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Artificios
Madrid. 1993. Alianza. 15x10. 89p.
89 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1944
44 people are currently reading
630 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,609 books14.6k 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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July 26, 2015
“He admired verse in drama because it does not allow the spectator to forget unreality, which is a condition of art.”
I have the Collected Fictions (with copious translator's notes), but am splitting my review of that into its components, listed in publication order: Collected Fictions - all reviews. This is the third, published in 1944.
I’m really getting a feel for Borges now. He doesn’t get easier - he retains his compelling elusiveness – but there’s comfort in familiar themes and a pleasing feeling of glimpses of enlightenment. This is entirely appropriate, given Borges’ recurring themes of… recursion, and struggling through confusing labyrinths of identical rooms, compounded by mirrors and shifting perceptions of reality.
The descriptions of individual stories below include minor spoilers; major ones are hidden with spoiler tags. If in doubt, scroll down to the Quotes section at the end.
Funes, His Memory 6*
If you could recall each day in perfect detail, and you spend a day recalling a previous day, what would your memory of the more recent day be? Nested layers of reality.
Funes is a teenager with the strange ability to know the exact time – until he has a fall that leaves him paralysed, but with a new talent. Paralysis is “a small price to pay now his perception and memory were perfect”. Really, truly and utterly perfect. Which is, of course, far from perfect.
He learned Latin in a few days from a book, but his powers go far beyond mere remembering. Where you or I would see a glass of wine, Funes “perceived every grape that had been pressed into the wine and all the stalks and tendrils of its vineyard… Every visual image is linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, and so on”. He even remembers his remembering.
Bedbound, his mind works furiously. He can’t generalise and has a visceral hatred of ambiguity and polysemy: he wants a unique word for everything – and every part of every number (is there a synaesthetic aspect?). He even wants a different word for the same dog at different times of the same day.
“ut nihil non iisdem verbis redderetur auditum”, which apparently translates as “so that nothing that has been heard can be retold in the same words”.
In a tragic way, this new brilliance is really just another disability. “To think is to ignore (or forget) differences, to generalise, to abstract”, which he cannot do. Nor will he ever be able to reduce, categorise and number every one of his infinite memories. To sort through the memories of a whole day thoroughly takes… a whole day.
In Cloud Atlas, Somni has read a book of Funes’ Remembrances.
The Shape of the Sword
“Whatsoever one man does, it is as though all men did it” - justification of the Fall and the Crucifixion.
A man with a mysterious scar tells Borges how he acquired it, by way of “perplexing corridors and pointless antechambers”, ending with a paradoxical twist ( ).
The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero 6*
“The idea that history might have copied history is mind-boggling enough; that history should copy literature is inconceivable.”
This is a brilliant story in which the narrator imagines a scenario where life is designed to imitate art (specifically Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Macbeth), using a huge cast, mostly unaware of their roles, for political ends. I was reminded of Charlie Kaufman’s remarkable film Synecdoche, New York.
Plot:
Death and the Compass 6*
A quadrilateral, circular story. A multiple-murder mystery, with a gloriously OTT opening sentence:
“Of the many problems on which Lonnrot’s reckless perspicacity was exercised, none was so strange – so rigorously strange, one might say – as the periodic series of bloody deeds that culminated at the Villa Triste-le-Roy amid the perpetual fragrance of the eucalyptus.”
First, a rabbi is found stabbed in a hotel room, with a sheet of paper in a typewriter saying “The first letter of the Name has been written”. This sets the detective investigating Jewish mystical lore about the many (and secret) names of God, and especially the one that is four letters long.
There are more murders, more messages, an anonymous phone call, some harlequins, and a neat (though not entirely surprising) denouement: .
The Secret Miracle
We all know the conundrum "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?". Does something similar apply to art or other work that is unseen, unknown, by anyone other than its creator? (There’s a similar idea in Borges’ “Emma Zunz”, which is in The Aleph.)
A Jewish writer is arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad in a few days’ time. He torments himself by imagining hundreds of variants of his death, exacerbated by his despair at his unfinished work. But is it?
Three Versions of Judas
This is a fairly straightforward, some would say blasphemous, Bible study (verses and all) about the role of Judas in enabling Jesus to accomplish God’s mission to redeem mankind. Authors more recent than Borges have courted controversy with such sentiments, though they’ve taken far more words to do so.
The writer that Borges describes is in some ways a mirror of Judas, in that his investigations simultaneously “justified and destroyed his life”. And Judas is described as a reflection of Jesus, because he made a sacrifice of equal worth to that of Jesus, having “renounced honor, goodness, peace, the kingdom of heaven” and “chosen sins unvisited by any virtue”.
I’m detached from religious belief, but the idea of the damnable Judas being altruistic is intriguing, and the reflections of him in Jesus and the author, add complexity.
(If you’re wondering about “sins unvisited by any virtue”, they’re “abuse of confidence… and betrayal”. In contrast, “In adultery, tenderness and abnegation often play a role; in homicide, courage; in blasphemy and profanation, a certain satanic zeal”. Worth bearing in mind if you want to pick and choose your sins!)
The End
A story of knife-fighters, derived from the ending of a well-known Argentinian story, according to the translator’s notes. Maybe you have to be Argentinian to appreciate it, because apart from a couple of beautiful sentences (in the Quotes section), it didn’t speak to me.
The Cult of the Phoenix
United by difference and secrets, all are victims and aggressors, so we’re all the same?
The Secret ritual involves cork, wax, or gum arabic, but is widely interpreted as a metaphor for
The South
If you could choose your death, what would you choose? The passive victim of a surgeon’s knife of the active victim of a knife fight?
This is about the magical power of stories, specifically, The Arabian Knights (not for the first time in Borges), and the mysterious power of knowing someone’s name.
Quotes
• Chased “through black corridors of nightmare and steep stairwells of vertigo”.
• “Some secret shape of time, a pattern of repeating lines.”
• A hotel tower “notorious for uniting in itself the abhorrent whiteness of a sanatorium, the numbered divisibility of a prison, and the general appearance of a house of ill repute”.
• A suburb where “the city crumbled away; the sky expanded, and now houses held less and less import”.
• “He measured other men’s virtues by what they had accomplished, yet asked that other men measured him by what he planned someday to do.”
• “From learning to pity the misfortunes of the heroes of our novels, we wind up feeling too much pity for our own.” The opposite of perceived wisdom?
• “The plains, in the last rays of the sun, were almost abstract, as though seen in a dream.”
• “Though blind to guilt, fate can be merciless with the slightest distractions.”
• “Reality is partial to symmetries and slight anachronisms.”
• “He and the cat were separated as by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.”
I have the Collected Fictions (with copious translator's notes), but am splitting my review of that into its components, listed in publication order: Collected Fictions - all reviews. This is the third, published in 1944.
I’m really getting a feel for Borges now. He doesn’t get easier - he retains his compelling elusiveness – but there’s comfort in familiar themes and a pleasing feeling of glimpses of enlightenment. This is entirely appropriate, given Borges’ recurring themes of… recursion, and struggling through confusing labyrinths of identical rooms, compounded by mirrors and shifting perceptions of reality.
The descriptions of individual stories below include minor spoilers; major ones are hidden with spoiler tags. If in doubt, scroll down to the Quotes section at the end.
Funes, His Memory 6*
If you could recall each day in perfect detail, and you spend a day recalling a previous day, what would your memory of the more recent day be? Nested layers of reality.
Funes is a teenager with the strange ability to know the exact time – until he has a fall that leaves him paralysed, but with a new talent. Paralysis is “a small price to pay now his perception and memory were perfect”. Really, truly and utterly perfect. Which is, of course, far from perfect.
He learned Latin in a few days from a book, but his powers go far beyond mere remembering. Where you or I would see a glass of wine, Funes “perceived every grape that had been pressed into the wine and all the stalks and tendrils of its vineyard… Every visual image is linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, and so on”. He even remembers his remembering.
Bedbound, his mind works furiously. He can’t generalise and has a visceral hatred of ambiguity and polysemy: he wants a unique word for everything – and every part of every number (is there a synaesthetic aspect?). He even wants a different word for the same dog at different times of the same day.
“ut nihil non iisdem verbis redderetur auditum”, which apparently translates as “so that nothing that has been heard can be retold in the same words”.
In a tragic way, this new brilliance is really just another disability. “To think is to ignore (or forget) differences, to generalise, to abstract”, which he cannot do. Nor will he ever be able to reduce, categorise and number every one of his infinite memories. To sort through the memories of a whole day thoroughly takes… a whole day.
In Cloud Atlas, Somni has read a book of Funes’ Remembrances.
The Shape of the Sword
“Whatsoever one man does, it is as though all men did it” - justification of the Fall and the Crucifixion.
A man with a mysterious scar tells Borges how he acquired it, by way of “perplexing corridors and pointless antechambers”, ending with a paradoxical twist ( ).
The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero 6*
“The idea that history might have copied history is mind-boggling enough; that history should copy literature is inconceivable.”
This is a brilliant story in which the narrator imagines a scenario where life is designed to imitate art (specifically Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Macbeth), using a huge cast, mostly unaware of their roles, for political ends. I was reminded of Charlie Kaufman’s remarkable film Synecdoche, New York.
Plot:
Death and the Compass 6*
A quadrilateral, circular story. A multiple-murder mystery, with a gloriously OTT opening sentence:
“Of the many problems on which Lonnrot’s reckless perspicacity was exercised, none was so strange – so rigorously strange, one might say – as the periodic series of bloody deeds that culminated at the Villa Triste-le-Roy amid the perpetual fragrance of the eucalyptus.”
First, a rabbi is found stabbed in a hotel room, with a sheet of paper in a typewriter saying “The first letter of the Name has been written”. This sets the detective investigating Jewish mystical lore about the many (and secret) names of God, and especially the one that is four letters long.
There are more murders, more messages, an anonymous phone call, some harlequins, and a neat (though not entirely surprising) denouement: .
The Secret Miracle
We all know the conundrum "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?". Does something similar apply to art or other work that is unseen, unknown, by anyone other than its creator? (There’s a similar idea in Borges’ “Emma Zunz”, which is in The Aleph.)
A Jewish writer is arrested and sentenced to death by firing squad in a few days’ time. He torments himself by imagining hundreds of variants of his death, exacerbated by his despair at his unfinished work. But is it?
Three Versions of Judas
This is a fairly straightforward, some would say blasphemous, Bible study (verses and all) about the role of Judas in enabling Jesus to accomplish God’s mission to redeem mankind. Authors more recent than Borges have courted controversy with such sentiments, though they’ve taken far more words to do so.
The writer that Borges describes is in some ways a mirror of Judas, in that his investigations simultaneously “justified and destroyed his life”. And Judas is described as a reflection of Jesus, because he made a sacrifice of equal worth to that of Jesus, having “renounced honor, goodness, peace, the kingdom of heaven” and “chosen sins unvisited by any virtue”.
I’m detached from religious belief, but the idea of the damnable Judas being altruistic is intriguing, and the reflections of him in Jesus and the author, add complexity.
(If you’re wondering about “sins unvisited by any virtue”, they’re “abuse of confidence… and betrayal”. In contrast, “In adultery, tenderness and abnegation often play a role; in homicide, courage; in blasphemy and profanation, a certain satanic zeal”. Worth bearing in mind if you want to pick and choose your sins!)
The End
A story of knife-fighters, derived from the ending of a well-known Argentinian story, according to the translator’s notes. Maybe you have to be Argentinian to appreciate it, because apart from a couple of beautiful sentences (in the Quotes section), it didn’t speak to me.
The Cult of the Phoenix
United by difference and secrets, all are victims and aggressors, so we’re all the same?
The Secret ritual involves cork, wax, or gum arabic, but is widely interpreted as a metaphor for
The South
If you could choose your death, what would you choose? The passive victim of a surgeon’s knife of the active victim of a knife fight?
This is about the magical power of stories, specifically, The Arabian Knights (not for the first time in Borges), and the mysterious power of knowing someone’s name.
Quotes
• Chased “through black corridors of nightmare and steep stairwells of vertigo”.
• “Some secret shape of time, a pattern of repeating lines.”
• A hotel tower “notorious for uniting in itself the abhorrent whiteness of a sanatorium, the numbered divisibility of a prison, and the general appearance of a house of ill repute”.
• A suburb where “the city crumbled away; the sky expanded, and now houses held less and less import”.
• “He measured other men’s virtues by what they had accomplished, yet asked that other men measured him by what he planned someday to do.”
• “From learning to pity the misfortunes of the heroes of our novels, we wind up feeling too much pity for our own.” The opposite of perceived wisdom?
• “The plains, in the last rays of the sun, were almost abstract, as though seen in a dream.”
• “Though blind to guilt, fate can be merciless with the slightest distractions.”
• “Reality is partial to symmetries and slight anachronisms.”
• “He and the cat were separated as by a pane of glass, because man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant.”
January 27, 2021
Lo cierto es que vivimos postergando todo lo postergable; tal vez todos sabemos profundamente que somos inmortales y que tarde o temprano, todo hombre hará todas las cosas y sabrá todo.
July 3, 2021
Mystery and the Reader's Compass
There are just nine short stories in this collection, some of them only four, five or seven pages long. Yet, each of them explores the limits of vastness and infinity (in knowledge, time and space) in its own modest and subtle way.
In the Foreword, Borges lists Schopenhauer, de Quincey, Stevenson, Mauthner, Shaw, Chesterton, and Leon Bloy as writers he is continually rereading. However, as I read the stories, I detected the influence of Edgar Allan Poe, both in the subject matter of the tale and Borges’ self-consciousness about the structure into which he had placed the tale.
"Death and the Compass", in particular, is classic Poe, in the way a mystery is constructed and deconstructed. The clues are created and left behind in the knowledge that they will be read by a reader with a particular knowledge and modus operandi. The mystery is moulded precisely around the profile of the reader.
The Invention of Elegant Mysteries
At the beginning of "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero", the narrator refers to Chesterton as an "inventor and embellisher of elegant mysteries", and this term can be equally applied to Borges. Here, he both fabricates new tales and improves on pre-existing ones. Yet they all bear the distinctive mark of Borges. They have enough detail to be credible (no matter how fantastic they might seem), while they vacillate within a labyrinth running along the boundary between real life and literature, between logic and the imagination. To the extent that the stories (like Poe’s) are strange, they’re "rigorously strange, one might say".
No matter how much verisimilitude a story might possess, you’re still tempted to enquire -
Borges opens up the possibility that "a labyrinth might consist of a single straight line" and that the line might be both "invisible and endless".
Believing the Proofs
Line after line, his stories envelop us in a labyrinth. The labyrinth is infinitely puzzling and mysterious. He, like us, quests after the secret, the answer or the solution to the enigma. From within this labyrinth, "he seeks out proofs for a thing that not even he himself believes in." But his aim is nevertheless to convince us of the veracity of his proofs. A reader’s role, like that of a religious disciple, is to believe (even though Borges' reality constantly approaches unreality, and vice versa).
The Eternity of the Instant
Borges contrasts a man with a cat:
Borges’ tales are successive in time, as are any stories that are constructed as narratives, but they somehow simultaneously approach "the eternity of the instant". Time stops, "the physical universe stopped" (as it does in "The Secret Miracle"), and "he completed his play" (as does the character Jaromir Hladik in this story). Borges’ play is only complete as it approaches the infinite time and distance of eternity, or as it makes us believe it has done so.
Perfect Perception and Memory
The story which had the greatest impact on me was "Funes, His Memory".
It reminded me of a criminal law lecturer who taught my law student friends, when I was at university. He claimed to have a photographic memory, but was uncertain whether it was a blessing or a curse.
He had been in the army in World War II and obtained his own law degree in 1948. He had studied criminal law in 1947. If you asked him what the law was on a particular issue, it took him a while to process what his mind had photographed. His memory was successive, but wasn’t cumulative. As a result, he had to go back to the law as at 1947 and then process annual updates for each year up until the present. He couldn’t leap into the present in one move.
Likewise, Funes’ "perception and his memory were perfect":
The Garbage Heap of Indiscrimination
His problem, his curse was that his memory was indiscriminate:
Borges understood that Ireneo Funes -
Pointless Gestures
Borges and Nunes conversed all night in the dark until dawn, when -
It’s fascinating that, without the ability to generalise, to order, to prioritise, to discriminate, perception and memory might be indiscriminate and, ultimately, pointless.
Nothing But Particulars
This is one of the objections I have to maximalist, encyclopaedic literature. If the author is unable to discriminate, if volume or excess is the goal, if vividness no longer matters, if writing becomes mere typing towards a page count, either the reader must consume it mindlessly or the reader's own compass must be the source of discrimination. I would prefer the latter course as a strategy for reading and responding to this type of helmet cam excessivist literature. However, it’s reassuring to learn that Borges was able to diagnose this affliction in just seven pages as long ago as 1942.
More importantly, Borges was able to contemplate and explore the vastness of the universe and humankind's place in it, in stories that were usually of less than 10 pages, but no less vivid, thought-provoking and stimulating for it.
SOUNDTRACK:
There are just nine short stories in this collection, some of them only four, five or seven pages long. Yet, each of them explores the limits of vastness and infinity (in knowledge, time and space) in its own modest and subtle way.
In the Foreword, Borges lists Schopenhauer, de Quincey, Stevenson, Mauthner, Shaw, Chesterton, and Leon Bloy as writers he is continually rereading. However, as I read the stories, I detected the influence of Edgar Allan Poe, both in the subject matter of the tale and Borges’ self-consciousness about the structure into which he had placed the tale.
"Death and the Compass", in particular, is classic Poe, in the way a mystery is constructed and deconstructed. The clues are created and left behind in the knowledge that they will be read by a reader with a particular knowledge and modus operandi. The mystery is moulded precisely around the profile of the reader.
The Invention of Elegant Mysteries
At the beginning of "The Theme of the Traitor and the Hero", the narrator refers to Chesterton as an "inventor and embellisher of elegant mysteries", and this term can be equally applied to Borges. Here, he both fabricates new tales and improves on pre-existing ones. Yet they all bear the distinctive mark of Borges. They have enough detail to be credible (no matter how fantastic they might seem), while they vacillate within a labyrinth running along the boundary between real life and literature, between logic and the imagination. To the extent that the stories (like Poe’s) are strange, they’re "rigorously strange, one might say".
No matter how much verisimilitude a story might possess, you’re still tempted to enquire -
"What if tonight’s story were a sham, a simulacrum?"
Borges opens up the possibility that "a labyrinth might consist of a single straight line" and that the line might be both "invisible and endless".
Believing the Proofs
Line after line, his stories envelop us in a labyrinth. The labyrinth is infinitely puzzling and mysterious. He, like us, quests after the secret, the answer or the solution to the enigma. From within this labyrinth, "he seeks out proofs for a thing that not even he himself believes in." But his aim is nevertheless to convince us of the veracity of his proofs. A reader’s role, like that of a religious disciple, is to believe (even though Borges' reality constantly approaches unreality, and vice versa).
The Eternity of the Instant
Borges contrasts a man with a cat:
"man lives in time, in successiveness, while the magical animal lives in the present, in the eternity of the instant."
Borges’ tales are successive in time, as are any stories that are constructed as narratives, but they somehow simultaneously approach "the eternity of the instant". Time stops, "the physical universe stopped" (as it does in "The Secret Miracle"), and "he completed his play" (as does the character Jaromir Hladik in this story). Borges’ play is only complete as it approaches the infinite time and distance of eternity, or as it makes us believe it has done so.
Perfect Perception and Memory
The story which had the greatest impact on me was "Funes, His Memory".
It reminded me of a criminal law lecturer who taught my law student friends, when I was at university. He claimed to have a photographic memory, but was uncertain whether it was a blessing or a curse.
He had been in the army in World War II and obtained his own law degree in 1948. He had studied criminal law in 1947. If you asked him what the law was on a particular issue, it took him a while to process what his mind had photographed. His memory was successive, but wasn’t cumulative. As a result, he had to go back to the law as at 1947 and then process annual updates for each year up until the present. He couldn’t leap into the present in one move.
