Ficciones

Product Information

La impresión que aquella lectura causó en mí aún perdura: asombro, perplejidad, afán de saber, felicidad. Reading Ficciones, and trying to grasp the concepts in it, was definitely the major mental workout of the year for me. Esto, sin embargo, no es algo extraño que suceda ante una recopilación donde habrá cuentos que se convertirán en tus favoritos, y otros que no serán para nada de tu agrado. There are layers of meaning and frequent allusions to historic figures, other literary works, and philosophical ideas, not readily discernable at first read. Once I really grasped the connection between the poem and this story, it became one of my favorites in this collection.

Borges has had so many imitators, some are quite good, such as the stories by his countryman, Julio Cortazar, in All Fires the Fire, which I reviewed here https://www. This detective story had enough philosophy in it to make it intriguing and give it more depth than a typical mystery, but not overload my brain cells, which are feeling like they’re now on a roll.The truth is I grew up in a garden, behind lanceolate railings, and in a library of unlimited, English books. John Barth“The economy of his prose, the tact of his imagery, the courage of his thought are there to be admired and emulated. He had smuggled the book under his coat and slid it into his bedside table at home along with tissues, crinkly likes leaves, condoms, mints, and other random tack that belonged nowhere else. The seventeen pieces in Ficciones demonstrate the whirlwind of Borges's genius and mirror the precision and potency of his intellect and inventiveness, his piercing irony, his skepticism, and his obsession with fantasy.

It’s this kind of thing that the man of many places (he lived in Argentina, Switzerland and Spain) and many languages (he translated Wilde, Shakespeare, Kafka, Poe, Hesse, Gide, Whitman and Woolf among others) would have resonate for its universality and unboundedness. Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Library of Babel, The Lottery in Babylon, The Circular Ruins, The Secret Miracle and The South seem to belong science fiction or fantasy, although in their treatment of their major themes, they are more erudite and philosophical in nature. The best short stories are the ones set free of time and space, stories that easily could weave into each other if they were allowed to, they are dreamlike labyrinths of the mind. Un autor que derrocha referencias a otras obras literarías, filosóficas, matemáticas, que constantemente usa palabras en otros idiomas y todo con perfecta naturalidad. Borges' maze gently mocks yet empathizes with the self-important, the self-absorbed, and the self-denying.

Borges’ humor is subtle to the point of invisibility but there are times when it comes out and grins at you.

He explains, “Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be.It is one of those unforgettable experiences which one may come across once in a lifetime but every word of this gem is worth it. Every man should be capable of all ideas, and I believe that in the future he will be” --Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote. Of “The South,” which is perhaps my best story, let it suffice for me to suggest that it can be read as a direct narrative of novelistic events, and also in another way. The Lottery in Babylon” ― In the city of Babylon, a lottery morphs into an game that takes over all aspects of life in Babylon. If you read one of these tales out of context you might mistake it for a non-fictional essay, albeit with quirks.