Labyrinths (New Directions Paperbook) by Jorge Luis Borges (PDF)

Description

The classic by Latin America’s finest writer of the twentieth century―a true literary sensation―with an introduction by cyber-author William Gibson. 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 André 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.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Review “The essays are always lucid and probing, and always slightly skewed, vaguely unsettling, again dislocating your sense of reality and truth. Ultimately it is this that always makes me return to Borges, this ability to make the world seem different …” ― BBC”Borges is arguably the great bridge between modernism and post-modernism in world literature.” ― David Foster Wallace, The New York Times”Borges anticipated postmodernism (deconstruction and so on) and picked up credit as founding father of Latin American magical realism.” ― Colin Waters, The Washington Times About the Author Jorge Luis Borges (1890-1982), Argentine poet, critic, and short-story writer, revolutionized modern literature. He was completely blind when appointed the head of Argentina’s National Library.William Gibson is a professor of ecclesiastical history at Oxford Brookes University. He is also academic director of the Westminster Institute of Education.

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐…to his enchantment through the short stories collected in “Labyrinths” (1962), which transmits his poetic magic irresistibly even through translation.” So wrote Clive James in his remarkable book,

⭐. Admittedly, I’m growing “long in the tooth” to begin Borges, and since I never had, and he is one of the “giants” south of the Rio Grande, the question nagged: If not now, when?” I also tucked away a significant caveat of James’: that Borges never objected to the junta that ruled Argentina in the early `80’s. In fact, he famously proclaimed that “he never read newspapers,” and James drew the proper and excoriating parallel with the Germans who proclaimed they had “no idea” what was occurring in those concentration camps.This book is divided into three sections. Most of the book is short fictional stories, far ranging in subject matter, and in my opinion, quality. The second section is rather straightforward critical essays, covering such subjects as the Argentinian Writer and Tradition, Franz Kafka, Paul Valéry and other literary figures. The third section is eight short parables. An introduction is provided by William Gibson, a science fiction writer most famous for his 1984 book,

⭐. The connection was hard to fathom.Borges displays an astonishing erudition of the contemporary and ancient worlds across metaphysics, religion, history, literature and the arts. The very nature of time, and the choices one makes are a recurring theme, and certainly the word “labyrinth” features in most every fictional story. The maze that is life. I found the story “Garden of the Forking Paths” recalling the best of W.G. Sebald and Jarvier Marias. Of course, the actual antecedents are reversed. How much of an influence did he have on these writers? Time never seems to be linear in his stories; the choices are multiple, so there is a quantum mechanics edge to them. And at any given point in time, positions are only so many “possibilities.” In “The Secret Miracle” Borges uses an epigraph from the Koran, long before many in the West did, for a story about a Czech Jew facing the firing squad. Time does a major compression in the story, as it supposedly does, at the moment of death. And for the following story, “Three Versions of Judas,” I was impressed that the one line he chose from T. E. Lawrence’s

⭐for the epigraph was: “There seemed a certainty in degradation.” Other stories involve Indians dying in prison, and a woman carefully plotting the ultimate revenge for the suicide of her husband. And “The Immortals” seems to be a rehash, with variations, of

⭐. “Funes the Memorious” concerns an autistic savant lacking, as they do, an ability to reason. In the essay section, there is a reasonable clear discussion of Zeno’s paradox.As with all collections, the quality of the stories, and the reader’s reception to them, are variable. With these, I found the variation extreme. Some stories were well-composed, with incisive passages. Others, I was left wondering: Maybe it’s my fault? I just don’t get it. And then others, I finished convinced that this was a literary version of a Jackson Pollack painting. Borges took various erudite and insightful sentences, and splashed them on the page, with no apparent connective tissue, as though he was putting the reader on: You don’t see the connections; then it is your fault. In real life, he seemed to exhibit some of these “poseur” qualities.Also, as an aside, and confirming what another reviewer pointed out: there are a large number of misspellings in this book that a basic run through spell-check would have corrected.I’d love for a commenter to urge me to reconsider, but I think this will be the only volume of Borges that I’ll read. 4-stars.

