Ficciones

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He has managed to turn language upon itself to reverse himself time after time with a sentence or a paragraph with relentless logic so that it comes up as a pleasant surprise. Borges prides himself on reducing entire unwritten novels into condensed kernels, and at a mere 170 pages Ficciones is itself the kernel of something much grander. The Sect of the Phoenix” ― There is a group of people in all societies and times, tied together by the Secret that they share, which Borges coyly never reveals. Sin duda cada uno de los cuentos de este volumen merecen ser leídos más de una sola vez y poniendo mucha atención.

There’s a twist to this tale, echoing the Irishman’s portentous comment that “[w]hat one man does is something done, in some measure, by all men. This has led to analysis of his stories from a Freudian viewpoint, [2] although Borges himself strongly disliked his work being interpreted in such a way. Thirteen stories from Ficciones were first published by New Directions in the English-language anthology Labyrinths (1962). He continually has the sensation that I am stood behind him, that my hand is reaching over his shoulder, prising at the drawer.

I now held in my hands a vast and systematic fragment of the entire history of an unknown planet, with its architectures and its playing cards, the horror of its mythologies and the murmur of its tongues, its emperors and its seas, its minerals and its birds and fishes, its algebra and its fire, its theological and the metaphysical controversies- all joined, articulated, coherent, and with no visible doctrinal purpose or hint of parody. The Approach to Al-Mu'tasim" originally appeared published in A History of Eternity ( Historia de la eternidad) (1936). Dividido en dos libros menores “El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan” de 1941 y “Artificios” de 1944 este volumen atesora el mejor cuento de Borges, “El sur”, reconocido por él mismo, aunque los demás no le van en zaga por el asombroso trabajo de arquitectura y relojería con que están construidos.

There is sadness there too, at the thought of those who would treat such mazes as homes, at the machinations of fate. Edited and introduced by Anthony Kerrigan, the other translators were Anthony Bonner, Alastair Reid, Helen Temple, and Ruthven Todd. What was striking about Fictions is that whenever and wherever it come to existence it immediately grabbed the imagination of readers- for it is quintessential for a reader to be imaginative to understand Borges’s world. If you’re interested in philosophical ideas and are up for a literary challenge, I highly recommend Ficciones.The ideas and the perspectives employed have taken me to all spiritual and philosophical depths while entertaining me with high efficiency. It is possible that the message does not get through to some, but every chance will have been made available to it to keep its attention and interest to their maximum levels. There are no nouns in the hypothetical Ursprache of Tlön, which is the source of the living language and the dialects; there are impersonal verbs qualified by monosyllabic suffixes or prefixes which have the force of adverbs. Precise dates and place names and other historical references add weight to this impression, and the reader might feel overwhelmed by the amount of detail packed into that first paragraph. FICTIONS is perhaps the single most mysterious and extraordinary collection of short stories written this century.

Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Library of Babel, The Lottery in Babylon, The Circular Ruins, The Secret Miracle and The South seem to belong science fiction or fantasy, although in their treatment of their major themes, they are more erudite and philosophical in nature. The stories in Ficciones are divided into two parts: The first part, The Garden of Forking Paths ( El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan) was originally published in 1941. George is across town, watching his girlfriend get dressed for the day, scratching his head, itching to open the book in his bedside table.

Presently, he imagines me with steel-rimmed glasses, clumsy-footed, maybe married, he cannot decide, but above all, rather irritated by his missing book. Though, principally, the reason he decided to steal the book from the parcel (he was hoping for a new video game or Blu-ray to sell on) was because Jorge was very close to his own name. Each person has a complex set of turns in a ridiculously intricate path that I think represents every decision we face – right, left, X, O, date, dump – whatever.

The Circular Ruins, The Library of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths and The Secret Miracle being alright and scant few others like An Examination of Herbert Quain and The End only fair. I will take some time, I will read it once again in the next few weeks and most likely I will change the rating of this book. I read and then reread several of these stories (some of them for a third time) while I was writing my final review for Fantasy Literature, and they keep impressing me more .

Hablando de El sur, mi cuento favorito del autor por mucho, fue una experiencia tan cercana con mi yo del pasado que vive en Buenos Aires.