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The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986
This third Penguin volume marking the centenary of the birth of Jorge Luis Borges follows the publication of the Collected Fictions and Selected Poems: editor Eliot Weinberger's choice of Borges' non-fiction writings in The Total Library gives readers the necessary corollary to the work for which the Argentine author became most famous--and for which he became lauded as one of the great writers of the 20th century. Predominantly celebrated for the stories published variously in Fictions and Labyrinths, Borges was nevertheless equally at ease writing about an extraordinary variety of subjects--this huge volume presents a mere 161 pieces out of over 1,200 extant non-fiction texts--ranging from mathematics to 'A History of the Tango', from meditations on blindness (he himself lost his sight in 1955) to reviews of films such as King Kong, from essays on Dante to responses to the rise of Nazism. What surprises, for even the Borges aficionado, is the breadth and idiosyncrasy of his topics and the singular intelligence that animates his work, and the fact that, despite his staggering erudition, Borges did not inhabit a world of arcane knowledge but a world in which popular culture and deeply felt responses to the stupidities of fascism and the propaganda of dictators found equal place. The world of the book here becomes the book of the world, and if Borges' texts are invariably short, they contain multitudes.
It would be easy to make a case for the inseparability of Borges' literary output, for interleaving one's reading of the three collections. Coming to these essays one can see themes that appear elsewhere reworked as fiction or poetry: the nature of time, of eternity and infinity find their places in many of his best-known stories, and are illuminated by the discussions and speculations contained herein. What is also apparent, however, is how long-lasting many of his preoccupations were: themes which appear in his earliest essays recur throughout a lifetime of thinking and writing, lending this book, despite its admitted omissions, a deeply intimate sense of a mind working. Among his earliest essays we read: "there is no whole self. He who defines personal identity as the private possession of some depository of memories is mistaken". And later: "My postulate is that all literature, in the end, is autobiographical. Everything is poetic that confesses, that gives us a glimpse of a destiny". If these help mark a few of the philosophical kernels of Borges' work, then one final quotation illuminates his generosity: "I don't know if I am a good writer, but I think I am an excellent reader, or in any case a sensitive and grateful one". He more than deserves the same from those who come to his own extraordinary work. --Burhan Tufail
576 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,588 books14.3k followersJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
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March 28, 2019
Browsing through this again makes me tempted to upgrade it from four stars to five. Much as I love the great Argentine's fiction, there is an algebraic quality to a lot of it that leaves me cold; his non-fiction is where I feel utterly gobsmacked with awe. His polyglottery, his self-deprecation, his sense of humour and his love of Old English are all calculated to appeal to my tastes, and the range of subjects he deals with in this selection (which is nowhere near a complete collection of non-fiction, although much of it had never been published in English before) is wonderful, exciting, daunting, exhilarating all at once.
Borges never shows off; he shares his knowledge with you gleefully, eager for you to experience the same pleasures as him, anxious to share his discoveries with others. Always there is a poetic quality to his conclusions; he draws out themes and literary conceits and distils them into abstract principles while somehow enhancing their aesthetic appeal. An essay on suicide, for instance, prompted by reading Donne's Biathanatos, latches on to the idea that Christ's death must have been voluntary and therefore in some sense deliberate – and Borges ruminates on this until he can reduce the idea down to something exquisite:
His imagination darts through literary and philosophical history with extraordinary lightness, and yet at the same time he can be bracingly specific – as, fittingly, in this 1949 essay on how literature gradually evolved from the allegorical to the specific:
Sentences like this can have you just sitting, thinking, for several minutes after reading. Many of the essays achieve this effect because they are so dense: a dozen names and time periods fly by in the space of three or four pages. But so perfectly do the ideas link together that you never feel cramped.
On translation he is particularly exemplary. He takes the eminently sensible view that literary quality is not ‘lost’ in translation, and that the most faithful translation is not (pace Nabokov) the most literal, but if anything the opposite. Comparisons between half a dozen different versions of a passage in Homer, or – in a separate essay – of the Thousand and One Nights, on which Borges was something of an expert, are for me just pure pleasure from start to finish. But his compulsive reading in different languages is everywhere present. At one point a throwaway reference to a line he admires in Ulysses – ‘Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled’ – sparks the brief footnote:
(Writing this out now, I wonder: is Spanish really so different in this respect?)
Borges's interests take in literature, history, philosophy and science (in which subject, again, he finds much poetry: ‘Light is gradually lost in the form of heat; the universe, minute by minute, is becoming invisible’). But one thing that apparently does not interest him is current affairs. Reading essays that are dated 1936, or 1941, one hunts in vain for any reference to the world-historical events then taking place. The same goes for his writing after the military junta seized power in Argentina in 1966. No leo los diarios (‘I don't read newspapers’), he famously said. It's a position that can be criticised, as it often is. But perhaps that's what gives all his writing such a timeless, ahistorical feel. He was in his own world, and had more to say about Laȝamon or Cervantes than about General Onganía.
At the least, we must be grateful that he shared his own world with the rest of us. However politically insular, it's an extraordinary, mind-expanding place to be.
