A review by david_rhee
The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges

4.0

I went into my self appointed minor league reading rehab program by picking up short stories collections mostly because I concluded, well, I can't seem to read long stories lately...so how about those short ones? That was not a great idea. No knock against the stories by any means, but my thought process was, as it has been many times before, just flat out wrong. Borges' stories are deep and complex. To have to develop plot and characters completely and speedily within such a confined space probably necessitates that kind of density. There was time bending craziness and portals into the infinite and death in many odd forms. But also there is the dusty hardened violent life in the old Argentine which felt so real it could be heard and smelled. I can't say any of this was uplifting and not saying it intended to be, but was it entertaining and engaging? Absolutely.