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Critical guides to Spanish texts #14
Borges: Ficciones
83 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 1, 2022
Note: This review is of the translation by Andrew Hurley, included in the large volume, "Collected Fictions".
Borges's second (really his second-and-a-half) collection of short stories is a huge step beyond his _Universal History of Iniquity_. For one thing, the territory the stories cover is larger -- some of them are nigh-infinite, like the famous "Library of Babel", whose hexagonal cells contain every possible book.
I say "second-and-a-half", because the first of its two parts, _The Garden of Forked Paths_ (1941), containing several of Borges's most celebrated stories: the title story, the aforementioned "Library of Babel," "Pierre Menard, Author of the _Quixote_", "The Circular Ruins", and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". By contrast, the only story in the second part (_Artifices_, 1944)I have ever heard of before is "Funes, His Memory"(more usually translated as "Funes the Memorious", but translator Andrew Hurley is reluctant to use invented English words just to more-literally translate a perfectly good Spanish word, _memorioso_.
And, yes, the famous stories _are_ the best; the only ones of the others that come up to the others are "The Lottery in Babylon", which weirdly prefigures Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" while remaining utterly different from it; and the extremely short "The End".
Borges themes, in these stories, include labyrinths, death, dreams, myths, imaginary writers, false realities (here he somewhat prefigures Dick), and perverse or bizarre variants on Jewish and Christian theologies. "Three Versions of Judas" tells of a Swedish writer who seeks to prove that Judas was actually the most faithful of the Apostles, knowingly choosing his own damnation so that the glory of Christ might be made fully manifest in His death and resurrection. In "Death and the Compass", a series of murders is carried out in a way that suggests a perverse form of Jewish mysticism, with human sacrifice to the haShem, the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable Name of God.
One thing about the stories, is many of them exist on the very borders of what constitutes a story: several, most notably "The Library of Babel", have no noticeable "plot", and only exposition. The wonder of Borges is that he makes a solid expository lump not only edible, but tasty. On the other hand, stories like "The Circular Ruins" and "The End" are unquestionably stories, with definite beginnings, middles, and ends.
I like to describe writers as "warm" or "cold". Good work is done at any temperature, from Harlan Ellison's lead-melting effusions, to the frigid analysis of Henry James (both fine writers). Borges (another wonder) does good work at the temperature a given story demands, from the very cool "Library" to the warm and disturbing "Death and the Compass". He is not afraid to end a story with an analytical conclusion but no resolution of the fictional situation, or to end with a sharp shock, or even to end slightly before the nonetheless predictable outcome.
I like it a great deal. I can understand why some people would be puzzled by _Fictions_ -- rather, since puzzling us is the nature of Borges's game, they would be puzzled why anyone would bother to read them, let alone consider them high literary art.
I am not one of those people.
Borges's second (really his second-and-a-half) collection of short stories is a huge step beyond his _Universal History of Iniquity_. For one thing, the territory the stories cover is larger -- some of them are nigh-infinite, like the famous "Library of Babel", whose hexagonal cells contain every possible book.
I say "second-and-a-half", because the first of its two parts, _The Garden of Forked Paths_ (1941), containing several of Borges's most celebrated stories: the title story, the aforementioned "Library of Babel," "Pierre Menard, Author of the _Quixote_", "The Circular Ruins", and "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius". By contrast, the only story in the second part (_Artifices_, 1944)I have ever heard of before is "Funes, His Memory"(more usually translated as "Funes the Memorious", but translator Andrew Hurley is reluctant to use invented English words just to more-literally translate a perfectly good Spanish word, _memorioso_.
And, yes, the famous stories _are_ the best; the only ones of the others that come up to the others are "The Lottery in Babylon", which weirdly prefigures Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" while remaining utterly different from it; and the extremely short "The End".
Borges themes, in these stories, include labyrinths, death, dreams, myths, imaginary writers, false realities (here he somewhat prefigures Dick), and perverse or bizarre variants on Jewish and Christian theologies. "Three Versions of Judas" tells of a Swedish writer who seeks to prove that Judas was actually the most faithful of the Apostles, knowingly choosing his own damnation so that the glory of Christ might be made fully manifest in His death and resurrection. In "Death and the Compass", a series of murders is carried out in a way that suggests a perverse form of Jewish mysticism, with human sacrifice to the haShem, the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable Name of God.
One thing about the stories, is many of them exist on the very borders of what constitutes a story: several, most notably "The Library of Babel", have no noticeable "plot", and only exposition. The wonder of Borges is that he makes a solid expository lump not only edible, but tasty. On the other hand, stories like "The Circular Ruins" and "The End" are unquestionably stories, with definite beginnings, middles, and ends.
I like to describe writers as "warm" or "cold". Good work is done at any temperature, from Harlan Ellison's lead-melting effusions, to the frigid analysis of Henry James (both fine writers). Borges (another wonder) does good work at the temperature a given story demands, from the very cool "Library" to the warm and disturbing "Death and the Compass". He is not afraid to end a story with an analytical conclusion but no resolution of the fictional situation, or to end with a sharp shock, or even to end slightly before the nonetheless predictable outcome.
I like it a great deal. I can understand why some people would be puzzled by _Fictions_ -- rather, since puzzling us is the nature of Borges's game, they would be puzzled why anyone would bother to read them, let alone consider them high literary art.
I am not one of those people.
March 31, 2024
La edición de LUMEN, esperando que solo sea edición, es muy simplista, no entendí muchas referencias y el prólogo del mismo autor no basta, debió haber mayor explicación a lo que era apócrifo y ficción pura, ese juego no hace más que dar tedio y acabar rápido el cuento.no me gustó en líneas generales. Rescataría 2 cuentos.
June 10, 2024
PÁG 99 - LA BIBLIOTECA DE LABEL. A la desaforada esperanza, sucedió, como es natural, una depresión excesiva
FUNES EL MEMORIOSO. El infinito está en la palma de la mano
FUNES EL MEMORIOSO. El infinito está en la palma de la mano
August 20, 2016
Colera, canta ; diosa del Pelida Aquileo
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews