Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Books Ltd (1970), Paperback, 288 pages
Description
Now, new in audio and completely unabridged, the collection that made Borges a household name in the English-speaking world. The groundbreaking trans-genre work of Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) has been insinuating itself into the structure, stance, and very breath of world literature for well over half a century. Multi-layered, self-referential, elusive, and allusive writing is now frequently labeled Borgesian. Umberto Eco's international bestseller, The Name of the Rose, is, on one level, an elaborate improvisation on Borges' fiction "The Library," which American readers first encountered in the original 1962 New Directions publication of Labyrinths. This new edition of Labyrinths, the classic representative selection of Borges' writing edited by Donald A. Yates and James E. Irby (in translations by themselves and others), includes the text of the original edition (as augmented in 1964) as well as Irby's biographical and critical essay, a poignant tribute by Andr� Maurois, and a chronology of the author's life. Borges enthusiast William Gibson has contributed a new introduction bringing Borges' influence and importance into the twenty-first century.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member myfanwy
This review will undoubtedly fail to capture what it is I have to say about this book as it's been a month since I finished it. Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays by Borges (who almost exclusively wrote short works). As such it can't be read straight through. I took about six
Borges is if anything an efficient writer. He writes in incredibly dense prose. His stories are often three to five pages long and filled with esoteric references to ancient China, Don Quixote, linguistics, mathematics, and the infinite. After reading Circular Ruins I had to sit and ponder. Borges forces you to think, forces you to delve. The Library of Babel is favorite of many in which he contemplates an infinite library with infinite knowledge and infinite lies. I enjoyed the The Secret Miracle in which an author, sentenced to execution by firing squad in WWII Prague, begs whatever God exists for the time to finish his final work. Through a private miracle he gains all the time he needs -- all the time between the firing of the shot and the moment lead hits bone. He finds the world stopped. He has years worth of time to write in his mind, to edit, to mull over just the right phrase, and as soon as he hits upon perfection of his work --- well, time snaps back into existence and his life is ended.
In reading this book, you have to be willing to be indulgent. Borges is trying at times. And one of the reasons you can't read it all at once is because he repeats himself. He has interesting ideas, but in the end you feel if you see the words "mirror" "labyrinth" or "enigma" one more time, you'd like to shoot him yourself. It reminds me of when I saw an entire wing of an art museum dedicated to a Magritte exhibition. His works are fascinating, but as you progressed through the rooms, you realized he really did like clouds, and apples, and bowlers.
Despite all this, there is an element of genius in Borges' work. At the end of an essay on self-reference in literature (such as Hamlet watching the pantomime of his own history in Hamlet) he writes this gem:
"Why does it disturb us that the map be included in the map and the thousand and one nights in the book of the Thousand and One Nights? Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote be a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious. In 1833, Carlyle observed that the history of the universe is an infinite sacred book that all men write and read and try to understand, and in which they are also written."
That is my new picture of the universe. Read this, folks, but read it at your own pace. A little goes a long way, but you will be rewarded.
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months, reading stories occasionally, taking the time to let my brain find it's way out of the nested labyrinths Borges puts you in.Borges is if anything an efficient writer. He writes in incredibly dense prose. His stories are often three to five pages long and filled with esoteric references to ancient China, Don Quixote, linguistics, mathematics, and the infinite. After reading Circular Ruins I had to sit and ponder. Borges forces you to think, forces you to delve. The Library of Babel is favorite of many in which he contemplates an infinite library with infinite knowledge and infinite lies. I enjoyed the The Secret Miracle in which an author, sentenced to execution by firing squad in WWII Prague, begs whatever God exists for the time to finish his final work. Through a private miracle he gains all the time he needs -- all the time between the firing of the shot and the moment lead hits bone. He finds the world stopped. He has years worth of time to write in his mind, to edit, to mull over just the right phrase, and as soon as he hits upon perfection of his work --- well, time snaps back into existence and his life is ended.
In reading this book, you have to be willing to be indulgent. Borges is trying at times. And one of the reasons you can't read it all at once is because he repeats himself. He has interesting ideas, but in the end you feel if you see the words "mirror" "labyrinth" or "enigma" one more time, you'd like to shoot him yourself. It reminds me of when I saw an entire wing of an art museum dedicated to a Magritte exhibition. His works are fascinating, but as you progressed through the rooms, you realized he really did like clouds, and apples, and bowlers.