⭐If I was smarter, more well read, or more philosophical in nature I likely would have given this 5 stars.I can’t believe it took me over a week to read 250 pages… this book was *dense* yet thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking. At some point I had to give up trying to read, understand, and retain each individual story as a whole and begin to focus on and underline specific lines and specific ideas in an attempt to glean just a tiny fraction of what the author was trying to impart to the reader. Even though he and I are, apparently, the same…I was surprised when the collection shifted from short fiction to essays and happy when it shifted again to parables. The short works at the end were, perhaps, the easiest for me to grasp, the essays simply required too much knowledge I did not possess, and the fiction largely just flew over my head. At least until I realized I have not the capacity to fully understand with just a cursory reading.As one who cites

⭐and

⭐as two of my primary influences, I feel like many of the philosophies espoused here were familiar territory… just presented in an incredibly deep and unique way. I wasn’t particularly driven in any new direction by the content of the ideas (as best I could understand them), but the style was breathtaking and mind-bending. I was unprepared for the author’s predilection for Cervantes Miguel de, religion, the plight of the Jews, and Zeno’s paradoxes, but the redundancy probably helped my ability to follow and pretend that I understood. (Although I hate Zeno’s paradoxes it is, perhaps again, because I just don’t get it.) My grasp of South American history (both literary and political) is tenuous at best and yet another reason I feel like I have missed a large portion of what the author hoped (hopes?) to give to me. And, God, I wish I had a greater appreciation and understanding of Don Quixote…It sounds like I am complaining, but it was amazing to see some ideas I already held to be presented in such beautiful language. “I reflected that there is nothing less material than money, since any coin whatsoever is, strictly speaking, a repertory of possible futures. Money is abstract, I repeated; money is the future tense.” Yes. More, please. To have some things that I knew… yet did not know that I knew put in plain black & white in front of me was a thrill. “…except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death…” With every turn of the page, I found another phrase burned into my mind. And how I wish I’d begun underlining earlier. I will have to read this again in the near future… To the best of my ability to remember, “The Secret Miracle” and “The Immortal” were probably my two favorite short stories. I think they seemed to be the most straight forward and, perhaps, mundane allowing me to finally feel like I understood something. “The Secret Miracle” particularly stuck with me. What a beautifully succinct and poignant tale…As much as the fictions relied on the knowledge of the reader, (should I have been as happy as I was to pick up on the Raskolnikov reference?) the essays were even more daunting. Not to say that I did not benefit from them, but without the base knowledge, I often found myself lost… Lost and disappointed that the short fictions had ended. Which is why, again, I appreciated the structure of this collection placing the short parables at the end giving me some semblance of understanding.I feel as though I could talk about this for ages all the while saying nothing. I don’t feel like I’m worthy to press these keys and push my thoughts into the world. But everything that has happened to me and to the Universe as a whole, thus far, has led to this exact and specific present, which I will now make my past. Which does not exist.

⭐Potential buyers/readers should beware that the majority of this book of Borges stories (the first 207 pages to be exact) have been published separately under the title of Ficciones or Fictions.This collection of “Fictions, Essays and Parables” are essential reading for anyone who reads Borges. I am not his biggest fan but I found much of this book quite enthralling but have to admit I found it difficult to follow at times. Overall a nice volume by a highly acclaimed writer.

⭐This is probably the first serious work of literature I have ever read, and although I know next to nothing about literature, I wouldn’t shy away from predicting it to be the best I will ever read. The sheer imagination present in this book, in both the ‘creative, wacky’ sense of the word and in the more literal sense of an ability to deal with abstract ideas, is astonishing.If you like anything slightly unconventional, enjoy thinking about philosophical problems, or even simply like short stories,you will like this collection, without doubt. Highlights include stories about an infinite library with every possible book in every possible language (including meanigless letter combinations), and the mad cults that develop as a result of the frustration people have in finding any coherent language at all, and the story of a man who can remeber literally everything he experiences (take ‘literally’ completely literally). You’ll know already if that sounds appealing, but who am I to even attempt to describe the works in this book. It really does have to be read to be appreciated. It is worth buying just for the possibility you will enjoy it, because if you do, it’s incredible, and even if you don’t, you can still move on safe in the knowledge there’s (almost certainly) nothing quite like Borges you will ever read which could possibly provoke your bad memories of it!

⭐Essential works from the Godfather of Metafiction. The stories read like the prose equivalents of paintings by Magritte, De Chirico, Delvaux or Escher. Perhaps they lose a tiny bit in translation, but their effects remain uniquely tantalising.

⭐good condition

⭐Fantastic collection of short narratives. Highly recommended. Borges has the ability to bend your mind into various vicissitudes of time and space. Mind blowing.

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