Borges never shows off; he shares his knowledge with you gleefully, eager for you to experience the same pleasures as him, anxious to share his discoveries with others. Always there is a poetic quality to his conclusions; he draws out themes and literary conceits and distils them into abstract principles while somehow enhancing their aesthetic appeal. An essay on suicide, for instance, prompted by reading Donne's Biathanatos, latches on to the idea that Christ's death must have been voluntary and therefore in some sense deliberate – and Borges ruminates on this until he can reduce the idea down to something exquisite:
Christ died a voluntary death, Donne suggests, and this means that the elements and the terrestrial orb and the generations of mankind and Egypt and Rome and Babylon and Judah were extracted from nothingness in order to destroy him. Perhaps iron was created for the nails, and thorns for the mock crown, and blood and water for the wound. This baroque idea glimmers behind Biathanatos. The idea of a god who creates the universe in order to create his own gallows.
His imagination darts through literary and philosophical history with extraordinary lightness, and yet at the same time he can be bracingly specific – as, fittingly, in this 1949 essay on how literature gradually evolved from the allegorical to the specific:
The passage from allegory to novel, from species to individual, from realism to nominalism, required several centuries, but I shall have the temerity to suggest an ideal date: the day in 1382 when Geoffrey Chaucer, who may not have believed himself to be a nominalist, set out to translate into English a line by Boccaccio – ‘E con gli occulti ferri i Tradimenti’ [And Betrayal with hidden weapons] – and repeated it as ‘The smyler with the knyf under the cloke’.
Sentences like this can have you just sitting, thinking, for several minutes after reading. Many of the essays achieve this effect because they are so dense: a dozen names and time periods fly by in the space of three or four pages. But so perfectly do the ideas link together that you never feel cramped.
On translation he is particularly exemplary. He takes the eminently sensible view that literary quality is not ‘lost’ in translation, and that the most faithful translation is not (pace Nabokov) the most literal, but if anything the opposite. Comparisons between half a dozen different versions of a passage in Homer, or – in a separate essay – of the Thousand and One Nights, on which Borges was something of an expert, are for me just pure pleasure from start to finish. But his compulsive reading in different languages is everywhere present. At one point a throwaway reference to a line he admires in Ulysses – ‘Bridebed, childbed, bed of death, ghostcandled’ – sparks the brief footnote:
The French version is rather unfortunate: ‘Lit nuptial, lit de parturition, lit de mort aux spectrales bougies.’ The fault, of course, lies with the language, which is incapable of compound words.
(Writing this out now, I wonder: is Spanish really so different in this respect?)
Borges's interests take in literature, history, philosophy and science (in which subject, again, he finds much poetry: ‘Light is gradually lost in the form of heat; the universe, minute by minute, is becoming invisible’). But one thing that apparently does not interest him is current affairs. Reading essays that are dated 1936, or 1941, one hunts in vain for any reference to the world-historical events then taking place. The same goes for his writing after the military junta seized power in Argentina in 1966. No leo los diarios (‘I don't read newspapers’), he famously said. It's a position that can be criticised, as it often is. But perhaps that's what gives all his writing such a timeless, ahistorical feel. He was in his own world, and had more to say about Laȝamon or Cervantes than about General Onganía.
At the least, we must be grateful that he shared his own world with the rest of us. However politically insular, it's an extraordinary, mind-expanding place to be.
December 5, 2021
Before reading The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986, I had not grasped how prolific a non-fiction writer Borges was. This collection includes many pieces not previously translated into English, but is very far from comprehensive. The book is ordered both chronologically and thematically. There are sections of book prologues and literary criticism (relentlessly perceptive), film reviews (hilariously sardonic), lectures (fascinating), and groups of essays on Dante, the Second World War, and miscellaneous philosophical, historical, and theological topics. Such an idiosyncratic structure suits the extraordinary range of writing that Borges turned his hand to. I will not pretend that his erudition did not become exhausting at times. I got stuck for a while upon the 1936 essay 'A History of Eternity'. Looking back, I am astounded to realise it is only 16 pages long - although that is lengthy for Borges. His non-fiction has the same jewel-like succinct quality as his short stories. I did detect a subtle shift as the decades passed. There is a certain additional humility in the post-war writing, tempering the confidence of someone with a beautifully indexed library in his mind.
There are many pleasures to be found in The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. Allow me to list them, with examples. Firstly, there is the fascination of continuity. Borges returns to the similar topics and reconsiders the same quote from different angles, many years apart. Reading these related reflections together enriches them, much as rereading his stories in the varying configurations of different collections casts them in new lights. I particularly liked the multiple appearances of this Schopenhauer quote:
Secondly, Borges is very funny. His film reviews are beautifully written Hot Takes containing curiously contemporary-sounding one-liners. Imagine Borges on twitter. He would be brilliant, prolific, and unavoidable:
His literary essays also include magnificently sardonic comments, of which this on orientalism is my favourite:
Thirdly, the wonder and enchantment Borges evokes by making historical and literary connections. My favourite example of this involves dreams of Kublai Khan's palace, perhaps unsurprisingly given Borges and I share a particular interest in dreams:
Fourthly, the unsettling power of his commentary on Nazism during the 1930s. I found his review of a Nazi children's book, titled 'A Pedagogy of Hatred', particularly memorable:
Fifthly and finally, his insightful comments that each deserve a book-length extrapolation and I will keep thinking about for some while. This is perhaps the most ubiquitous delight of Borges' writing. I was especially taken by his commentary on fiction genres in a prologue to The Invention of Morel, his essay on 'The Scandinavian Destiny', and this theory about the cultural primacy of a genre or form:
I think the novel still has primacy now, albeit a different type of novel. Incidentally, I like to think Borges never wrote a full length novel because when he tried to it warped the very fabric of reality. His fiction can only be microdosed, lest it have dangerously unpredictable effects on the boundary between reality and dreams.
