Selected Non-Fictions

Rating:
Summary: A sundae of Borges
Review: Borges, besides being a poet and short-fiction writer, took his ultra-worldly ideas to "non-fiction" pieces as well. As you can imagine, the mind-bending work in fiction is even more thought provoking when Borges remarks on Shakespeare, the clipping of one's toes, or the nature of art.

Perhaps the best part of this collection are the "non-fictions" from The Chronicles of Bustos Domeqc -- a very cheeky collection of essays which are written about fictive subjects: a poet who is doomed to repeat himself, a new wave of cuisine where taste has devolved to elemental proportions -- salty, sweet, tart, etc.

Borges wrote as a literarist: he knew his work would be collected, read, and re-read. These collection "non-fictions" are finely translated, with a fresh breath and fresh pen by a trio of translaters.

Rating:
Summary: A sundae of Borges
Review: Borges, besides being a poet and short-fiction writer, took his ultra-worldly ideas to "non-fiction" pieces as well. As you can imagine, the mind-bending work in fiction is even more thought provoking when Borges remarks on Shakespeare, the clipping of one's toes, or the nature of art.

Perhaps the best part of this collection are the "non-fictions" from The Chronicles of Bustos Domeqc -- a very cheeky collection of essays which are written about fictive subjects: a poet who is doomed to repeat himself, a new wave of cuisine where taste has devolved to elemental proportions -- salty, sweet, tart, etc.

Borges wrote as a literarist: he knew his work would be collected, read, and re-read. These collection "non-fictions" are finely translated, with a fresh breath and fresh pen by a trio of translaters.

Rating:
Summary: A sundae of Borges
Review: Borges, besides being a poet and short-fiction writer, took his ultra-worldly ideas to "non-fiction" pieces as well. As you can imagine, the mind-bending work in fiction is even more thought provoking when Borges remarks on Shakespeare, the clipping of one's toes, or the nature of art.

Perhaps the best part of this collection are the "non-fictions" from The Chronicles of Bustos Domeqc -- a very cheeky collection of essays which are written about fictive subjects: a poet who is doomed to repeat himself, a new wave of cuisine where taste has devolved to elemental proportions -- salty, sweet, tart, etc.

Borges wrote as a literarist: he knew his work would be collected, read, and re-read. These collection "non-fictions" are finely translated, with a fresh breath and fresh pen by a trio of translaters.

Rating:
Summary: Vastly enjoyable
Review: In one of the pieces contained in this book, Borges claims that more than a writer, what he really was was a great reader. That was his vocation. Indeed, I do not know of anyone who read more widely, with more understanding, and with more contagious enjoyment that Borges. The pieces in this collection shine through with his delight for what has been termed "the aesthetics of intelligence": knowledge and abstract thought as art.

Borges, who never wrote anything long in his life, was the master of the short essay. Every piece is full of profoundest and most unexpected insights, whether it purports to be about Citizen Kane, Argentinian literature, or the Ars Combinatoria of Ramon Llull. I recommend this book very highly.

Rating:
Summary: Jorge Luis Borges And The Canadian Rebellion Of 1944 That Cu
Review: Jorge Luis Borges And The Canadian Rebellion Of 1944 That Cut Off Relations With Greece
Many sociologists agree that Jorge Luis Borges is clearly the most monumental event in Roman history. While other powerful scholars may disagree, it became obvious that Jorge Luis Borges was not nearly as monumental as Cuban anthropologists would have us believe. This claim is confirmed by three skillful points: the Marcus Aurelius Coup of 1916 that cut off relations with Ireland, the Roman Doctrine of 1968 that paved the way for the Anarchism Doctrine, and the Abraham Lincoln Revolution of 1945 that improved relations with the Italian citizenry.

In 1781 a member of a reknown group of Japanese historical writers wrote: "Nothing succeeds like success." (King 90) In some circles, this caused revolution; in others, revulsion. This begs the question, was Jorge Luis Borges Colonialism? In 1913 it was thought that "It hath been an opinion that the American elite are wiser than they seem, and the French populace seem wiser than they are; but howsoever it be between nations, certainly it is so in Jorge Luis Borges." (Gould 120) Obviously sociologists recognize that the two are intertwined.

These days the lessons of Jorge Luis Borges seem outdated and irrelevant. It's easy to forget that, once, Jorge Luis Borges was a reknown force that changed the minds and hearts of the Italian landed gentry. Even as late as 1945, Abraham Lincoln noted, "To the memory of Jorge Luis Borges, first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of German countrymen." (Cromwell 121) God bless America.

The End

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Rating:
Summary: Mandarin
Review: Kafka knew the pathetic result of procrastination. Resultantly he ordered Max Brod to destroy his work. Two ideas govern Kafka's work, Borges maintains, subordination and infinity. His works contain infinite hierarchies. Kipling and Nietzsche shadow both Jack London and Ernest Hemingway who were both men of action.

Borges blocks out a personal library wonderfully and amusingly. He compares Kierkegaard to Hamlet! Useful notes appear at the back of the book. The volume contains 161 pieces. The introduction of Eliot Weinberger notes that Borges was a master of concision. Borges characterizes James Joyce as a millionaire of words and styles.

As a young man he postulated that all literature is autobiographical. He charges the belief in the inferiority of translations is a superstition. For reason of causality, temporal succession, texts always seem right. Rereading makes them better, more inevitable. The English have an apetite for adventure and legality Borge asserts. A detective narrative encompasses both passions. Borges writes of Croce, Dreiser, S.S. VanDine, Spengler, V. Woolf, T.S. Eliot, and many other writers. He finds Aldous Huxley's fame excessive. He claims for Huxley an intolerable lucidity.