Likewise, Funes’ "perception and his memory were perfect":
"I, myself, alone, have more memories than all mankind since the world began...My dreams are like other people’s waking hours."
The Garbage Heap of Indiscrimination
His problem, his curse was that his memory was indiscriminate:
"My memory, sir, is like a garbage heap."
Borges understood that Ireneo Funes -
"was the solitary, lucid spectator of a multiform, momentaneous, and almost unbearably precise world...the most trivial of his memories was more detailed, more vivid than our own perception of a physical pleasure or a physical torment...I suspect, nevertheless, that he was not very good at thinking. To think is to ignore (or forget) differences, to generalise, to abstract. In the teeming world of [Funes] there was nothing but particulars - and they were virtually immediate particulars...Funes, we must not forget, was virtually incapable of general, platonic ideas."
Pointless Gestures
Borges and Nunes conversed all night in the dark until dawn, when -
"I was struck by the thought that every word I spoke, every expression of my face or motion of my hand would endure in his implacable memory; I was rendered clumsy by the fear of making pointless gestures."
It’s fascinating that, without the ability to generalise, to order, to prioritise, to discriminate, perception and memory might be indiscriminate and, ultimately, pointless.
Nothing But Particulars
This is one of the objections I have to maximalist, encyclopaedic literature. If the author is unable to discriminate, if volume or excess is the goal, if vividness no longer matters, if writing becomes mere typing towards a page count, either the reader must consume it mindlessly or the reader's own compass must be the source of discrimination. I would prefer the latter course as a strategy for reading and responding to this type of helmet cam excessivist literature. However, it’s reassuring to learn that Borges was able to diagnose this affliction in just seven pages as long ago as 1942.
More importantly, Borges was able to contemplate and explore the vastness of the universe and humankind's place in it, in stories that were usually of less than 10 pages, but no less vivid, thought-provoking and stimulating for it.
SOUNDTRACK:
September 30, 2020
https://vrgl.ir/LNNB5
من دارم کتابهای بورخس رو، در واقع فعلا داستانهاشو به ترتیب انتشار میخونم. خوشبختانه تعداد زیادیشون تقریبا به طور منظم ترجمه شدن، ولی پیدا کردنشون ساده نیست. در واقع از کتابهای مجموعه داستان بورخس که در ایران منتشر شده، بعضی ها مجموعه های اصیل و بعضیها جمع آوری شده و غیر اصیل هستن. برای مثلا دو کتاب مجموعه معروف هزارتوهای بورخس و کتابخانه بابل داستانهایی جمع شده از چندکتاب اصیل بورخس هستن.
در واقع هدف من این بود که بتونم همه داستانهای منتشر شده بورخس رو به ترتیب زمانی بخونم. توی لینکی که اول متن گذاشتم مطلبی هست که خودم تهیه کردم و یه مقایسه کردم مجموعه های منتشر شده در ایران با مجموعه های اصلی و این که هر کدوم چه کمبودی دارن و کدوم داستان رو در چه مجموعه ای میشه پیدا کرد. اگه تمایل دارید لینک بالا از سایت ویرگول رو نگاهی بندازید.
این کتاب با نام اصلی artifices در سال 1944 منتشر شد و در مجموعه های منتشر در ایران از نظر ترتیب زمانی انتشار مجموعه اصلی، دومین کتاب بورخسه.
من کاملا شیفته سبک بورخس هستم و به جز مجموعه اول، تاریخچه عمومی از بی عدالتی و شرارت، که گاهی توی داستاناش نپختگی و سرسری بودن دیدم، کم و بیش هر چی از بورخس خوندم رو میپسندم و برای من از 4 ستاره کمتر امتیاز ندارن. دو سه تا داستانهای بیادماندنی بورخس توی این کتاب وجود دارن از جمله زخم شمشیر، فونس و جنوب. نکته دیگه این که این کتاب نسبت به نسخه اصلی یا مجموعه اصلی، داستان حذف شده ای نداره و کامله.
من دارم کتابهای بورخس رو، در واقع فعلا داستانهاشو به ترتیب انتشار میخونم. خوشبختانه تعداد زیادیشون تقریبا به طور منظم ترجمه شدن، ولی پیدا کردنشون ساده نیست. در واقع از کتابهای مجموعه داستان بورخس که در ایران منتشر شده، بعضی ها مجموعه های اصیل و بعضیها جمع آوری شده و غیر اصیل هستن. برای مثلا دو کتاب مجموعه معروف هزارتوهای بورخس و کتابخانه بابل داستانهایی جمع شده از چندکتاب اصیل بورخس هستن.
در واقع هدف من این بود که بتونم همه داستانهای منتشر شده بورخس رو به ترتیب زمانی بخونم. توی لینکی که اول متن گذاشتم مطلبی هست که خودم تهیه کردم و یه مقایسه کردم مجموعه های منتشر شده در ایران با مجموعه های اصلی و این که هر کدوم چه کمبودی دارن و کدوم داستان رو در چه مجموعه ای میشه پیدا کرد. اگه تمایل دارید لینک بالا از سایت ویرگول رو نگاهی بندازید.
این کتاب با نام اصلی artifices در سال 1944 منتشر شد و در مجموعه های منتشر در ایران از نظر ترتیب زمانی انتشار مجموعه اصلی، دومین کتاب بورخسه.
من کاملا شیفته سبک بورخس هستم و به جز مجموعه اول، تاریخچه عمومی از بی عدالتی و شرارت، که گاهی توی داستاناش نپختگی و سرسری بودن دیدم، کم و بیش هر چی از بورخس خوندم رو میپسندم و برای من از 4 ستاره کمتر امتیاز ندارن. دو سه تا داستانهای بیادماندنی بورخس توی این کتاب وجود دارن از جمله زخم شمشیر، فونس و جنوب. نکته دیگه این که این کتاب نسبت به نسخه اصلی یا مجموعه اصلی، داستان حذف شده ای نداره و کامله.
May 22, 2019
Felt like 2 1/2*.
My first encounter with Borges. No aaaahs, no oooohs. I would like to give this fellow another chance, since I see that the world loves and admires him and a bunch of writers were inspired by his works.
Well!
I quite liked the story Death and the Compass/La muerte y la brújula.
My first encounter with Borges. No aaaahs, no oooohs. I would like to give this fellow another chance, since I see that the world loves and admires him and a bunch of writers were inspired by his works.
Well!
I quite liked the story Death and the Compass/La muerte y la brújula.
