Rating: 
Summary: A delightful exercise of fantasy.
Review: A highly reconmendable book for whoever that thinks as Paul valery: "There are other worlds,
but they are in this one".
Rating:
Summary: Perfect Fantasy Stories from a Momumental Imagination
Review: Witty. Twisted. Inside-out and backwards view of the world
from one of the sharpest writers ever. For anyone who
loves books.
Rating:
Summary: A Literary Masterpiece
Review: I read "Ficciones" when I was younger and was blown away by it, but didn't actually understand anything in it. I have recently reread the entire work and am once again blown away. I still don't understand quite everything he says, but even getting past that the stories are incredible. My favorite is 'Theme of the Traitor and Hero,' but I also like 'The Library of Babel,' 'The Circular Ruins,' and 'Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.' His style is so concise it amazes me- an idea that would take an enormously long novel to examine satisfactorily if given to another author takes Borges a mere four and a half pages (as in 'Theme'). This might sound detrimental to the work or discouraging to the reader, but that is not the case. It is discouraging, however, in the sense that you want to read more- you almost wish it was a 400-page novel (a novel that would probably be the opus for any other writer) and not a short story that the reader is through with in five minutes.
Rating:
Summary: Metaphysical Angst
Review: After years of running into this name, "Borges," I felt as though I were falling short of my expectations as a reader to ignore this man and his colossal reputation. Ficciones seemed to be his most widely read and critically acclaimed book, and so I inevitably found myself reading it.To try to capture the essence of Borges in a handful of words is like trying to capture the Lochness Monster on film: impossible, but frequently attempted. With that understanding in mind, here's my assessment: All of Borges's stories are very different, and yet they all share a common sensibility, one of understated but very deeply felt anguish. This is not the anguish of an ordinary writer feeling sorry for himself and his fate. This anguish is deep, metaphysical. You get the sense that Borges views life and his fellow human beings at a distance, and yet is able to see more and understand more from this distance. He does not attempt to explain; he simply wants to impart his sense of awe, wonder, and inevitability. The subject matter varies widely: an infinite library, a scholarly review of the life's work of a fictional writer, a boy with a perfect memory. Some of his stories are Kafka-esqe in a nightmarish sense, while others have the intellectual playfulness of an M.C. Escher drawing: what you thought was 'up' is really 'down,' and yet once you see the big picture you realize that this is the only way it can be. The endings are as inevitable as death, and yet you rarely see them coming. I'm not so sure that Borges wrote his stories with a specific point or message, although many of them seem to have one. I believe that most of these stories are simply meant to inspire thought and contemplation of the very issues that Borges had been thinking of when he wrote them. One could do a lot worse than to see things through the eyes of this great thinker. My only complaint is that his stories are not as accessible as they could be, and his scholarly manner may be problematical for some. But the most effective pills are often the hardest to swallow...
Rating:
Summary: Quantum Fiction
Review: FICCIONES is a slender collection of mercifully short stories by Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges. These brightly sterile and rigidly structured stories require such careful attention that they would be impossible to digest were they any longer. Fortunately, Borges is disdainful of literary navel gazing and gets to the point. In the prologue he writes, "The composition of vast books is a laborious and impoverishing extravagance. To go on for five hundred pages developing an idea whose perfect oral exposition is possible in a few minutes!" Borges is faithful to himself. His prose is stark and purposeful. Imagine GRAVITY'S RAINBOW collapsing under it's own weight to form a neutron star.
The seventeen stories in FICCIONES (the first eight originally published as "The Garden of Forking Paths" in 1941 and the last nine as "Artifices" in 1944) explore language, thought, memory, logic and literature through the distortions of time. The relative nature of time is a central preoccupation in the work of Borges, though no comparison to Einstein is implied. Borges has much more in common with the inexplicable world of sub-atomic particles, full of strange charms and flavors. Sometimes these stories seem to start at random, following twisting strings forward for an infinty before looping back to an irreducible point, culminating in a new view on exsistence. As he writes in one of the best stories "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote" (the absurd title of which may give some clue into Borges' style), "A philosophical doctrine is in the beginning a seemingly true description of the universe; as the years pass it becomes a mere chapter - if not a paragraph or a noun - in the history of philosophy". All of the stories in FICCIONES, the absurd memoirs, self-referential mysteries and reviews of imaginary books, reflect this idea and are rendered with care, every noun vital.
