Jorge Luis Borges

[Kyriakos]

Anyone fond of this late Argentinian writer?

I find at least ten of his stories to be masterpieces, although i am of mixed opinion about the whole body of his work.

I particularly loved the short story "The house of Asterios". Incredible in my view :) Others of note include the Library of Babylon and Founes.

Borges created labyrinths with language, symbols, repetitions of forms and literary mechanisms. In his stories reality and imagination often overlap, many times in sinister ways, other times due to the complexity of the cosmos and the complexity of any individual reflection of it as well.

I think he was unique in his style, and possibly also thematology.

[JCamilo]

Borges uniqueness is not style or themes, specially themes. He is a master of finding what is best before him and improving it. Every single step was a improvement of guys like Poe, Carlyle, Stevenson, Hawthorne...

Anyways, there is plenty of Borgensians here. 2 or 3 :D

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

I'm about 200 pages through a collection of his fictions (it's about a 500 page book), and I can't really say I like it or hate it because I, honestly, don't get it, as in I don't get what he's trying to do in some of his stories. Some of them haven't really even been stories, sometimes it's just a description of a book, or a made-up history, like the story about the scientists who decided to create a whole world down to every meticulous detail (I'm reading it in chunks, so my recollections are probably not as good as they could be). Plus, the stories are really short, sometimes too short, I think.

Note that these are not reasons I'm saying JLB is bad, just things I'm not getting. I expected something completely different, and since I didn't get it, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's actually there.

[Rores28]

I've only read a few things, but I think he's pretty brilliant. Though he's an author that I can easily imagine people "not getting" or finding intolerable.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius is an example of his brilliance that one can easily see people would finding tedious or aimless.

I love the part in that story about a poem that is just one very large noun or is it a verb?

[Lokasenna]

I love Borges - I've a book of his short stories on the go at the moment.

I don't like much 20th century stuff, but for some reason Borges appeals to me; I love the whole magical realism concept.

Interestingly, Borges was also a great lover of Old Norse literature, which doubtless endears him to me. He was the first person to ever translate the Poetic Edda into Spanish and Galician.

[Charles Darnay]

I'm about 200 pages through a collection of his fictions (it's about a 500 page book), and I can't really say I like it or hate it because I, honestly, don't get it, as in I don't get what he's trying to do in some of his stories. Some of them haven't really even been stories, sometimes it's just a description of a book, or a made-up history, like the story about the scientists who decided to create a whole world down to every meticulous detail (I'm reading it in chunks, so my recollections are probably not as good as they could be). Plus, the stories are really short, sometimes too short, I think.

Note that these are not reasons I'm saying JLB is bad, just things I'm not getting. I expected something completely different, and since I didn't get it, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's actually there.


A great way to see why Borges is so unique and highly regarded is to read one of the following: "Garden of Forking Paths", "Circular Ruins", or (my favourite) "Funes the Memorious".

He does have some stories that are descriptions or made up histories, and taken out of context (such as collections do) these could lose much of their meaning and charm admittedly.

[stlukesguild]

I'm about 200 pages through a collection of his fictions (it's about a 500 page book), and I can't really say I like it or hate it because I, honestly, don't get it, as in I don't get what he's trying to do in some of his stories. Some of them haven't really even been stories, sometimes it's just a description of a book, or a made-up history, like the story about the scientists who decided to create a whole world down to every meticulous detail (I'm reading it in chunks, so my recollections are probably not as good as they could be). Plus, the stories are really short, sometimes too short, I think.

Note that these are not reasons I'm saying JLB is bad, just things I'm not getting. I expected something completely different, and since I didn't get it, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's actually there.

I think this is a common first response to Borges. I felt the same way about him... and to a greater extent, Kafka. I was expecting something different and what I got was unlike anything I expected. Yet still something kept calling me back (with both writers) and I kept reading them again and again until I was absolutely under their spell.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

A great way to see why Borges is so unique and highly regarded is to read one of the following: "Garden of Forking Paths", "Circular Ruins", or (my favourite) "Funes the Memorious".

He does have some stories that are descriptions or made up histories, and taken out of context (such as collections do) these could lose much of their meaning and charm admittedly.
The collection I have is all of his stuff organized chronologically (at least, by publishing date) by the collections he released. I don't know if I gotten to them yet. I've read some good stories, but more than a few have left me scratching my head.

I'm about 200 pages through a collection of his fictions (it's about a 500 page book), and I can't really say I like it or hate it because I, honestly, don't get it, as in I don't get what he's trying to do in some of his stories. Some of them haven't really even been stories, sometimes it's just a description of a book, or a made-up history, like the story about the scientists who decided to create a whole world down to every meticulous detail (I'm reading it in chunks, so my recollections are probably not as good as they could be). Plus, the stories are really short, sometimes too short, I think.

Note that these are not reasons I'm saying JLB is bad, just things I'm not getting. I expected something completely different, and since I didn't get it, I'm just trying to wrap my head around what's actually there.

I think this is a common first response to Borges. I felt the same way about him... and to a greater extent, Kafka. I was expecting something different and what I got was unlike anything I expected. Yet still something kept calling be back (with both writers) and I kept reading them again and again until I was absolutely under their spell.
Many of my favorite things (at least, when it comes to art) are things I started out disliking and end up loving. Hopefully Borges will fall under this category.

[Pierre Menard]

I think this is a common first response to Borges. I felt the same way about him... and to a greater extent, Kafka. I was expecting something different and what I got was unlike anything I expected. Yet still something kept calling me back (with both writers) and I kept reading them again and again until I was absolutely under their spell.

I had the exact same first impression. I was drawn back again and again, and now I'd say Borges is close to, if not, my favourite writer.


I'd also advise anyone who is reading him to also read his poems/sonnets and his non-fiction which is highly enjoyable as well.

[JCamilo]

Non-Fiction?Borges? :D

[Kyriakos]

Non-Fiction?Borges? :D

Although it can be said that even his essays read like stories, he did write a large number of them, and i guess had them published in different collections :)

[JCamilo]

Nah, but see, Borges treated them as fiction, even making up things in his essays. There was a preface for a short story colleciton for example, he was mocking another argie writter and added obscure non-sense just to mock the opinion of the guy.

I would trust more in Borges of Alleph, than Borges of Autobiography.

[Arrowni]

Borges may be the best single latinamerican author of all time, and among the best spanish speaking ones.

He pretty much worked to shatter some of the preconceptions about fiction on his time, prominently the one that says that you need to "get" the point, that there is some deep point behind every story. Borges's first pleasure is the stories themselves, then the guilty pleasure is liking them enough to see the whimsical games he built on them.

You shouldn't read Borges expecting explanations, arguably, you shouldn't read any writer with such blind faith. Borges struggled to oppose those notions.