January 8, 2022
دلم میخواد هم 4 ستاره بدم هم 1 ستاره! نظرم کاملا سینوسی شده راجع به این کتاب. یه جایی واقعا لذت بردم و یه جایی میگفتم چرا تموم نمیشه این قسمت؟؟ هنوزم نمیدونم.همین
February 15, 2023
llegint aquest llibre m’he sentit com una nena petita, a la falda del borges, escoltant com m’explicava històries. és maco el sentiment de confiar tant en un autor que et poses a les seves mans, d’una manera 💘.
July 3, 2021
Cada vez que releo este libro dejó para el final Los tres Judas. Esa reflexión sobre el honor de la infamia -más que los avatares religiosos- entre la que se esconden cuatro o cinco historias distintas hace que sea uno de las historias que siempre tengo que expulsar de mí escritura.
August 8, 2017
Borgese puhul torkab silma eelkõige teksti tihedus. Teda tuleb lugeda aeglaselt, novell või kaks päevas, lastes loetul laagredada. Tihti on tema viieleheküljeline novell sündmuste ja mõteterohkem kui mõni pikk romaan. Vaimustav!
September 25, 2012
Not the most stunning of Borges work, but still better than most anybody else.
February 11, 2019
در يك تقسيم بندي كلي و خيالي، داستان هاي بورخس را مي توان در دو دسته جاي داد: داستان هاي مهم و داستان هاي اعجاب انگيز. البته نه به اين معني كه داستان هاي مهم اعجاب انگيز نيستند
داستان مهم چه داستانی است؟ داستان هايي كه در آن ها بورخس از يك نويسنده تبديل به يك پيشگو مي شود. تا آن جا كه اومبرتو اكو مي گويد: "شبكه اينترنت واقعي را بورخس اختراع كرد. آنچه بعدا آمده همه مجازي است."
يكي از مهم ترين داستان هاي بورخس به نام"فونس ،حافظه اش" در این کتاب است. فونس شخصي است كه حافظه اي عجيب دارد به طوري كه مي تواند كل بيست و چهار ساعت از يك روز از زندگي اش را با تمام جزييات بازسازي كند. اين كه شما هر كاري جلوي فونس انجام دهيد مي دانيد فراموش نمي كند و اين باعث دستپاچگي مي شود. حافظه ي فونس بسيار زياد شبيه دوربين هاي امروزي است. اين كه هر كسي با دوربين موبايلش مي تواند تمام بيست و چهار ساعت از روز را فيلم برداري كند.
دو داستان "معجزه پنهاني" و "آيين ققنوس" هم جز همين داستان هاي مهم هستند. به نظرم از داستان معجزه پنهاني مي شود يك فيلم علمي-تخيلي كامل ساخته شود. داستان هاي "سه روايت از يهودا" و "جنوب" و "داغ زخم شمشير" به معناي واقعي كلمه فوق العاده بودند. به خصوص جنوب؛ داستان مردي كه بعد از ديدن عكس هاي يك نسخه قديميِ هزار و يك شب ديوانه مي شود.و داستان "مرگ و قطب نما" حال و هواي پليسيِ داستان باغ جاده هاي چند شاخه را برای من تداعي كرد
داستان مهم چه داستانی است؟ داستان هايي كه در آن ها بورخس از يك نويسنده تبديل به يك پيشگو مي شود. تا آن جا كه اومبرتو اكو مي گويد: "شبكه اينترنت واقعي را بورخس اختراع كرد. آنچه بعدا آمده همه مجازي است."
يكي از مهم ترين داستان هاي بورخس به نام"فونس ،حافظه اش" در این کتاب است. فونس شخصي است كه حافظه اي عجيب دارد به طوري كه مي تواند كل بيست و چهار ساعت از يك روز از زندگي اش را با تمام جزييات بازسازي كند. اين كه شما هر كاري جلوي فونس انجام دهيد مي دانيد فراموش نمي كند و اين باعث دستپاچگي مي شود. حافظه ي فونس بسيار زياد شبيه دوربين هاي امروزي است. اين كه هر كسي با دوربين موبايلش مي تواند تمام بيست و چهار ساعت از روز را فيلم برداري كند.
دو داستان "معجزه پنهاني" و "آيين ققنوس" هم جز همين داستان هاي مهم هستند. به نظرم از داستان معجزه پنهاني مي شود يك فيلم علمي-تخيلي كامل ساخته شود. داستان هاي "سه روايت از يهودا" و "جنوب" و "داغ زخم شمشير" به معناي واقعي كلمه فوق العاده بودند. به خصوص جنوب؛ داستان مردي كه بعد از ديدن عكس هاي يك نسخه قديميِ هزار و يك شب ديوانه مي شود.و داستان "مرگ و قطب نما" حال و هواي پليسيِ داستان باغ جاده هاي چند شاخه را برای من تداعي كرد
September 21, 2012
Read the English translation. In some ways I liked garden of forking paths more, but then the more I ponder over these stories I'm blown away by the philosophies of thought and spirituality and eternity that they exhibit. Probably easier stories in general compared to Garden...
June 5, 2012
Borges. Vos.
April 26, 2020
' انديشيدن يعنى ناديده گرفتن( يا فراموش كردن) تفاوت ها، تعميم دادن و جمع بندى كردن، انتزاع و جداسازى.'
January 8, 2024
Quin gegant, Borges. Nou relats breus en què cap dels grans temes que inquieten l’home (el temps, la memòria, les creences, el patiment…) queda per tocar. Una prova més que la literatura hispànica contemporània s’ha perfeccionat a les Amèriques. Aquest any hi haurà més Borges.
May 25, 2025
“Lo cierto es que vivimos postergando todo lo postergable; tal vez todos sabemos profundamente que somos inmortales y que tarde o temprano, todo hombre hará todas las cosas y sabrá todo”.
Borges es un barquero que sólo necesita unas pocas páginas para llevarte flotando sobre un riachuelo de emociones, que te cede la mano para que subas, con la ternura esperable de una persona lúcida.
“Habituado a vivir en el presente,
como los animales, ahora miraba el cielo y pensaba que el cerco rojo de la luna era señal de lluvia”.
Borges es un barquero que sólo necesita unas pocas páginas para llevarte flotando sobre un riachuelo de emociones, que te cede la mano para que subas, con la ternura esperable de una persona lúcida.
“Habituado a vivir en el presente,
como los animales, ahora miraba el cielo y pensaba que el cerco rojo de la luna era señal de lluvia”.
September 23, 2020
مثل اغلب کارهای بورخس ایده های تکان دهنده و هستی براندازی داشت که با نهایت خست در پرداخت و در نتیجه با هنرمندانه ترین ایجاز خواننده را (دست کم من خواننده را) شگفت زده میکند. گویا بناهای چند دهه جلوتر میدانسته که داستان باید برای آن که دقایقی خواننده را پای کتاب بنشاند با توییتر رقابت کند .
