures" seems like kind of a flimsy book for a great author like Jorge Luis Borges -- a bestiary of creatures from myth, religion and literature. But the book becomes deeper and more intriguing as it goes on, tapping into philosophy and common imaginings around the world.

There are several religion-based creatures -- the Biblical Levithian, Swedenborg's angels and demons, Mohammed's heavenly steed Buraq, Judaical golems (which aren't quite the same as other creatures, since people have to make them), and supernatural versions of real animals, like the white elephant that appeared before the birth of Buddha or Chinese foxes.

But even more numerous are the mythic creatures, from the usual (centaurs, unicorns, hellhounds, gryphons) to the obscure (the A Bao A Qu, an insubstantial little thing that follows people up the stairs). These are a more colourful bunch, especially since many of them -- dragons, the hare in the moon, the basilisk -- recur in different countries, and Borges told readers of most of those.

And to round it off, Borges included creatures invented in literature -- Homer and Dante's mythic creatures, Poe's Antarctic creatures, Kafka, Lewis Carroll's version of a Cheshire cat, and C.S. Lewis's alien creatures from the "Space Trilogy." These authors all created creatures that were almost too weird, but which also seemed relatively likely (as invented animals go).

"The Book of Imaginary Beings" is actually very well-rounded, with lots of bizarre or relatively unknown creatures. You'd expect a bunch of typical mythic creatures just tossed together, but fortunately Borges goes way behind the call of duty, from the A Bao A Qu to the Zaratan (a carnivorous living island).

Borges obviously had great respect for these various legends, since he treats them as se