Borges

[TheFifthElement]

I have the itch to buy a book, and I think something by Borges will scratch it :D I've heard a lot of good things about Borges but have never read his work before and have no idea where to start, any recommendations?

[JCamilo]

Ficciones or The Alleph, they are his basic library, with most of his important tales. But really, any place with Borges is good as the next, and sometimes this is place is not even Borges.

[Barbarous]

Don't neglect Borges' later works, as in 'Shakespeare's Memory' and 'Book of Sand', the latter especially is one of my favorites.

Borges always reminded me of the Twilight Zone, he is simply Rod Sterling where as his stories are the odd and absurd (no, no Camus actually), where only twisted literature comes through.

[stlukesguild]

Labyrinths may be the best collection in English to introduce the reader to Borges, focusing as it does especially on the stories from Ficciones but also including some of his best essays, aphorisms, etc... Personally, I'd recommend the three volume set: Collected Fictions, Selected Non-Fictions, and Selected Poems. Add to this Dreamtigers (or El Hacedor), Other Inquisitions, Seven Nights, The Book of Imaginary Beings...:)

[weltanschauung]

personally, i recommend everything
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c224/facist_jockitch/bs/Picture006.jpg

[TheFifthElement]

Cool, thanks :D Someone has very kindly agreed to swap their copy of Labyrinths with my copy of Timequake so I should be reading Borges very soon.

What is it about Borges that is so special? What should the uninitiated expect?

[King Mob]

Expect complex ideas on art, philosophy, human condition and the universe.

Every little text of Borges says more than many novels put together.

Pay attention to the themes of the labyrinth, fate, treason, panteísm, among other "borgesian" themes. There's also a great reflection on immortality in The Immortal

[JCamilo]

But Borges complete works are incomplete. He removed several earlier poems and there is no work with other writers (there is a complete edition with collaborations in Argentina in 70's, but I do not find it). And some of those works are great, such the Bustos Domeq works with Bioy Casares and his analyse of Martin Fierro.
What is special about Borges are not his themes (all he borrowed from someone else), his style (an obviously classicist that had several similar character), his philosophy (borrowed from several philosophers)... but how he did it, englighted by a sense of literary criticism and a capacity of observation and analogy that made him the basic decoder of literature. Since he rarely wrote formal critical works, he had put them on proof. Hence why his influence over several philosophers and critics (Eco, Foucault, Derrida, Barthez) is even more impressive than his influence over generations of latin american writers.
Few have the capacity to write stories where concepts have personality as him.