Read
April 15, 2014The South! The South! But also Three Versions of Judas
May 20, 2018
دو یا سه داستان که در هزارتوی ابدی جناب بورخس بارها آنها را میخوانیم
August 9, 2020
Este libro es un compendio de nueve cuentos o relatos cortos muy interesantes. Borges escribe un estilo académico lleno de lenguaje técnico de diferentes áreas de conocimiento que lograron hacerme dudar de la ficcionalidad de los hechos y personajes. Borges sabe muy bien como engañar y eso lo convierte en un excelente escritor.
Una de las características que más me impresionó de su lectura fue la hipertextualidad que usa entre sus propios escritos, en algunas ocasiones cita a sus personajes ficticios como fuentes en otros cuentos, para darle más énfasis a su estilo de artículo académico.
No sé describir con exactitud qué es lo que hace especial la narrativa de Borges, pero me encantan los juegos que hace con las palabras, el uso no exagerado de palabras poco comunes, la secuencia de ideas cortas, precisas y potentes. En algunos cuentos tiene un estilo similar al de Poe, que genera misterio.
Los temas recurrentes de este libro son: el infinito, la eternidad, el tiempo, la muerte, la desgracia. Tratados por medio de pensamientos profundos, que hacen de su narrativa una gran expositora de la metafísica
A continuación algunos breves resúmenes de las narraciones y pensamientos que tuve mientras leía cada uno de los cuentos. Algunos podrían considerarse SPOILER. Así que de aquí en adelante sigue bajo tu responsabilidad.
Funes el memorioso.
Lo interesante del relato no es la trama, que es sencilla (un joven sufre un accidente que le deja tullido pero comienza a recordar cada detalle y experiencia con un nivel de nitidez abrumador) sino por la narración compleja e inteligente. El narrador cuenta las habilidades de Funes, mientras reflexiona sobre el significado de un «don», con sus ventajas y desventajas, ¿Acaso una memoria perfecta está exenta de penalidades? No, por supuesto, Funes está lleno de detalles inútiles, ha perdido la capacidad de generalizar, le falta el sueño e inventa sistemas mentales ineficaces porque incluso su visión de un mismo objeto en posiciones o momentos distintos es tan diferenciada en su memoria que le es inconcebible juntarlos bajo el mismo nombre. Borges resalta la importancia del olvidar en nuestros procesos mentales superiores con una prosa exquisita a la vez que critica a la memoria (necesaria pero no suficiente) como forma exaltada de aprendizaje en un relato que simula un testimonio póstumo a Funes el memorioso. Brillante.
La forma de la espada.
Un hombre «inglés» viviendo en Argentina es extraño, huraño y tiene una gran cicatriz surcándole media cara. En una noche de copas, el narrador atrevidamente le pregunta por el origen de la marca, y el hombre decide contarle pidiéndole que no escatime en desprecios. La historia es narrada con pausas, deteniéndose en las características del hombre que cuenta y de un compañero cobarde durante la guerra entre Irlanda e Inglaterra. Al final, un cambio en la trama muy bien llevado nos demuestra que la vergüenza puede mantenerse por años y que afecta nuestras formas de comunicarnos y actuar. Esa revelación sobre la verdadera naturaleza y ser del inglés cambia el sentido de todo lo dicho y de los sentimientos que nos generan los personajes que se involucran en la historia. Magistral.
Tema del traidor y del héroe.
Interesante la dualidad del personaje principal. Borges nos relata la historia de un traidor heroizado descubierto por su nieto mientras investiga a uno de los propulsores (ficticios) de la revolución en Irlanda.
El personaje descubre una copia de eventos históricos y literarios en la vida de su antecesor, es decir, la repetición de unos eventos ya engrandecidos que le permiten llegar a la conclusión definitiva de que todo era un gran complot para mantener una causa en nombre de un traidor que se consideraba líder y que se convirtió en el mártir que impulsa la causa.
La muerte y la brújula.
Un final que se deja entrever desde el principio, pero con una particular explicación de la cadena de eventos que lleva a dicho final. Muestra de como nos dejamos influir por nuestras ideas profundas hasta el punto de que pueden usarse en nuestra contra. Lo que consideramos una fortaleza nuestra, termina siendo una terrible debilidad. ¿Es acaso lo que pensamos una arma cegadora que puede usarse para ponernos en situaciones complicadas? Sí, parece ser la respuesta firme de Borges a través de este relato.
El milagro secreto.
Un relato donde nuevamente Borges juega con la narrativa circular, un checo condenado a muerte por el régimen del Tercer Reich se da cuenta que no terminó su obra magna, un drama a tres actos donde el público llega a notar que todo lo que ocurre no es más que los desvaríos del protagonista porque el relato vuelve a iniciar en el tercer acto. Pensado en concluir su relato y sufriendo los traumas de la muerte anunciada, decide pedir a Dios un año de tiempo para finiquitar su legado al mundo. No dice el refrán popular que tengamos cuidado con lo que deseamos, muchas veces llega de la manera menos esperada. Que ingenio el de Jorge Luis.
Tres versiones de Judas.
Nils Runeberg es un teólogo famoso por la publicación de tres libros donde explica las verdaderas razones de Judas para entregar a Cristo. En la primera, la razón es una analogía a Cristo que se rebajó a mortal. Judas se rebajó a traidor. En la segunda, el sacrificio da la felicidad y salvación por no considerarse dignos de tan alto galardón. En el tercero, que nunca se publicó, afirma que Judas es Dios hecho carne, usando una concatenación blasfema de escrituras y pasajes para concluir que puede estar incurriendo en un pecado imperdonable por revelar algo que Dios no quiere que sea revelado. Finalmente muere, deseando compartir el infierno con Judas/dios. Admirable la cantidad de conocimiento sobre religión de Borges, siendo él ateo y la manera en que con ingeniosos pero enreversados tejidos de ideas falsas puede construir una hipótesis convincente.
El fin.
Un relato extraño sobre un hombre que pierde sus capacidades motoras mientras en su pulpería un negro se prepara tocando la guitarra para una lucha a muerte con Martín Fierro, luego de siete años de espera luego de que el mismísimo Fierro matara al hermano del negro. Cómo no he leído Martín Fierro no entiendo muy bien la relación y el uso de Borges del mítico personaje argentino. Es un relato con buen ritmo y un fin rápido.
La secta del fénix.
Un relato que parece ser la descripción de una secta religiosa suprema mente extraña, unida solo por un secreto que es un rito generacional simplísimo. El autor en sus descripciones muestra características de la mayoría de religiones reales lo que me parece busca hacer una crítica a la absurdidad de algunos grupos de feligreses.
El Sur.
Un relato nostálgico de un protagonista que añora sus raíces que están en el Sur. Sufre un aparatoso accidente que lo deja internado al borde la muerte, luego de una larga recuperación se embarca hacia el meridional en tren y al llegar a un pequeño poblado en una cafetería tendrá otra prueba a muerte tan típica de su anhelado Sur gaucho. El relato tiene una final seco y no concluyente.