There are undoubtedly additional joys to reading non-fiction by Borges that are more specific and/or harder to articulate. As ever when I read about it, I was left wanting to reread Dante's Inferno. The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986 is a rich and rewarding collection. Even when I was too exhausted to take in the philosophical nuances, I revelled in the inimitable style of Borges.
There are many pleasures to be found in The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986. Allow me to list them, with examples. Firstly, there is the fascination of continuity. Borges returns to the similar topics and reconsiders the same quote from different angles, many years apart. Reading these related reflections together enriches them, much as rereading his stories in the varying configurations of different collections casts them in new lights. I particularly liked the multiple appearances of this Schopenhauer quote:
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote that dreaming and wakefulness are the pages of a single book, and that to read them in order is to live, and to leaf through them at random, to dream. Paintings within paintings and books that branch into other books help us sense this oneness.
Secondly, Borges is very funny. His film reviews are beautifully written Hot Takes containing curiously contemporary-sounding one-liners. Imagine Borges on twitter. He would be brilliant, prolific, and unavoidable:
This film - The Boys of Yesteryear, etc - is unquestionably one of the best Argentine films I have ever seen, that is, one of the worst films in the world.
His literary essays also include magnificently sardonic comments, of which this on orientalism is my favourite:
Working my way with enthusiasm and credulity through the English version of a certain Chinese philosopher, I came across this memorable passage: 'A man condemned to death doesn't care that he is standing on the edge of a precipice, for he has already renounced life'. Here the translator attached an asterisk, and his note informed me that this interpretation was preferable to that of a rival Sinologist, who translated the passage thus: 'The servants destroy the works of art, so that they will not have to judge their beauties and defects'. Then, like Paolo and Francesca, I read no more. A mysterious scepticism has slipped into my soul.
Thirdly, the wonder and enchantment Borges evokes by making historical and literary connections. My favourite example of this involves dreams of Kublai Khan's palace, perhaps unsurprisingly given Borges and I share a particular interest in dreams:
The first dreamer was given the vision of the palace, and he built it; the second, who did not know of the other's dream, was given the poem about the palace. If this plan does not fail, someone, on a night centuries removed from us, will dream the same dream, and not suspect that others have dreamed it, and he will give it a form of marble or of music. Perhaps this series of dreams has no end, or perhaps the last one will be the key.
Fourthly, the unsettling power of his commentary on Nazism during the 1930s. I found his review of a Nazi children's book, titled 'A Pedagogy of Hatred', particularly memorable:
I defy pornographers to show me a picture more vile than any of the twenty-two illustrations that comprise the children's book Trau keinem Fuchs auf gruener Heid und keinem Jud bei seinem Eid [Don't Trust Any Fox from a Heath or Any Jew on his Oath] whose fourth edition now infests Bavaria. It was first published a year ago, in 1936, and has already sold 51,000 copies. It's goal is to instill in the children of the Third Reich a distrust and animosity towards Jews. Verse (we know the mnemonic virtues of rhyme) and colour engravings (we know how effective images are) collaborate in this veritable textbook of hatred.
Fifthly and finally, his insightful comments that each deserve a book-length extrapolation and I will keep thinking about for some while. This is perhaps the most ubiquitous delight of Borges' writing. I was especially taken by his commentary on fiction genres in a prologue to The Invention of Morel, his essay on 'The Scandinavian Destiny', and this theory about the cultural primacy of a genre or form:
Every era believes that there is a literary genre that has a kind of primacy. Today, for example, any writer who has not written a novel is asked when he is going to write one. (I myself am continually being asked.) In Shakespeare's time, the literary work par excellence was the vast epic poem, and that idea persisted into the eighteenth century, when we have the example of Voltaire, the least epic of men, who nevertheless writes an epic because without an epic he would not have been a true man of letters for his contemporaries.
I think the novel still has primacy now, albeit a different type of novel. Incidentally, I like to think Borges never wrote a full length novel because when he tried to it warped the very fabric of reality. His fiction can only be microdosed, lest it have dangerously unpredictable effects on the boundary between reality and dreams.
There are undoubtedly additional joys to reading non-fiction by Borges that are more specific and/or harder to articulate. As ever when I read about it, I was left wanting to reread Dante's Inferno. The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986 is a rich and rewarding collection. Even when I was too exhausted to take in the philosophical nuances, I revelled in the inimitable style of Borges.
August 20, 2020
I've always thought that I liked Borges. I misremembered. Labored sentences, incoherent ideas, a lack of clarity of expression. One can see what the critics meant by "In contrast to Sartre, Borges really wanted the Nobel."
April 10, 2018
Here is a magician who sees through his blindness and makes immortality as reasonable as one is sure of living the very next moment after this one. Those who have spent hours and hours with Borges' fictional labyrinths would spend day after day with his non-fictional maps through these labyrinths. You read his fiction and you desperately want to know the man, the illusionist behind this illusory experience, the method behind this madness; you read his non-fiction and you still want to know him; or you ask, is there a method at all? After all, the question of method presumes an organisation, a concrete elaboration, a layout, innit? But what about this unique literary philosophy of taking innumerable metaphysical perplexities and just ordering them physically into tangible, readable, almost touchable words?
