Borges

[Rores28]

I've been hearing some talk of this fellow.... any suggestions on where to start with his works? What's his best and all that...

[Petrarch's Love]

Borges is fantastic! He is best known for his short stories, which are really some of the more sublime specimens of the form. Definitely not conventional in style. You're not going to get straightforward adventure stories out of Borges, but you will get some intensely memorable situations and concepts that will really get you thinking and feeling in a way no other writer will. He is often associated with the Magical Realist style of writing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_realism).

I started off with this volume: http://www.amazon.com/Collected-Fictions-Jorge-Luis-Borges/dp/0140286802 and was completely mesmerized. If your Spanish is any good, I hear they're even better in the original Ficciones. As a taste, you can read one of his well known stories, "The Library of Babel" online for free here: http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html

If there's anything more you might like to know, I'm sure you need only wait for our resident Borges afficionado, "St. Luke's Guild" to show up.

[Kyriakos]

Also try The mnemonic Founes (i am not sure that is how it is spelled in english though ;) ). It is one of the more straightforward tales, at least on one level.

[Heteronym]

Jorge Luis Borges is my favorite writer. Start wherever you want, I don't know anything bad that he's written: short-stories, poetry, essays. Even his interviews are amazing!

He was a writer, or rather a reader, of the world, absorbing influences from every country and epoch, although he had a special love for Anglo-American literatures. His book of American literary criticism is amazing - his essay on Nathaniel Hawthorne made me give him a new chance and I'm better for it.

Borges loved fantasy and detective stories - he loved G.K. Chesterton, Arthur Machen, Poe, Kipling, etc. - and most of his short-stories belong to either one or another genre, but they're completely different from anything ever written. His work is full of labyrinths, fictional books and authors, mirrors, dreams, intellectual puzzles, and magical artefacts like the Aleph. But Borges wrote with such simplicity and grace, with such an evident intention to seduce and please the reader, that one does not feel the intellectual weight of the stories.

Start with The Book of Sand, The Aleph or Labyrinths. Then read his essays on literature, history, philosophy and films, then venture into his poetry, which is very good too. Then read the amusing collaborations like The Book of Heaven and Hell or The Book of Imaginary Beings. There's so much by Borges to discover and enjoy.

[Pecksie]

Good choice! Borges has many wonderful short stories. 'Funes the Memorious', 'The Aleph', 'Emma Zunz', 'The Garden of Forking Paths' and 'Avelino Arredondo' are just a few.

His poetry is also a marvel, and shows his love for the English and Nordic languages and poetry, as well as for South American history. Read 'A Morning in 1649', for instance, and the death of Charles I of England suddenly becomes terribly real and haunting. Or '1964', perhaps one (actually, two) of the most beautiful love poems ever written.

Don't feel daunted by his erudition and love for minutiae --- once you get used to his way of writing, you'll start enjoying!

[JCamilo]

I've been hearing some talk of this fellow.... any suggestions on where to start with his works? What's his best and all that...

His best are his early work, specially the tales on Ficciones and The Alleph. Its not like he wrote worst or better, either the essays, the speeches, interviews, poems, biographies... he just wrote the same, the same borges...which you eventually will read...

[Rores28]

Thanks for all the suggestions I'll be heading to the used book store sometime this weekend to see if I can find any of these.

[Mr.lucifer]

I've read a few short stories of his. The library of bable didn't blow me away like I'd expect it to. I do plan giving him another chance.

[Heteronym]

I understand we're living in hard times, but Borges deserves to be read in pristine editions ;)

[stlukesguild]

Here is what to look for by Borges:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4133/5018961394_d3158acc0b.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/5018350437_9ba978a675.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/5018957148_d86edfb72e_z.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4149/5018957470_63784e02bc.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4144/5018957536_69ed244963_z.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4083/5018957564_e5a697fc20.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4153/5018957340_cb6155d688_z.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4091/5018957196_f02276936f_z.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4091/5018957278_dda06ecf58_z.jpg

In other words... you need pretty much everything. It doesn't matter whether it is his short stories, essays, criticism, or poetry... Borges blurs the divisions between all the genres. My personal favorite collection is the slim volume, Dreamtigers, which was also Borges' favorite... and one he oversaw while living in the US. Ficciones/Fictions or Labyrinths, however, are an equally good place to start.

Borges is a writer who plays with ideas, with history, and with the history of literature in the way that another writer might play with characters. Like Kafka, he is not necessarily what you might expect the first time you read him... but he grows upon you... continues to draw you back... until you are an incurable Borgesian like myself.

[Rores28]

Cool. Thanks for all the visual aids!

[JCamilo]

You know that Norah Borges ilustraded many of his works?

[Kyriakos]

I have a collection of all the short stories and articles. I mostly like Funes, the book of Sand, the library of Babylon and bits and pieces from here and there.
His articles are interesting as well, i particularly enjoyed those about the enigma-solving story :)

[Mr.lucifer]

The stories I read from him didn't blow me away but I would like to become a borgesian.