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A review by nayneyneigh
Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges
5.0
What an incredible collection. Borges is unmatched in his creativity and imagination. The sheer immensity of the mind-boggling ideas he manages to pack into every single story left me dizzy after completing many of these short stories.
As Borges writes in the prologue to the Garden of Forking Paths, "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 artfully realizes this concept, stuffing each story with so many elaborate ideas and evocative imagery that the narrative of each is fit to burst at any moment!
This works on another layer as well. I see Borges's writing as an invitation to the reader to write the stories as much as the author himself. There are countless mysteries and paradoxes within the stories (and often times between them) which are left unaddressed. It was in the process of reading this collection that I found myself creating my own stories out of the ideas and details that Borges left on the page, seemingly unexplored. In these instances, it seemed apparent that Borges was goading me, allowing me to generate a world surrounding his rich, dense prose.
It perhaps goes without saying that this must have been one of his intentions in writing this collection as it fits beautifully with his themes of duality, mirrors, and the interplaying influences between writer and reader, predecessor and successor, past and present.
There is so much more for me to write about this tremendous contribution to the realm of literature, but I believe that any praise I can write about this book is the tiniest grain of sand to the infinite beach which is the book itself.
STOP READING THIS AND GO READ FICCIONES RIGHT NOW.
As Borges writes in the prologue to the Garden of Forking Paths, "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 artfully realizes this concept, stuffing each story with so many elaborate ideas and evocative imagery that the narrative of each is fit to burst at any moment!
This works on another layer as well. I see Borges's writing as an invitation to the reader to write the stories as much as the author himself. There are countless mysteries and paradoxes within the stories (and often times between them) which are left unaddressed. It was in the process of reading this collection that I found myself creating my own stories out of the ideas and details that Borges left on the page, seemingly unexplored. In these instances, it seemed apparent that Borges was goading me, allowing me to generate a world surrounding his rich, dense prose.
It perhaps goes without saying that this must have been one of his intentions in writing this collection as it fits beautifully with his themes of duality, mirrors, and the interplaying influences between writer and reader, predecessor and successor, past and present.
There is so much more for me to write about this tremendous contribution to the realm of literature, but I believe that any praise I can write about this book is the tiniest grain of sand to the infinite beach which is the book itself.
STOP READING THIS AND GO READ FICCIONES RIGHT NOW.