In "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", the story of an otherworldly encyclopedia, Borges writes, "To explain or judge an event is to identify or unite it with another one". It is difficult to explain Borges by identifying him with another author or book. He is often compared to Stanislaw Lem and Italio Calvino. There are some superficial similarities, but most of Borges stories lack any trace of humanity. Even at their most abstract, Lem and Calvino are concerned with mankind. For Borges, his characters are a literary device, a McGuffin. The most accesible story in FICCIONES, "Form of the Sword" appears to be a character study, but that is just a disguise for an exploration into memory and questions about the true nature of reality. The closest approximation to Borges is a (supposedly) non-fiction book, Douglas Hofstadter's GODEL, ESCHER, BACH, which in all fairness should include Borges in the title instead of relying on Lewis Carroll for literary support. Of course, the inclusion of Borges would have rendered much of GODEL, ESCHER, BACH unnecessary. Why be obtuse for 700 pages when Borges can enlighten in 140?
Rating:
Summary: A Good Start to Borge's Universe.
Review: Jorge Luis Borges (1899 - 1986) was one of the greatest Argentinean's writers of all times. Since 1970 he was candidate to Nobel Literature Prize, which he never attained. In 1980 he was bestowed Cervantes Prize, the Spanish major literary award. He influenced two generations of Latin American writers. Even those who despised him as "elitist writer" admired his powerful imagination and writing skills.
Jorge Luis was born in a high-class family. He was bilingual, due to his English grandmother. He moved with his parents to Europe where he resided from 1914 till 1921. When he returned to Argentina he fells in love with Buenos Aires. This love affaire begot several poetry volumes and inspired him many stories.
Borges was an omnivorous reader with a wide range of interests: from Cabbala thru Golems; from Mythology thru Gaucho's hardships; from Immortality thru Infinite; from Buddhism thru Christianity. His tales reflect this interest.
The present volume encompasses two of his earlier stories collections: "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941) and "Fictions" (1944) and constitute a fair sample of his writings and style.
"The Babylon Lottery" describes an improbable world, ruled by fate embodied in a lottery game. "Funes the Memorious" elaborates on what happens if a person may recall every instant of his whole life. "The Garden of Forking Paths" is an elegant spy's story, mixed with subtle laberynths. "The Library of Babel", is one of Borge's best known texts, where he speculate on an infinite library containing every volume of human literature and gave way to mathematical speculation.
In other tales the reader will get in touch with some themes very dear to Borges: mirrors, treason, solitary Hero, multiple divergent versions of the same character, whole universe created ex nihlo from his imagination and more much more.
If you like fantasy you probably will fall in love with this book and search for more Borge's works. If you don't like fantasy you may be hooked by a prose rich in images and a powerful literary and philosophical imagination.
Give this book a chance, you will no be disappointed!
Reviewed by Max Yofre.
Rating:
Summary: The master of the word : Jorge Luis Borges !
Review: Jorge Luis Borges radiant magnetism and vital presence was simply overwhelming . When you open any work of this knight word you inmediatly are transported to another level .
Ficciones represent undeniable, one of the multiple reasons which shows his genius touch .
The south american literature had In Argentine and Uruguay six unforgettable writers ; Julio Cortazar , Adolfo Bioy Casares , Juan Carlos Onetti , Horacio Quiroga , Ernesto Sabato and Jorge Luis Borges .
In the genre of the short novel Borges embodies so many ancient and outstanding authors ; Stevenson , Hawthorne , Conrad , and an unfinished list of famous and unknown pen masters .
I remeber two remarkable anechdotical episodes of Borges life ; the first was in an interview in which he stated : When I decided to write I became in a second rank writer after being a reader first level (ironic answer obviosly); but the second is simply unforgettable . He was in 1975 on Caracas in a TV interview .
The question turned about how he felt with his blindness (obviously this was a question absolutely out of context and vulgar even) , but Borges answered wise and carefully.