Despite all this, there is an element of genius in Borges' work. At the end of an essay on self-reference in literature (such as Hamlet watching the pantomime of his own history in Hamlet) he writes this gem:
"Why does it disturb us that the map be included in the map and the thousand and one nights in the book of the Thousand and One Nights? Why does it disturb us that Don Quixote be a reader of the Quixote and Hamlet a spectator of Hamlet? I believe I have found the reason: these inversions suggest that if the characters of a fictional work can be readers or spectators, we, its readers or spectators, can be fictitious. In 1833, Carlyle observed that the history of the universe is an infinite sacred book that all men write and read and try to understand, and in which they are also written."
That is my new picture of the universe. Read this, folks, but read it at your own pace. A little goes a long way, but you will be rewarded.
Show Less
LibraryThing member endersreads
I followed the winding labyrinth from Cervantes, to Sterne, to Rabelais, to Chesterton, on and on into paradoxical writings I go, 'til I come to believe that irony is the all.
Paradoxically, Borges sits in a library high above; that is cerebrally and intuitively. Borges being a librarian only
What can be said of the stories, essays, and strange parables collected here? They are short, and very complex. More than once I was left dazed, as if something large and unseen had just gone over. It helps immensely that Borges recites the same themes throughout, working them as a magical dough a baker might make 10,000 unique delicacies from.
"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" was disturbing and explains a lot by means of an elusive encyclopedia of another world, only proclaiming in the end that there are inhuman laws we cannot grasp; and they are very much at work.
I'll only mention a few of the stories I really enjoyed: "The Lottery in Babylon", "The Library of Babel", "Funes the Memorious", "Three Versions of Judas" (blasphemous, yet invoking contemplation of Erasmus' Free Will and Luther's Predestination), "The Sect of the Phoenix", "The Theologians"—I realize now I run the risk of listing them all, so I'll stop (I loved "The Zahir").
Each contains such an anvil of information and idea in so few words. The stories are powerful, nearly explosive, and leave permanent altering. I thought they were complex until I came upon Borges' Essays. These were mind blowing. "A New Refutation of Time" was reminiscent of Augustine's digressions on time, which ironically, were quoted from. Both turned my head on end. There is just so much deep thinking packed here. I feel I am at a loss. I feel I should read it again and take notes to quote from. Definitely.
Paradoxically, Borges sits in a library high above; that is cerebrally and intuitively. Borges being a librarian only
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partially explains how he came to read such obscure authors. I am impressed, and inspired to leave postmodern commonality in literature behind. What can be said of the stories, essays, and strange parables collected here? They are short, and very complex. More than once I was left dazed, as if something large and unseen had just gone over. It helps immensely that Borges recites the same themes throughout, working them as a magical dough a baker might make 10,000 unique delicacies from.
"Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" was disturbing and explains a lot by means of an elusive encyclopedia of another world, only proclaiming in the end that there are inhuman laws we cannot grasp; and they are very much at work.
I'll only mention a few of the stories I really enjoyed: "The Lottery in Babylon", "The Library of Babel", "Funes the Memorious", "Three Versions of Judas" (blasphemous, yet invoking contemplation of Erasmus' Free Will and Luther's Predestination), "The Sect of the Phoenix", "The Theologians"—I realize now I run the risk of listing them all, so I'll stop (I loved "The Zahir").
Each contains such an anvil of information and idea in so few words. The stories are powerful, nearly explosive, and leave permanent altering. I thought they were complex until I came upon Borges' Essays. These were mind blowing. "A New Refutation of Time" was reminiscent of Augustine's digressions on time, which ironically, were quoted from. Both turned my head on end. There is just so much deep thinking packed here. I feel I am at a loss. I feel I should read it again and take notes to quote from. Definitely.
Show Less
LibraryThing member browner56
There is an interesting case study in the experimental psychology literature in which a number of subjects were asked to memorize either a two-digit (easy) or seven-digit (harder) number and then walk to another room to report that value. In between rooms, they were offered a snack, either
For me, reading Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths was the literary equivalent of the fruit salad. That is, I found this collection of short fiction and essays to be intellectually challenging and occasionally thought-provoking, but it was never a comfortable or particularly enjoyable experience. Without question, Borges was an extremely bright and well-read man; all of the short stories and non-fictional entries in this volume teem with historical, metaphysical, and allegorical references that explore the themes of immortality, sexuality, and the role of chance in our lives. Indeed, a common device he employed was to create a fictional development around the premise of an academic-style research study (e.g., “The Theologians” and “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”). However, very little of the fiction in this book follows a traditional short story format—“The Garden of Forking Paths,” “Death and the Compass,” and “Emma Zunz” are notable exceptions—which was unfortunate because these works represent the best part of Labyrinths.