These short pieces, like everything else he has written, are glimpses of his inner dialogues. At times, the reader is forced to ask himself if these are monologues, mere soliloquies! But then one ultimately realizes that here is a definitive reader who is trying to speak during the gaps between his readings, a reader trying to write through his way into the wonderful universe of readings. In the process, Borges would teach you a lot, and guide you towards many unknown places; places where he is almost sure that you would get lost. But then you realize that his ultimate aim is to let yourself loose into the life of the mind and psyche, where the only guiding maps are the maps of myths.
His non-fiction has a short form just like his fiction but unlike his fiction, which has an essential dreamlike quality, these non-fictional pieces are very short energetic bursts. I especially liked his prologues and pieces from last twenty years when he is completely blind. His method is to make a subtle point by blending the world of reality and the world of myth to such an extent that the blend is just enough; enough in a sense that he must not let you agree or disagree with him. Though at times, you can do that but then when you are through with your own introspection, you are bound to come back to him and whisper very close to his ear that you have finally realized; you have realized that agreements and disagreements don't matter for wayfarers of the worlds of myths.
These short pieces, like everything else he has written, are glimpses of his inner dialogues. At times, the reader is forced to ask himself if these are monologues, mere soliloquies! But then one ultimately realizes that here is a definitive reader who is trying to speak during the gaps between his readings, a reader trying to write through his way into the wonderful universe of readings. In the process, Borges would teach you a lot, and guide you towards many unknown places; places where he is almost sure that you would get lost. But then you realize that his ultimate aim is to let yourself loose into the life of the mind and psyche, where the only guiding maps are the maps of myths.
His non-fiction has a short form just like his fiction but unlike his fiction, which has an essential dreamlike quality, these non-fictional pieces are very short energetic bursts. I especially liked his prologues and pieces from last twenty years when he is completely blind. His method is to make a subtle point by blending the world of reality and the world of myth to such an extent that the blend is just enough; enough in a sense that he must not let you agree or disagree with him. Though at times, you can do that but then when you are through with your own introspection, you are bound to come back to him and whisper very close to his ear that you have finally realized; you have realized that agreements and disagreements don't matter for wayfarers of the worlds of myths.
April 9, 2023
This collection of essays might be one of the most remarkable books ever written. It brings together some of Borges finest essays and ideas, exploring all of his favorite themes. From the concept of time, as illustrated in his works on Zeno and Dunne, to the unreality of the self, as examined in essays ranging from Hume to Buddha, this book delves into the mysteries of existence with all of Borges characteristic insight and nuance. Yet it is not only Borges ideas that make this book so captivating, but also his masterful prose style. His writing is clear and elegant, effortlessly conveying complex ideas and abstract concepts with ease. And his passion for mysticism shines through in his exploration of Kabbalah and Swedenborg, providing readers with a glimpse into the rich and varied landscape of mystical thought.While this collection may not encompass all of Borges ideas, the way in which they are combined and explored here is truly something to behold.
October 20, 2023
At the intersection of infinity and the finite there are paradoxes and it’s not the thing but the thing about the thing that we consider and Achilles does outrace the hare because our future becomes our past as we live through our infinite now and the eternal recurrence, that is, the whole history of the universe has happened before and will happen again and our being relies on its recurrence. Hume, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Russell, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer all are quoted by Borges and form how he resolves time with the material world.
Borges’ approach to grappling with the paradox are revealed within these essays. I almost always without exception hate books of essays, but these essays are the exception to my rule, because they cohere so well and besides who doesn’t love obscure references to movies from the 1930s and a detailed film reviews on some of my favorite long forgotten films?
Borges seamlessly entwines Dante, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (hence the use of ‘eternal recurrence’ in the first paragraph), pop-culture from the 30s and 40s, literary illusions and so on. ‘There are no candles in the Koran’ since they would have known candles as a given, according to Borges, but there were candles in the Koran and Borges was wrong.
Borges understands that when within a dream it tells you that dreams have no meaning the meaning becomes meta and it is only with irony that we understand the dream for as Kierkegaard says ‘irony is jealous of authenticity’, and that the sum of the parts is less than or equal to the whole is not necessarily true for the infinite and the paradox of existence is our antinomy to bear.
I was pointed to this book by the book Rigor of Angels by Egginton, he contextualizes Borges and these essays by relating him to Kant and Heisenberg. Kant never means just a ‘thing in itself’, he means ‘a thing about a thing in itself’, and Heisenberg gives us the ultimate paradox of knowing only one thing-at-a-time, the position or the momentum, never both. All of Borges’ essays wrestle with these paradoxes, even if he seems to be just talking about Buck from the Call of the Wild or Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I’m going to fault Borges on one thing for which intellectuals of the 30s and 40s often did not realize, Oswald Spengler’s world-view too easily succumbs to fascist paradigms and Borges never seemed to get that and would cite Spengler positively and glowingly support Spengler’s universal history, to read Spengler is to see a fascist and facile reasoning.