Esta lectura que cumple la premisa del reto entre casa de la Copa de las Casas BBB, va acompañada de la descripción de un objeto que debe parecerme ser importante y que represente al libro. Aunque los relatos son muy variados entre sí, creo que un objeto que logra recoger la esencia del libro en su conjunto es el reloj, puesto que uno de los temas más recurrentes es el tiempo. Jorge Luis Borges usa la alteración temporal para darle mayor emoción a sus escritos, para generar situaciones maravillosas y para dar profundidad a sus personajes (y relatos mismos).
Una de las características que más me impresionó de su lectura fue la hipertextualidad que usa entre sus propios escritos, en algunas ocasiones cita a sus personajes ficticios como fuentes en otros cuentos, para darle más énfasis a su estilo de artículo académico.
No sé describir con exactitud qué es lo que hace especial la narrativa de Borges, pero me encantan los juegos que hace con las palabras, el uso no exagerado de palabras poco comunes, la secuencia de ideas cortas, precisas y potentes. En algunos cuentos tiene un estilo similar al de Poe, que genera misterio.
Los temas recurrentes de este libro son: el infinito, la eternidad, el tiempo, la muerte, la desgracia. Tratados por medio de pensamientos profundos, que hacen de su narrativa una gran expositora de la metafísica
A continuación algunos breves resúmenes de las narraciones y pensamientos que tuve mientras leía cada uno de los cuentos. Algunos podrían considerarse SPOILER. Así que de aquí en adelante sigue bajo tu responsabilidad.
Funes el memorioso.
Lo interesante del relato no es la trama, que es sencilla (un joven sufre un accidente que le deja tullido pero comienza a recordar cada detalle y experiencia con un nivel de nitidez abrumador) sino por la narración compleja e inteligente. El narrador cuenta las habilidades de Funes, mientras reflexiona sobre el significado de un «don», con sus ventajas y desventajas, ¿Acaso una memoria perfecta está exenta de penalidades? No, por supuesto, Funes está lleno de detalles inútiles, ha perdido la capacidad de generalizar, le falta el sueño e inventa sistemas mentales ineficaces porque incluso su visión de un mismo objeto en posiciones o momentos distintos es tan diferenciada en su memoria que le es inconcebible juntarlos bajo el mismo nombre. Borges resalta la importancia del olvidar en nuestros procesos mentales superiores con una prosa exquisita a la vez que critica a la memoria (necesaria pero no suficiente) como forma exaltada de aprendizaje en un relato que simula un testimonio póstumo a Funes el memorioso. Brillante.
La forma de la espada.
Un hombre «inglés» viviendo en Argentina es extraño, huraño y tiene una gran cicatriz surcándole media cara. En una noche de copas, el narrador atrevidamente le pregunta por el origen de la marca, y el hombre decide contarle pidiéndole que no escatime en desprecios. La historia es narrada con pausas, deteniéndose en las características del hombre que cuenta y de un compañero cobarde durante la guerra entre Irlanda e Inglaterra. Al final, un cambio en la trama muy bien llevado nos demuestra que la vergüenza puede mantenerse por años y que afecta nuestras formas de comunicarnos y actuar. Esa revelación sobre la verdadera naturaleza y ser del inglés cambia el sentido de todo lo dicho y de los sentimientos que nos generan los personajes que se involucran en la historia. Magistral.
Tema del traidor y del héroe.
Interesante la dualidad del personaje principal. Borges nos relata la historia de un traidor heroizado descubierto por su nieto mientras investiga a uno de los propulsores (ficticios) de la revolución en Irlanda.
El personaje descubre una copia de eventos históricos y literarios en la vida de su antecesor, es decir, la repetición de unos eventos ya engrandecidos que le permiten llegar a la conclusión definitiva de que todo era un gran complot para mantener una causa en nombre de un traidor que se consideraba líder y que se convirtió en el mártir que impulsa la causa.
La muerte y la brújula.
Un final que se deja entrever desde el principio, pero con una particular explicación de la cadena de eventos que lleva a dicho final. Muestra de como nos dejamos influir por nuestras ideas profundas hasta el punto de que pueden usarse en nuestra contra. Lo que consideramos una fortaleza nuestra, termina siendo una terrible debilidad. ¿Es acaso lo que pensamos una arma cegadora que puede usarse para ponernos en situaciones complicadas? Sí, parece ser la respuesta firme de Borges a través de este relato.
El milagro secreto.
Un relato donde nuevamente Borges juega con la narrativa circular, un checo condenado a muerte por el régimen del Tercer Reich se da cuenta que no terminó su obra magna, un drama a tres actos donde el público llega a notar que todo lo que ocurre no es más que los desvaríos del protagonista porque el relato vuelve a iniciar en el tercer acto. Pensado en concluir su relato y sufriendo los traumas de la muerte anunciada, decide pedir a Dios un año de tiempo para finiquitar su legado al mundo. No dice el refrán popular que tengamos cuidado con lo que deseamos, muchas veces llega de la manera menos esperada. Que ingenio el de Jorge Luis.
Tres versiones de Judas.
Nils Runeberg es un teólogo famoso por la publicación de tres libros donde explica las verdaderas razones de Judas para entregar a Cristo. En la primera, la razón es una analogía a Cristo que se rebajó a mortal. Judas se rebajó a traidor. En la segunda, el sacrificio da la felicidad y salvación por no considerarse dignos de tan alto galardón. En el tercero, que nunca se publicó, afirma que Judas es Dios hecho carne, usando una concatenación blasfema de escrituras y pasajes para concluir que puede estar incurriendo en un pecado imperdonable por revelar algo que Dios no quiere que sea revelado. Finalmente muere, deseando compartir el infierno con Judas/dios. Admirable la cantidad de conocimiento sobre religión de Borges, siendo él ateo y la manera en que con ingeniosos pero enreversados tejidos de ideas falsas puede construir una hipótesis convincente.
El fin.
Un relato extraño sobre un hombre que pierde sus capacidades motoras mientras en su pulpería un negro se prepara tocando la guitarra para una lucha a muerte con Martín Fierro, luego de siete años de espera luego de que el mismísimo Fierro matara al hermano del negro. Cómo no he leído Martín Fierro no entiendo muy bien la relación y el uso de Borges del mítico personaje argentino. Es un relato con buen ritmo y un fin rápido.
La secta del fénix.
Un relato que parece ser la descripción de una secta religiosa suprema mente extraña, unida solo por un secreto que es un rito generacional simplísimo. El autor en sus descripciones muestra características de la mayoría de religiones reales lo que me parece busca hacer una crítica a la absurdidad de algunos grupos de feligreses.