Novelists present a memory of reality. Borges casts MOBY DICK as the infinite novel. One of the pieces is called "The History of the Tango." Borges proclaims the tango is sexual and violent. It has a compensatory function. Swift and Flaubert were fascinated by madness. The concepts espoused by Carlyle are an obvious Presbyterian legacy. Emerson professed a fantastic philosophy, monism. The Germans were very moved by Defoe's ROBINSON CRUSOE and produced countless imitations.

Gibbon's DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE has been a recognized masterpiece for two hundred years. Swedenborg anticipated the nebular theory of Laplace and Kant. He would have liked to talk to Sir Isaac Newton. Borges describes his blindness, an hereditary affliction of his father and grandmother too. He explains that the blind live in a world that is inconvenient. Milton, the historian Prescott, and James Joyce were blind.

This is an appropriate selection of prose works of an incredibly bright mind.

Rating:
Summary: Across The Ocean - Another Labyrinth.
Review: One of the most cherished items in my ever-expanding library is my dog-eared copy of "Labyrinths", complete with the coffee-, alcohol-, and bath stains which lend it almost as much character as the words within its covers. This new edition of Borges selected non-fiction will no doubt in the fullness of time reach a position of equal prominence on my bookshelves. The debate will forever rage as to whether Borges deserves that grandest(yet often all too hollow and ephemeral) of epithets - "Great Writer", purely by virtue of the fact that he never wrote anything of more than a few pages in length. But the pellucidity and erudition of his prose raises quality above quantity to an altitude from where we lose sight of the debate, thus rendering it redundant. Along with a number of essays already available elsewhere, including the seminal "New Refutation Of Time", this collection ranges in typical Borges style from film reviews (King Kong, The Petrified Forest etc.), through dispassionate yet condemnatory meditations on Fascism, to his well- ploughed but ever-fruitful ground of literary rumination.His series of essays on Dante opened this reader's eyes-and heart- to the true heartbreaking nature of that poet's relationship with Beatrice, prompting a reappraisal of a book I gave up on fifteen years ago, halfway through "Il Purgatorio"; this summer, I've promised myself, I WILL read the whole of "Il Divina Commedia".Not out of a sense of duty, you understand, but because I WANT to. Therein lies the hub of Borges greatness as a writer: his self-proclaimed greatness as a reader manifests itself on the written page as dizzying eclecticism and enthusiasm for allusion that moves the reader to explore not only new avenues of thought, but also a newer and more verdant landscape of literature than had previously been suspected to even exist. Sail with Borges and new continents, new constellations will rise before you. On a personal note I have Borges to thank for my discovery of Hume, Chesterton, the Pre-Socratics, St Augustine,Flann O'Brien,Thomas Browne, and so many others who would have remained permanently below my horizon otherwise. If you feel that reading a book should an experience of expansion, of glimpsing new vistas,to develop a hunger for exploration, then this is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Across The Ocean - Another Labyrinth.
Review: One of the most cherished items in my ever-expanding library is my dog-eared copy of "Labyrinths", complete with the coffee-, alcohol-, and bath stains which lend it almost as much character as the words within its covers. This new edition of Borges selected non-fiction will no doubt in the fullness of time reach a position of equal prominence on my bookshelves. The debate will forever rage as to whether Borges deserves that grandest(yet often all too hollow and ephemeral) of epithets - "Great Writer", purely by virtue of the fact that he never wrote anything of more than a few pages in length. But the pellucidity and erudition of his prose raises quality above quantity to an altitude from where we lose sight of the debate, thus rendering it redundant. Along with a number of essays already available elsewhere, including the seminal "New Refutation Of Time", this collection ranges in typical Borges style from film reviews (King Kong, The Petrified Forest etc.), through dispassionate yet condemnatory meditations on Fascism, to his well- ploughed but ever-fruitful ground of literary rumination.His series of essays on Dante opened this reader's eyes-and heart- to the true heartbreaking nature of that poet's relationship with Beatrice, prompting a reappraisal of a book I gave up on fifteen years ago, halfway through "Il Purgatorio"; this summer, I've promised myself, I WILL read the whole of "Il Divina Commedia".Not out of a sense of duty, you understand, but because I WANT to. Therein lies the hub of Borges greatness as a writer: his self-proclaimed greatness as a reader manifests itself on the written page as dizzying eclecticism and enthusiasm for allusion that moves the reader to explore not only new avenues of thought, but also a newer and more verdant landscape of literature than had previously been suspected to even exist. Sail with Borges and new continents, new constellations will rise before you. On a personal note I have Borges to thank for my discovery of Hume, Chesterton, the Pre-Socratics, St Augustine,Flann O'Brien,Thomas Browne, and so many others who would have remained permanently below my horizon otherwise. If you feel that reading a book should an experience of expansion, of glimpsing new vistas,to develop a hunger for exploration, then this is for you.

Rating:
Summary: Something for everyone
Review: This is one of those books you can just pick up, open to a random page, and start reading. His essays, like his stories, are quite short, and he writes on an astonishing variety of subjects. A big movie fan before he went blind, he writes on "Citizen Kane", "King Kong" and "The 39 Steps". He writes on Germany as it descends into barbarism in the 30s and 40s. He shares his thoughts on a wide array of writers, from Virgil to Kierkegaard to Shakespeare, to his wonderful meditations on Dante, and into Dostoevsky, Whitman, Joyce, Kafka, Faulkner, even Bradbury and H.G. Wells. I've barely even scratched the surface. The companion collection is called "Collected Fictions", which is funny since the line between fiction and non-fiction is often quite blurry for Borges. But both these collections are highly recommended for anyone and everyone, regardless of familiarity with the author.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional collection of short stories and essays.
Review: With playful parodies and re-formulations of contemporary narrative forms, Borges demonstrates his current status among writers such as Kafka, Poe, and Nabokov.