Borges’ approach to grappling with the paradox are revealed within these essays. I almost always without exception hate books of essays, but these essays are the exception to my rule, because they cohere so well and besides who doesn’t love obscure references to movies from the 1930s and a detailed film reviews on some of my favorite long forgotten films?
Borges seamlessly entwines Dante, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche (hence the use of ‘eternal recurrence’ in the first paragraph), pop-culture from the 30s and 40s, literary illusions and so on. ‘There are no candles in the Koran’ since they would have known candles as a given, according to Borges, but there were candles in the Koran and Borges was wrong.
Borges understands that when within a dream it tells you that dreams have no meaning the meaning becomes meta and it is only with irony that we understand the dream for as Kierkegaard says ‘irony is jealous of authenticity’, and that the sum of the parts is less than or equal to the whole is not necessarily true for the infinite and the paradox of existence is our antinomy to bear.
I was pointed to this book by the book Rigor of Angels by Egginton, he contextualizes Borges and these essays by relating him to Kant and Heisenberg. Kant never means just a ‘thing in itself’, he means ‘a thing about a thing in itself’, and Heisenberg gives us the ultimate paradox of knowing only one thing-at-a-time, the position or the momentum, never both. All of Borges’ essays wrestle with these paradoxes, even if he seems to be just talking about Buck from the Call of the Wild or Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I’m going to fault Borges on one thing for which intellectuals of the 30s and 40s often did not realize, Oswald Spengler’s world-view too easily succumbs to fascist paradigms and Borges never seemed to get that and would cite Spengler positively and glowingly support Spengler’s universal history, to read Spengler is to see a fascist and facile reasoning.
December 22, 2024
Not necessarily finished. Don't think u should consider 60 years of essays by Borges finishable...
September 11, 2021
Corto y brillante ⭐️
October 8, 2016
borges used to say that he pictures heaven as a library, for me, heaven is indeed a library, but a library in which i can read borges's books, or if i dare wish (in the end it's my heaven and my library), in which i can meet borges, elmaari, el khayam, calvino, sarter .... and all the loyal readers ^^
February 7, 2013
It doesn't get better than this. It's the only book I've read and reread many times and still feel that I haven't exhausted its possibilities. It's a cliche, but you really do find something new every time you read it.
April 16, 2023
Jorge Luis Borges' reputation is quite rightly forged on his unique, cultured and labyrinthine short stories, but any reader lucky enough to become aware of this writer's work knows that many of those same stories take the form of essays – laconic commentaries on imaginary books being one delightful staple. Consequently, opening The Total Library, a collection of Borges' actual non-fiction essays from across his whole career, is not just a task for the completist but a rewarding and harmonious counterpart to his fiction.
It is, sometimes, a heavy task. Because the book does cover Borges' whole career (from 1922 to 1986), there's a prodigious amount of material, and to be honest a fair bit of it (particularly the early stuff) is inessential, even though it's never unwelcome. And though Borges is often expanding on topics that are so intelligently exciting for the reader when adapted into his fiction, the lack here of that uniquely Borgesian fantastical twist on the topic can sometimes feel like you are missing out on a crucial x-factor.
However, if the reader is able to separate their love for Borges' fiction from Borges the essayist – even though that reputation for quality fiction may be what brought them here – they will find plenty to sate them. Borges' essays lack the moreish pugnacity of a polemicist or the entertainment of a journalistic wit – when he does express a contrary opinion, such as his analysis that Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' is not a good poem (pg. 493), it doesn't raise the reader's hackles but instead feels like when you disappoint your favourite teacher. His essay on the baseless myth that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays (pp463-73) – which in my personal view is a conspiracy theory that arose simply because some posh Brits from the 19th century onwards couldn't accept that a man of the lower classes could write so well – is simultaneously gracious and yet completely dismissive of such nonsense.
So Borges is too gentlemanly to be an attack-dog, but for those who appreciate a more cerebral approach, this is a fine book. You could hardly hope for anyone more learned, lucid and – crucially for an essayist – independent in their thought. Some of Borges' strongest essays here are those from 1937-1945 condemning support for Nazism in Argentina; criticism of Hitler might not seem particularly courageous or contrarian to us in the here and now, but there was much support for Germany in Borges' country at the time, and his eloquent essays in support of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon culture, calling out his countrymen's own fascism, are admirable. Elsewhere, there are the familiar erudite Borgesian topics, but also stray thoughts on pop culture (including brief pieces on King Kong and a sci-fi novel by Ray Bradbury) and a touchingly personal one on his experience of progressive blindness. It won't be a surprise for regular readers of this author to learn, but Borges is a charming and original companion on just about any topic.
It is, sometimes, a heavy task. Because the book does cover Borges' whole career (from 1922 to 1986), there's a prodigious amount of material, and to be honest a fair bit of it (particularly the early stuff) is inessential, even though it's never unwelcome. And though Borges is often expanding on topics that are so intelligently exciting for the reader when adapted into his fiction, the lack here of that uniquely Borgesian fantastical twist on the topic can sometimes feel like you are missing out on a crucial x-factor.
However, if the reader is able to separate their love for Borges' fiction from Borges the essayist – even though that reputation for quality fiction may be what brought them here – they will find plenty to sate them. Borges' essays lack the moreish pugnacity of a polemicist or the entertainment of a journalistic wit – when he does express a contrary opinion, such as his analysis that Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven' is not a good poem (pg. 493), it doesn't raise the reader's hackles but instead feels like when you disappoint your favourite teacher. His essay on the baseless myth that Shakespeare didn't write his own plays (pp463-73) – which in my personal view is a conspiracy theory that arose simply because some posh Brits from the 19th century onwards couldn't accept that a man of the lower classes could write so well – is simultaneously gracious and yet completely dismissive of such nonsense.