Still, all of it was well worth the effort, if for no other reason that the author is widely acknowledged to be one of the main precursors of the post-modern meta-fiction movement and his influence on so many subsequent writers is abundantly clear. For instance, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (“The Library of Babel”), John Gardner’s Grendel (“The House of Asterion”), Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude (“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”), and Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”) owe much to Borges’ path-breaking work. So, while this is an important book that very much deserves to be regarded as such, be forewarned that reading it is not likely to be a piece of cake.
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chocolate cake (delicious, but unhealthy) or fruit salad (healthy, but far less tasty). It turned out that the people with the harder memory task picked chocolate cake much more often than those who had the smaller number to remember. So, when faced with hard problems, we tend to make more comfortable supplementary choices. Or, we only make highly disciplined choices when the tasks that otherwise occupy our attention are easier.For me, reading Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths was the literary equivalent of the fruit salad. That is, I found this collection of short fiction and essays to be intellectually challenging and occasionally thought-provoking, but it was never a comfortable or particularly enjoyable experience. Without question, Borges was an extremely bright and well-read man; all of the short stories and non-fictional entries in this volume teem with historical, metaphysical, and allegorical references that explore the themes of immortality, sexuality, and the role of chance in our lives. Indeed, a common device he employed was to create a fictional development around the premise of an academic-style research study (e.g., “The Theologians” and “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero”). However, very little of the fiction in this book follows a traditional short story format—“The Garden of Forking Paths,” “Death and the Compass,” and “Emma Zunz” are notable exceptions—which was unfortunate because these works represent the best part of Labyrinths.
Still, all of it was well worth the effort, if for no other reason that the author is widely acknowledged to be one of the main precursors of the post-modern meta-fiction movement and his influence on so many subsequent writers is abundantly clear. For instance, Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose (“The Library of Babel”), John Gardner’s Grendel (“The House of Asterion”), Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ One Hundred Years of Solitude (“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius”), and Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler (“Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”) owe much to Borges’ path-breaking work. So, while this is an important book that very much deserves to be regarded as such, be forewarned that reading it is not likely to be a piece of cake.
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LibraryThing member argyriou
I was not as impressed by this book as I expected to be. Perhaps it's because I've read plenty of other stories which use techniques which Borges pioneered, but I didn't find many of the stories to be very mind-bending, especially "Tlon, Uqbar, Tertius Orbis". Two or three really did impress me,
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esepcially including "The Library of Babel". The collection also suffers from being a mix of fiction, serious essays, essays which explore the same thematic space as the fiction, and "parables". They don't rest terribly comfortably with each other - the book would be improved by cutting at least some of the essays entirely. Show Less
LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
With Uqbar being this elusive place I came to think of it as a Brigadoon of sorts. Borges opens the short story with this line, "I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopaedia" (p3). But, the 11th volume of the encyclopaedia is quite the mystery. Tlon is a
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nonexistent country and Orbis Tertius is a planet with an unknown history. Does it really exist? The first person narrative struggles to learn more about this unusual place and has come to the conclusion it is a psychologically governed land that consists of a secret society comprised of arts and intellectuals. Show Less
LibraryThing member Collisteru
A delight. Each piece hovers a different lens across the remarkable erudition of its author. Borges’ deep, dreamlike prose is difficult to read but highly re-readable.
Using myriad allusions to science and the western canon as tools, Borges writes fictions that takes apart ideas in human
Borges’ literary criticism sheds light on the origins of his ideas as it deconstructs the western canon. One thing that sets these essays apart is that Borges is learned in mathematics as well as literature, and his logical tendencies distinguish him from other pansophic critics like Harold Bloom. In particular, Zeno’s infinitesimal paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise shows itself again and again in Labyrinths, and finally receives a full treatment in the essay Avatars of the Tortoise.
The parables show Borges at his purest, unconstrained by the demands of form. Though short, their exotic ideas leave the reader with a strange and singular aftertaste, like waking from a dream.
Borges is not for the faint of heart, but if you find yourself looking for something tough to chew on, few authors are richer than he.
Using myriad allusions to science and the western canon as tools, Borges writes fictions that takes apart ideas in human
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thought. Many stories follow an encounter with the philosophical or esoteric unknown. The tension comes as much from the intellectual implications as from the protagonists’ apprehension. For example, in Funes the Memorious, a meditation on a boy with perfect memory, Borges concludes that the gift destroys cognition. Other stories feature concepts like a world where Berkelian idealism is literally true, a library of every possible book, or an immortal city in the era of Rome.Borges’ literary criticism sheds light on the origins of his ideas as it deconstructs the western canon. One thing that sets these essays apart is that Borges is learned in mathematics as well as literature, and his logical tendencies distinguish him from other pansophic critics like Harold Bloom. In particular, Zeno’s infinitesimal paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise shows itself again and again in Labyrinths, and finally receives a full treatment in the essay Avatars of the Tortoise.
The parables show Borges at his purest, unconstrained by the demands of form. Though short, their exotic ideas leave the reader with a strange and singular aftertaste, like waking from a dream.
Borges is not for the faint of heart, but if you find yourself looking for something tough to chew on, few authors are richer than he.
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LibraryThing member wendyrey
A collection of short stories, essays and musings. Very clever and (mostly) interesting and enthralling. A few bits when over my head somewhat but altogether well worth the read.
LibraryThing member jveezer
A very good collection of stories and essays and parables in a very nice edition by the Folio Society. I enjoyed it and plan to return to the stories to re-read them at some point in the future, as this was my first meeting with Borges.
LibraryThing member P_S_Patrick
Borges Labyrinths is about 3 quarters short stories, 1 quarter essays. The main themes of Borges' writings are "games with time and infinity", and he really is rather clever with them. As well as the wonderful aesthetic qualities that his works have, the quality is not just superficial, as most
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present the reader with something quite profound to think about too. A lot of what he has written has an unplaceable timelessness about it, this is stuff you will want to read more than once. Show Less
LibraryThing member CliffBurns
Call this a "Borges Reader"--a wide-ranging cross-section of fiction, essays and commentaries. What a mind this man possessed; a true devotee of the printed word...
LibraryThing member maytinee
A slightly difficult read. However, once you figure out what your key to Borges is, things begin to click into place. For me, I need to understand his references and the contexts in which Borges is using them. As always, reading the invitation and the introduction helped greatly. I also assume
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Borges writes with a sense of tongue-in-cheek humor. Even if this is not the case, it gives the stories a slightly different interpretation. Show Less
LibraryThing member krisiti
The sorts of bizarre little stories I'd rejoice over if I found them in isolation, but all of them together was a bit much. Very intellectual, rational, a lot of work to read. Puzzle-box stories. Not just puzzles-- the puzzle-box idea conjures up something of the very abstract, esoteric flavour:
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pure intellect.I didn't quite solve the puzzles, though, at least I think I'm missing things. The first story, for example, with its initial discursion on stories hiding another layer of reality underneath them, perceptible to a very few readers: was it such a story itself? And yet its nature would seem to preclude another reality discernible by contradictions, as it is about the reinventing of the world into one of pure intellect that is contradictory to everything in this reality.That story took me incredibly long to read, almost an hour for 20 pages. I noticed a woman beside me on the bus glancing at its pages, with the made-up-latin story name at the top, and it occurred to me to wonder if she thought it was fiction or non-fiction I was reading.Other things: what was the rite practised by the followers of the Phoenix, the one that needs no description? And should I have been able to figure out what the 20-word sentence of brother Jerome was, that was quoted and caused his downfall and yet was not itself quoted in the story, at least not that I could find? I feel a desire to inventory all the sentences in that story that contain exactly 20 words, and compare their meanings.While puzzling through one other story, I found myself reading sentences backwards in hopes that they would mean better that way, although if there were such hidden messages, they were probably lost in translation. It is appropriate that I started reading the book one fourth in, proceeded to past the two-thirds mark, then returned to the introduction, the beginning and finally the end. Show Less
LibraryThing member mckenz18
Although I have read many of the stories comprised in this book many times over the last few years, I only just recently finished the last few I had never gotten to. What can I say about Borges that doesn’t go without saying? He’s brilliant; each of his stories is a universe unto itself. For
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me, this book is overall a labyrinth of entertaining and incredibly thought-provoking mind games. Borges has his obsessions that slip into plot and text continuously: the infinite, identity, reality, and metaphysics in general. For years I have been wanting to do an in-depth study on him and his work in terms of science fiction for one of my English classes, but I have yet to get around to that. Someday I should--he is the ultimate fantasist, but his style is wholly alien to that which is generally associated with sf and fantasy. I am not going to ramble, and I’m not even going to attempt to describe these stories, because I know I would find it impossible to do so in any kind of accurate or worthy way. What I will say is that this is one of my favorite books, I will go back to it time and time again, and although I don’t necessarily think Borges is for everyone, those that have the time and interest to work through him (he can be difficult) should go to a library and get this book now. Show Less
LibraryThing member soylentgreen23
I wanted so desperately to enjoy this book, but in the end I hardly understood most of what Borges wrote, and appreciated even less. Still, those stories I was able to figure out were excellent, and his ideas about the Quixote are incredible; I will remember them for an infinity of forevers.
LibraryThing member poetontheone
The short stories of Borges are exemplars of the form, being wondrous meditations on the nature of time, mortality, art, and existence. We find in Borges' elements of mystery, science fiction, and surrealism, but on top of that we find a magician, even more so than a magical realist. His stories
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transgress and often distort reality, defying time and space, much less genre. He often employs metafiction, among many other devices that define postmodern literature, with his use of them predating and aiding in formation of the concept. The essays here are not the warm dreams of his fiction, and as such are not quite as absorbing. This is perhaps excepting "A New Refutation of Time", which is on par with the greatest philosophical essays of its period and subject. Any reader looking for the roots of postmodernism, magical realism, science fiction, or postmodernism will no doubt find them in Borges' labyrinth, where they will no doubt wish to return throughout their days. Show Less
LibraryThing member antisyzygy
I think it must be impossible for us mere mortals to find anything new to say anything new about Borges. Each story in this collection is a finely polished gem; challenging yes, but dazzling in their virtuosity. Metaphysics, time, existence are common themes in the stories. Sometimes I found it is
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best to read through the story.letting it wash over you, before trying to analyse it. Show Less
LibraryThing member lautremont5
borges best collection of short stories from one of the greatest authors in the history of literature.
LibraryThing member jontseng
A book of tantalising and fascinating intellectual conceits. A reminder that one mark of genius is to make things look so simple...
LibraryThing member Sean191
This was my first experience with Borges. I picked up Labyrinths because so many people alluded to the influence Borges had on other authors I've enjoyed. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy Borges as much as the authors he may have inspired. To be honest, I didn't realize his work was by-and-far of the
Then it dawned on me.
Yes, I may have read it before, but the authors I was reading from were of course, borrowing from Borge. I did begin to enjoy some of the book from that point on, but he does make you work for it. By the time I reached the essays, I was leaning towards being a fan of Borges. Then, I read the essays. I disagreed with his definitive, "This is fact," statements. I also disagreed with the philosophy of infinite divisions of time making it impossible to ever reach, in his example, 14 minutes. Interesting thought, but I think it's more interesting to combine what he's saying with the idea that 14 minutes can be finite and infinite can be held within a finite.
That being said, it did provide some interesting thoughts to mull over.
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philosophical tilt. It actually took me a few pages to get a handle on that fact. Once I did, I still didn't enjoy it too much, having felt like I read similar before. Then it dawned on me.
Yes, I may have read it before, but the authors I was reading from were of course, borrowing from Borge. I did begin to enjoy some of the book from that point on, but he does make you work for it. By the time I reached the essays, I was leaning towards being a fan of Borges. Then, I read the essays. I disagreed with his definitive, "This is fact," statements. I also disagreed with the philosophy of infinite divisions of time making it impossible to ever reach, in his example, 14 minutes. Interesting thought, but I think it's more interesting to combine what he's saying with the idea that 14 minutes can be finite and infinite can be held within a finite.
That being said, it did provide some interesting thoughts to mull over.
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LibraryThing member wordherder
Enjoying it so far. On page 10 (of my copy), I found the inspiration for Lightman's book Einstein's Dreams.
LibraryThing member keithkv
This book is a collection of short stories that all share a similar theme: paradox and brain teasers. Mr. Borges plays with our notions of reality with expert care and wit. Since the stories are short you needn't expect lengthy exposition or chapters worth of character building. I would highly
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recommend this book for philosophers and artists, as it has the capacity to inspire both to new levels of thought and creativity. Show Less
LibraryThing member RMMee
Not sure how to comment on this. For those who have not previously read Borges, like me, be prepared to be bewildered at times. But that is not a criticism – he makes the reader work, to think through his convoluted themes, and I think a second reading would produce different views. I certainly
If the book consisted solely of the Ficciones, then I would be more positive. Borges shows a really carefully thought out structure in all his stories short stories. And some of them, I found to be absolutely fascinating – for example The Secret Miracle, The Lottery in Babylon, and Death and the Compass. But I’m afraid that I found the Essays more inscrutable - too inscrutable!
But I am pleased I have read the book. And I may read it again in the future.
The version I read was that published by the Folio Society, and the illustrations by Neil Packer complement the work so well.
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would not start to compare it with anything else I have read.If the book consisted solely of the Ficciones, then I would be more positive. Borges shows a really carefully thought out structure in all his stories short stories. And some of them, I found to be absolutely fascinating – for example The Secret Miracle, The Lottery in Babylon, and Death and the Compass. But I’m afraid that I found the Essays more inscrutable - too inscrutable!
But I am pleased I have read the book. And I may read it again in the future.
The version I read was that published by the Folio Society, and the illustrations by Neil Packer complement the work so well.
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LibraryThing member bookwoman247
Jorge Luis Borges is Argentina's most reknowned author, who is
particularly known for his short stories, poems, and essays, and deeply
philosophical, esoteric themes.
Labyrinths was a wonderful introduction to his work. The title
is just right because the biggest thing I came away with was the
feeling that I had been reading the literary version of an M.C. Escher
painting. Borges constantly has the reader questioning reality,
especially the realities of time and space.
I got this copy from the library. I started off wanting to read Borges
because I knew that many of his works had literary themes, centering on
books and writing. They do, but I found so much more than that! I have
called other writers brilliant, but Borges was brilliant almost to the
point of being on a different plane.
I'm not sure I completely understood all of the stories and/or essays,
but that's o.k.. I definitely want my own copy, because it seems meant
to be read over and over again, with the reader coming away with a
different perspective, a different understanding each time.
I would really love to own all of his work. He completely blew me away!
More than any other author, Borges has made me think and question, made
me want to jump off and research other authors and works which he
mentioned, and made me want to read other authors in whom I could see
his influence. I think if I were stuck on a desert island with only
one book, it would have to be one of his!
particularly known for his short stories, poems, and essays, and deeply
philosophical, esoteric themes.
Labyrinths was a wonderful introduction to his work. The title
is just right because the biggest thing I came away with was the
Show More
feeling that I had been reading the literary version of an M.C. Escher
painting. Borges constantly has the reader questioning reality,
especially the realities of time and space.
I got this copy from the library. I started off wanting to read Borges
because I knew that many of his works had literary themes, centering on
books and writing. They do, but I found so much more than that! I have
called other writers brilliant, but Borges was brilliant almost to the
point of being on a different plane.
I'm not sure I completely understood all of the stories and/or essays,
but that's o.k.. I definitely want my own copy, because it seems meant
to be read over and over again, with the reader coming away with a
different perspective, a different understanding each time.
I would really love to own all of his work. He completely blew me away!
More than any other author, Borges has made me think and question, made
me want to jump off and research other authors and works which he
mentioned, and made me want to read other authors in whom I could see
his influence. I think if I were stuck on a desert island with only
one book, it would have to be one of his!
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Borges' Labyrinths can be compared to a many-sided object which changes depending on the side at which you are looking, the direction of light, the time of day, and on and on ad infinitum. . .
Each story, essay or parable has so many references and nuances of thought and layers of meaning that it is
Each story, essay or parable has so many references and nuances of thought and layers of meaning that it is
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difficult for the reader to digest the wealth of ideas present in each artifice. This is what makes the book a complex read but a joy as the stories unfold and spark new thoughts in the reader's mind. Some of the topics touched upon include: the nature of writing and reading; idealism versus realism; the infinity of reality - or is it a dream? Borges questions the nature of time much as did Augustine ("What then is time?"), while he challenges identity and asks if we can be categorized as Aristotelians or Platonists, or at all. The book is difficult to read but worth the effort as all great books are. I enjoyed the journey, but found the richness of each artifice warrants limiting time spent reading the book in order to savor the depth a breadth of the text. I found the parable "Borges and I" a particular joy. Show Less
LibraryThing member humdog
this is the man who made it possible for me to believe in synthetic worlds
Subjects
Language
Original language
Spanish
Original publication date
1962
Physical description
288 p.; 7.64 inches
ISBN
0140029818 / 9780140029819
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