El Sur.
Un relato nostálgico de un protagonista que añora sus raíces que están en el Sur. Sufre un aparatoso accidente que lo deja internado al borde la muerte, luego de una larga recuperación se embarca hacia el meridional en tren y al llegar a un pequeño poblado en una cafetería tendrá otra prueba a muerte tan típica de su anhelado Sur gaucho. El relato tiene una final seco y no concluyente.
Esta lectura que cumple la premisa del reto entre casa de la Copa de las Casas BBB, va acompañada de la descripción de un objeto que debe parecerme ser importante y que represente al libro. Aunque los relatos son muy variados entre sí, creo que un objeto que logra recoger la esencia del libro en su conjunto es el reloj, puesto que uno de los temas más recurrentes es el tiempo. Jorge Luis Borges usa la alteración temporal para darle mayor emoción a sus escritos, para generar situaciones maravillosas y para dar profundidad a sus personajes (y relatos mismos).
October 29, 2024
4 1/2 *s
Artificios is a short story collection by Jorge Luis Borges that is included in the larger collection: Ficciones along with The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph.
I think overall Ficciones is arguably Borges' best fiction collection, with many of the stories overlapping with those in Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. I would rate Artificios third after The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph. But if you want to select one book of Borges to read I'd suggest Ficciones.
In this book, Funes the Memorious, Theme of the Traitor and the Hero, and The Secret Miracle are my favorites, however Borges said his best story was The South. These stories deal with most of the standard Borges' themes such as identity, memory, revenge, and destiny.
Artificios is a short story collection by Jorge Luis Borges that is included in the larger collection: Ficciones along with The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph.
I think overall Ficciones is arguably Borges' best fiction collection, with many of the stories overlapping with those in Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings. I would rate Artificios third after The Garden of Forking Paths and The Aleph. But if you want to select one book of Borges to read I'd suggest Ficciones.
In this book, Funes the Memorious, Theme of the Traitor and the Hero, and The Secret Miracle are my favorites, however Borges said his best story was The South. These stories deal with most of the standard Borges' themes such as identity, memory, revenge, and destiny.
December 17, 2021
Un libro "menor" de Borges con nueve breves historias. Cada una de ellas tiene su algo, su arte, su misterio. Hay dos o tres de ellas que comparten el giro final de revelar un detalle que cambia la interpretación de todo lo que llevamos leído hasta el momento, muy bien construidas. Funes el memorioso, por ejemplo, comienza contándonos a vida de un señor que tras un accidente comienza a sufrir hipermnesia: se acuerda de absolutamente todos los etalles de su vida, no solo lo que pasó sino lo que él pensó al sucederle las cosas. Borges elucubra sobre la necesidad del olvido haciendo que su personaje ponga nombres nuevos a las cosas según la posición en que se hallan cuando las ve, incapaz de darse cuenta de que son en el fondo el mismo objeto, siendo el detalle tan importante como el fondo para alguien que lo recuerda todo a la perfección.
En conjunto, muy interesante, incluso sin ser ese Borges.
En conjunto, muy interesante, incluso sin ser ese Borges.
April 2, 2019
چند داستان عالی از یکی از بهترین داستان نویسان و قصه گویان جهان، خورخه لوئیس بورخس، با ترجمه ای بد و ناشیانه! محض نمونه می توانید ترجمه ی داستان به قول مترجم «داغ زخم شمشیر» را در این کتاب با ترجمه ی همین داستان در کتاب «هزارتوهای بورخس» با عنوان «زخم شمشیر» از احمد گلشیری، مقایسه کنید (البته کتاب هزارتوهای بورخس به استثنای دو داستان، ترجمه ی احمد میرعلایی است). صالحی علامه جمله ی اول داستان را اینطور ترجمه کرده: «جای زخمی کینه توزانه بر چهره اش دیده می شد». ترجمه ی احمد گلشیری از این قرار است: «جای زخمی ناسور چهره اش را خط انداخته بود». اول اینکه «زخم کینه توزانه» دقیقاً به چه معناست؟!! زخمی را که از سر کینه توزی به آدم می زنند می فهمم ولی مگر زخم کینه توز می شود؟!!! دوم اینکه از مقایسه ی ترجمه ی عنوان داستان و جمله ای که گفتم می توان فهمید که مترجم سه روایت از یهودا، به زبان مقصد یعنی فارسی اشراف ندارد حالا زبان مبدأ (که انگلیسی هم بوده نه اسپانیولی که زبان نویسنده باشد) پیشکش.
January 20, 2026
¿qué quieren que les diga?
es Borges: el argentino que soñaba en inglés, con Cristos y cabalistas y Hamlet y las Mil y una noches. a man after mine own heart, quiero decir. algunos de estos relatos, como «La secta del fénix», han estado impresos en mi psique desde que era jovencita; otros—«El tema del traidor y el heroe», por ejemplo—me resultaron desconocidos.
los relatos de Borges son un monumento (en forma de un dibujo de M. C. Escher).
es Borges: el argentino que soñaba en inglés, con Cristos y cabalistas y Hamlet y las Mil y una noches. a man after mine own heart, quiero decir. algunos de estos relatos, como «La secta del fénix», han estado impresos en mi psique desde que era jovencita; otros—«El tema del traidor y el heroe», por ejemplo—me resultaron desconocidos.
los relatos de Borges son un monumento (en forma de un dibujo de M. C. Escher).
March 7, 2021
Ay me costó mucho... a ratos sentía que estaba leyendo algo así como un artículo de una revista científica sobre un tema que jamás había escuchado en mi vida.
“El fin” fue mi favorito. Lejos. Le sigue “El Sur”.
(En todo momento me preguntaba: ¿seré yo, señor?... probablemente)
“El fin” fue mi favorito. Lejos. Le sigue “El Sur”.
(En todo momento me preguntaba: ¿seré yo, señor?... probablemente)
January 14, 2022
Los laberintos Borgianos son infinitos, como su universo. De un relato/ensayo/poema a otro, sentimos su esencia de agujeros de gusano. Ese vertiginoso pase de un espacio/tiempo a otro, en tan pocas líneas.
September 1, 2017
قصه پردازى فوق العاده بورخس ولى متاسفانه با ترجمه اى بسيار ناموزون كه خواندن را سخت و خسته كننده ميكند و از زيبايى و لذت اثر بي بهره مان مى گذارد.
November 26, 2019
Un clásico
January 25, 2023
Much less flamboyant and daring than Ficciones, Artificios is by no means a minor collection. It is far more realistic and readable, but does not lack various interpretative layers.
April 30, 2024
خواندن بورخس لذتبخش است. کوتاه مینویسد و میداند قصههایش را چگونه به پایان برساند. همین است که وقتی به انتها میرسم با خود میگویم «ارزشش را داشت».
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