So Borges is too gentlemanly to be an attack-dog, but for those who appreciate a more cerebral approach, this is a fine book. You could hardly hope for anyone more learned, lucid and – crucially for an essayist – independent in their thought. Some of Borges' strongest essays here are those from 1937-1945 condemning support for Nazism in Argentina; criticism of Hitler might not seem particularly courageous or contrarian to us in the here and now, but there was much support for Germany in Borges' country at the time, and his eloquent essays in support of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon culture, calling out his countrymen's own fascism, are admirable. Elsewhere, there are the familiar erudite Borgesian topics, but also stray thoughts on pop culture (including brief pieces on King Kong and a sci-fi novel by Ray Bradbury) and a touchingly personal one on his experience of progressive blindness. It won't be a surprise for regular readers of this author to learn, but Borges is a charming and original companion on just about any topic.
April 10, 2022
This is my first Borges book – an extraordinary collection of essays, which cover the period from 1920s to early 80s. It’s astonishing that before search engines and Google, such in-depth information was available to Borges, who presented this knowledge with incredible wisdom and beauty to his readers.
Total Library includes references to books which cannot be found even in national libraries back then. Borges’ non-fictional prose is incredible, but it’s not only about his writing; the topics are also very interesting. I especially liked the chapters dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe, Dante’s universe, Kafka, Joyce, Omar Khayyam, angels, detective fiction, film reviews, dreams and visions, Kubla Khan, the “Scandinavian destiny”, and Chinese fairy tales (where you read about a painter who paints a moon that waxes and wanes just like the moon in the sky) – it's a magical universe.
As expressed by an obscure astrologer/poet in the first essay, Borges to me is like a “philosopher, god, hero, demon and the whole universe”. One small note: Reading an essay on William Beckford’s Vathek, I am pretty sure that this book is the inspiration for modern literature Piranesi.
The Total Library is an “eternal book”, and we are eternal readers. “I always imagine [angels] at nightfall, in the dusk of a slum or a vacant lot, in that long, quiet moment when things are gradually left alone, with their backs to the sunset, and when colors are like memories or premonitions of other colors. We must not be too prodigal with our angels; they are the last divinities we harbor, and they might fly away.”
Total Library includes references to books which cannot be found even in national libraries back then. Borges’ non-fictional prose is incredible, but it’s not only about his writing; the topics are also very interesting. I especially liked the chapters dedicated to Edgar Allen Poe, Dante’s universe, Kafka, Joyce, Omar Khayyam, angels, detective fiction, film reviews, dreams and visions, Kubla Khan, the “Scandinavian destiny”, and Chinese fairy tales (where you read about a painter who paints a moon that waxes and wanes just like the moon in the sky) – it's a magical universe.
As expressed by an obscure astrologer/poet in the first essay, Borges to me is like a “philosopher, god, hero, demon and the whole universe”. One small note: Reading an essay on William Beckford’s Vathek, I am pretty sure that this book is the inspiration for modern literature Piranesi.
The Total Library is an “eternal book”, and we are eternal readers. “I always imagine [angels] at nightfall, in the dusk of a slum or a vacant lot, in that long, quiet moment when things are gradually left alone, with their backs to the sunset, and when colors are like memories or premonitions of other colors. We must not be too prodigal with our angels; they are the last divinities we harbor, and they might fly away.”
February 13, 2020
Borges is always brilliant. This is a collection of book reviews, lectures, and the like. I always learn a ton when reading something by Borges. One of my favorite things about this collection in particular was his reviews of and prologues written for some of my favorite books.
March 20, 2021
Reading the essays of Jorge Luis Borges is like listening to the most erudite, intelligent and articulate person you have ever met, gently delivering a series of fascinating talks in a comfortable chair by a fireside with wit and humour - and who wouldn't enjoy that?
March 7, 2025
even though all of his writing was done in the 20th century, there’s something about borges that feels much older. because of that it feels weird to read his thoughts on movies or the science fiction of ray bradbury
June 30, 2025
Fascinating collection of essays over 500 or so pages showcasing the broad interests and intellect of Borges. I particularly liked learning about his favorite books, and he was an excellent reader. I read this in advance of reading his fiction collection, which I will do soon.
April 4, 2019
How can it be anything otherwise. Great words from a great man, putting his life and work in context.
