Selected Stories

by Adolfo Bioy Casares, Suzanne Jill Levine (Translator)

Selected Stories, chosen from various collections published from the mid-'50s to the late '80s, is aptly divided into two parts, "The Labyrinth of Love" and "Adverse Miracles," ample frames for the author's amatory tales and wry magical realism. It is a fine introduction to one of Latin America's leading modern writers - and a choice retrospective of the master storyteller who won the 1990 Cervantes Prize, Spain's most prestigious literary award, for his lifetime work.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Spanish Literature, Latin American

176 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1994

About the author

Adolfo Vicente Perfecto Bioy Casares (1914-1999) was born in Buenos Aires, the child of wealthy parents. He began to write in the early Thirties, and his stories appeared in the influential magazine Sur, through which he met his wife, the painter and writer Silvina Ocampo, as well Jorge Luis Borges, who was to become his mentor, friend, and collaborator. In 1940, after writing several novice works, Bioy published the novella The Invention of Morel, the first of his books to satisfy him, and the first in which he hit his characteristic note of uncanny and unexpectedly harrowing humor. Later publications include stories and novels, among them A Plan for Escape, A Dream of Heroes, and Asleep in the Sun. Bioy also collaborated with Borges on an Anthology of Fantastic Literature and a series of satirical sketches written under the pseudonym of H. Bustos Domecq.

Reviews

[Harold · Rating 5 out of 5]

Casares reveals a very subtle sense of humor in his stories that at times has me laughing and smiling. I can see why he was able to co-write with Borges but I can't see why his work isn't better known among English speaking people. I'm hoping his book on Borges will be translated into English - if not I'm enlisting help and buying it in Spanish. I intend to read everything I can find by Casares.

[Sheree · Rating 5 out of 5]

This author is genius.

[El-Jahiz · Rating 5 out of 5]

No wonder Borges loved his writings so much!

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interestingly crafted short stories that left me wondering why they were written. This is most likely due to my ignorance, but I didn't feel any connection with the stories or characters.

I don't want to think of these stories in any relation to Borges, but it's nearly impossible to not compare them, given that the author is rarely ever mentioned except in relation to Borges.

I think that I would only ever re-read or recommend one story from this collection: The Hero Of Women.

[Zach · Rating 4 out of 5]

The stories in this volume often seem pointless, but are seductive. The first half of the collection are short stories on love, and they don't make a lot of sense; not that they're confusing, but more that they just happen like a blip. Bioy Casares is most famous for his magic realist fiction, but that doesn't come to the second half, and when it does it's like a revelation. If I could compare Bioy Casares to any filmmaker it wouldn't be Woody Allen like the dust jacket says, but Jacques Rivette. These stories may not have the impact of The Invention of Morel, or Where There's Love, There's Hate (co-written with Silvina Ocampo, another titan of Argentine literature, and Bioy's wife), but they're still quite interesting and enigmatic.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably best known as a collaborator with Jorge Luis Borges on several works (such as Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi and The Chronicles of H. Bustos Domecq), Adolfo Bioy Casares deserves to be read on his own. This collection of Selected Stories translated by Suzanne Jill Levine, whose recent Borges editions for Penguin I have been reading over the last three months, is an intriguing blend of sprightly light romance and equally sprightly magical realism. To quote the epigram introducing the second part of this collection, "Life consists in adapting to incoherence."

In his story "Pearls Before Swine," Bioy Casares writes:

Please don't think of me as a misogynist if I sometimes make my little speeches against women. If once in a while I need to get things out into the open and off my chest, it won't hurt a soul. I adore women, but I can't see through them: they are anarchists who disrupt our civilization. Believe you me, if all of us did our share in taking care of the little things, this chaotic world would at least appear to have some order. Women are the great hindrance, they're the gypsies who don't respect man's three square meals a day. To whet my anger I tell myself it's not for spiritual reasons they fast but for fear of gaining weight. I only need to remember another of these devotees to frugality, a genuine priestess of light eating who for several nights kept me from anything more substantial than tea with lemon: I caught her one morning beside the refrigerator devouring a caramel custard pastry like a tigress.

In fact, I would have a hard time isolating which stories I liked the most, because I thought they were all well selected to balance out the collection.

I can see why Borges and Bioy were a good writing team: Some of the stories could have been written by the two in collaboration if it weren't for the fact that none of the tales reflect the mandarin phraseology of the elder Argentinian's prose. On his own, Bioy Casares inhabits a world just as mysterious, but with perhaps a better sense of humor. I have read The Dream of Heroes (1954) and am eager to try The Invention of Morel (1940), perhaps his best known work.

[cypher · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favourite authors.
i fear i was seduced by the praise that other authors had for Cortazar, Borges and Casares and got myself into a bit of a frenzy to read their short stories. they were all friends (or writer frenemies), competing with each other over who can write the better metaphors. i liked this about them a lot, the desire to surpass one's creative abilities, for the sake of art (for them, the format which meaning would take), and show excellence, as "the right cause", and not ego-driven.
like this, i had to read more of them.
from the 3, i think Borges was the winner, but i liked Casares the most.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story in this collection, "The Hero of Women", is the best short story I have read. Ever.