I have to thank first at all to Maria Kadama , my loyal and lovely couple : she became my eyes and always have read all what I requested her ; I worked in the Buenos Aires Central Library and always read and read till the midnight almost daily . So I just can say that after having read TWELVE THOUSAND BOOKS in my life , I can say with justice : Welcome the blindness .
The female interviewer remained mude with such brilliant and sincere statement . That was the prize she had to pay for such indiscret, insolent and delicate question .
Rating:
Summary: Most influential writing of 20th century South America
Review: Nearly every story in this historic work takes literature to a new level and in a new direction simultaneously. This is Borges in his full-blown form, which can still be read today and seem altogether different from what any other writer is doing. It is the stories from this work and El Aleph which make Borges the most influential South American writer of the 20th century.
FICCIONES, published in 1944, was the result of gathering together two volumes of Borges' short stories. The first volume, EL JARDIN DE SENDEROS QUE SE BIFURCAN (which contains the short story of the same name) was published in Buenos Aires, December 30, 1941; it is a rare book, and was never separately translated into English. The second volume, ARTIFICIOS, contains stories of a somewhat different nature than the first. Many of the stories in both volumes had previously appeared in the literary journal Sur.
The most famous story is 'El jardin de senderos que se bifurcan', or 'The Garden of Forking Paths'. On the surface, it is a spy story set in World War I, although the plot seems to erupt out of the tatters of an old newspaper left in a cafe. But slowly the story also concerns itself with labyrinths (one of Borges' pet devices), the metaphysical nature of time, fictional versus real people, events, and history, etc. By the end of the story, it is not even clear if the characters, the Chinese Dr. Yu Tsun, 'former professor of English at the Hochschule at Tsingtao' or expert sinologist Dr. Stephen Albert, are real or fictional constructions. Borges vast comprehension of Spanish and the romance languages, of English and German, are often on display; occasionally, as in this work, he reveals a knowledge of China as well.
In addition to its enormous influence, FICCIONES has the virtue of being very brief, although the reader may return to the stories over and over again without tiring of them.
Rating:
Summary: A Literary Masterpiece
Review: I read "Ficciones" when I was younger and was blown away by it, but didn't actually understand anything in it. I have recently reread the entire work and am once again blown away. I still don't understand quite everything he says, but even getting past that the stories are incredible. My favorite is 'Theme of the Traitor and Hero,' but I also like 'The Library of Babel,' 'The Circular Ruins,' and 'Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius.' His style is so concise it amazes me- an idea that would take an enormously long novel to examine satisfactorily if given to another author takes Borges a mere four and a half pages (as in 'Theme'). This might sound detrimental to the work or discouraging to the reader, but that is not the case. It is discouraging, however, in the sense that you want to read more- you almost wish it was a 400-page novel (a novel that would probably be the opus for any other writer) and not a short story that the reader is through with in five minutes.
Rating:
Summary: Complex and fascinating philosophical fictions
Review: Placing an exagerated emphasis on the `mind game' aspect of Borges' work - especially when referring to Fictions - tends to make one consider his writings as huge mystifications which, although interesting enough to read, are first and foremost games of no major consequence. This underestimates the ambiguity that Borges knowingly uses and strips his works of their speculations' positivity. The use of the `what if...?' motif, intrinsic to all fiction writing, is systematically employed by Borges in stories which, starting from axioms (explicitely acknowledged in `The Library of Babel'), explore themes from multiple viewpoints (cosmology, philosophy, theology, art...) and provide multiple levels of interpretation. Stories such as `Death and the Compass' and `The Garden of Forking Paths' are as much about the mechanics of suspense-laden literature as they are, among other things, about the relationship between someone and his/her intellectual and spiritual pursuits; pieces like `The Library of Babel' and `Funes the Memorious' are at once fairy tales and fascinating texts on knowledge. Through metaphor and allegory, the stories of `Fictions' provide a vision of the world devoid of restraining reflexes; reading them, one is forced to question his/her own habits (the same can be said about Borges' reviews of imaginary authors and books). The theme of the double, which was to become even more important later, here surfaces in stories where the notions of hero and villain are reconfigured. `Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius' and `Pierre Menard, author of the Quixote' are probably the best-known, but every piece manages to raise questions and problems, not always solving them. Essential reading.
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