February 2, 2025
hes awesome
Read
October 3, 2025llevo desde high school buscando un librero que sea lo suficientemente genial como pa que no se le acumule el polvo, y por ende, no active mi asma :(
November 28, 2017
In his introduction, the editor, Eliot Weinberger, gives us two warnings. We should not see these essays as ancillary to Borges’ stories: in the Spanish speaking world Borges is just as respected as an essayist and poet as a short story writer. Secondly, while Borges’ short stories often read as though they are essays, we should not read his essays as though they are stories. But, although I have read some of these essays before and some translations of his poems, for the English reader Borges is largely known as a short story writer and therefore it is difficult not to see these essays as either background or variations upon the stories. A few of the essays seem to be included to fill us in on Borges’ views: I don’t, for instance, find the writings in the ‘Notes on Germany and the War’ section that interesting in themselves, they seem to have been included to show that Borges the anti-Peronist, anti-Leftist, cultural elitist and social conservative, was not a friend of right wing authoritarianism. There are a number of lectures given through his last decades: they lack the literary incisiveness of the essays and often point to Borges’ weaknesses rather than is strengths: he will, for instance, talk about national types and characteristics, such as the soul of the Celts, in a way that is almost embarrassingly Victorian, presuming stereotypes are insights...they seem to negate his general insistence on the particular. And not all the writings are of equal interest: there are many short book and film reviews from the early years of his career, and many prologues to other authors’ writings from later in his career, that might raise an interesting thought or two, but are not that extraordinary. The heart and importance of the collection are the many essays on literary subjects and philosophical and theological ideas. Like his short stories they tend to be short, often no more than three pages. If he writes about an author he will not try to sum up a complete body of work, but just mull over a theme or image. Or he will follow a theme or image through a series of works by different writers, often ranging from China to Argentina, from ancient Greece to modern Europe. He will turn to a philosophical or theological idea and play with it: he has no interest in finding the ‘truth’, but is happy toying with ideas: this is philosophy as intellectual fun and games, a source of amusing and intriguing paradoxes. If he finds reasons to refute time this is not because he thinks time is a delusion, but because he finds it an amusing conceit. (And who cannot warm to an essay titled ‘A Defence of Basilides the False’?) This playfulness aligns the essays with the stories, they are based on the same sense of intellectual fun, raising an idea and then rolling it around. And sometimes an idea within an essay will recall a story: when Borges considers the different meanings the same image will have depending on whether it is found in a modern poem, an ancient Chinese poem, etc, it recalls the ending of ‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’, where the same passage in the work of Cervantes and the work of the fictional Menard is marvelled at not for being the same but for being completely different in style and meaning. The most extraordinary essays in the collection are the ‘Nine Dantesque Essays’ which bring together Borges’ interests in literature, philosophy and theology, all with the expected wit and intelligence. These forty pages must stand amongst his finest writings.
April 12, 2014
Just as awesome as his fiction, but nowhere near as pleasurable. Too much philosophy for my taste, but I certainly appreciate it more after having read this. Among my favourite essays are the very early “The Nothingness of Personality.” He returned to its absurd, titular theme again and again, and possibly even believed it. However, he certainly could not have believed everything he wrote. At first, I thought his literary arguments against quantum space-time (“A History of Eternity”) were just ridiculous. It wasn’t until I read the wholly masterful “A New Refutation of Time” that I finally understood that which was obvious in its title. Both essays were entirely sarcastic.
Toget a flavour of the best of Borges’s non-fiction, I’ve selected a footnote that he attributes to Néstor Ibarra. Note that if The Nothingness of Personality is correct, Ibarra is no more different from the Borges who read the quote than the latter is to the Borges who repeated it. Furthermore, no one is more similar to the Ibarra who supposedly formulated it than you who currently understand its meaning:
It also happens that some new perception strikes us as a memory, and we believe we recognize objects or accidents that we are nevertheless sure of meeting for the first time. I imagine that this must have to do with a curious operation of our memory. An initial perception, any perception, takes place, but *beneath the threshold of consciousness.* An instant later, the stimulus acts, but this time we receive it in *our conscious mind.* Our memory comes into play and offers us the feeling of *deja vu,* but situates the recollection wrongly. To justify its weakness and its disturbing quality, we imagine that a considerable amount of time has passed, or we may even send it further, into the repetition of some former life. In reality it is an immediate past, and the abyss that separates us from it is that of our own distraction.
The collection’s name takes its title from an essay on the inspiration for The Library of Babel, for which Borges curiously credits Gustav Fechner, the father of psychophysics. By Fechner’s own admission, he codified the psychophysical paradigms in an attempt to support his idealistic interpretation of life after death. It’s really only now, after reading Borges, that I think I can understand what Fechner meant. His idealism was one in which the only reality is our perceptions and the memories of our perceptions. Since we cannot peceive death, it isn’t a reality.
Of course this idealism is really hard to take seriously, and its link to empirical research remains pretty damn tenuous, but I have to acknowledge that it seems to have inspired some truly marevlous stuff (not least “The Library of Babel” and Elemente der Psychophysik)!
I found many of the prologues to books I haven’t read pretty wearisome, but one or two really piqued my interest. Watch for my next review to see whether I actually tackle any of them.
Toget a flavour of the best of Borges’s non-fiction, I’ve selected a footnote that he attributes to Néstor Ibarra. Note that if The Nothingness of Personality is correct, Ibarra is no more different from the Borges who read the quote than the latter is to the Borges who repeated it. Furthermore, no one is more similar to the Ibarra who supposedly formulated it than you who currently understand its meaning:
It also happens that some new perception strikes us as a memory, and we believe we recognize objects or accidents that we are nevertheless sure of meeting for the first time. I imagine that this must have to do with a curious operation of our memory. An initial perception, any perception, takes place, but *beneath the threshold of consciousness.* An instant later, the stimulus acts, but this time we receive it in *our conscious mind.* Our memory comes into play and offers us the feeling of *deja vu,* but situates the recollection wrongly. To justify its weakness and its disturbing quality, we imagine that a considerable amount of time has passed, or we may even send it further, into the repetition of some former life. In reality it is an immediate past, and the abyss that separates us from it is that of our own distraction.
The collection’s name takes its title from an essay on the inspiration for The Library of Babel, for which Borges curiously credits Gustav Fechner, the father of psychophysics. By Fechner’s own admission, he codified the psychophysical paradigms in an attempt to support his idealistic interpretation of life after death. It’s really only now, after reading Borges, that I think I can understand what Fechner meant. His idealism was one in which the only reality is our perceptions and the memories of our perceptions. Since we cannot peceive death, it isn’t a reality.
Of course this idealism is really hard to take seriously, and its link to empirical research remains pretty damn tenuous, but I have to acknowledge that it seems to have inspired some truly marevlous stuff (not least “The Library of Babel” and Elemente der Psychophysik)!
I found many of the prologues to books I haven’t read pretty wearisome, but one or two really piqued my interest. Watch for my next review to see whether I actually tackle any of them.
April 9, 2009
What a brilliant book. It's restored my faith that a sceptical and rigorous approach to language and philosophy can be combined with an utterly intuitive delight in the aesthetic - and that the aesthetic is a worthy end in itself. Not that I ever stopped believing this, but how wonderful it is to see it so beautifully demonstrated again and again in this remarkable collection of essays, lectures and occasional prose writings. I surprised myself by reading this book in a kind of fever. Usually, when I read like this, it's because the language has seduced me into a kind of addiction at the sentence level - Nabokov can do this to me, and certain books by Faulkner, sometimes, even (and this is unsexy, I know) the prose of Cardinal Newman. But it's rare for it to happen with prose so limpid, lucid, restrained.
The earlier pieces are more baroque though - and I loved them. 'On the Nothingness of Personality' - this, along with much of the writing on Shakespeare and the Buddha that recurs throughout the book resonates with Borges's fictions on the nothingness of the artist and also of God ('Everything and Nothing', for example, which has always fascinated me). It's been too long since I've read the stories - I want to return to them soon. But these essays enthralled me in a different way, perhaps because they're more gossipy, more passionate, more partial. Borges denounced anti-semitism and fascism, to his own detriment; he wrote wonderful, witty capsule biographies of major writers for a woman's magazine; his casual opinions on certain books are more illuminating than many critical works.
I would definitely recommend this book for the beauty of its ideas, and its revelation of a brilliant but gentle mind.
The earlier pieces are more baroque though - and I loved them. 'On the Nothingness of Personality' - this, along with much of the writing on Shakespeare and the Buddha that recurs throughout the book resonates with Borges's fictions on the nothingness of the artist and also of God ('Everything and Nothing', for example, which has always fascinated me). It's been too long since I've read the stories - I want to return to them soon. But these essays enthralled me in a different way, perhaps because they're more gossipy, more passionate, more partial. Borges denounced anti-semitism and fascism, to his own detriment; he wrote wonderful, witty capsule biographies of major writers for a woman's magazine; his casual opinions on certain books are more illuminating than many critical works.
I would definitely recommend this book for the beauty of its ideas, and its revelation of a brilliant but gentle mind.
November 23, 2013
The Total Library is one of those books that once picked up proves impossible to put down. Borges proves to be a man of omnivorous interests, his essays here considering Dante, Shakespeare, Jack London, Edgar Allan Poe amongst others in literary reviews, while covering an inconceivable range of topics throughout the course of his lengthy career from film to politics, philosophy, linguistics, nationalism and personal concerns. Like all such anthologies, some topics will prove of greater interest to each individual, but as a collection, re-reading will always yield new revelations not perceptible before, such is the depth and breadth of Borges's scope.
April 23, 2009
This sprawling mix of non-fiction works and essays is, predictably, uneven. Some items are superb, others are quite underwhelming. I personally liked the ones on fascism/nazism, but didn't particularly enjoy film and book reviews.
If you don't know Borges, you should probably read his short-story anthologies first, rather than this. If you already know Borges, you will read this sooner or later anyway, regardless of what I say :)
If you don't know Borges, you should probably read his short-story anthologies first, rather than this. If you already know Borges, you will read this sooner or later anyway, regardless of what I say :)
February 25, 2016
An eclectic collection of essays, articles book and film reviews and sundry by the great Argentinian author - who together with Nabokov is the most influential author from the second half of the 20th c. (From the first half, that are James, Kafka and Proust). I best enjoyed the many book and film reviews, or the articles about literature that Borges liked himself. Although a book of more than 500 pages, this is only a small collection from Borges' total essayistic work.
December 17, 2010
This is a collection of non-fiction works by Borges. It includes an eclectic collection of book reviews, biographical notes about other writers, essays about strange things -- essays about Argentina. My favourite essay in this collection was the 'short history of tango' and the film reviews (including citizen kane among others).
November 17, 2015
A somewhat interesting collection.
October 25, 2015
Quite an impressive selection of essays, with an unbelievably wide range of topics. A real treat!
January 25, 2016
A total library-collection of Borges' nonfictional work through 1922-1986. Essays, reviews, prologues, lectures, dictates. His treatises on time, space and language are downright brilliant.
September 4, 2013
A cornucopia of uniquely borgesian points of view on a plethora of subjects.
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