Jorge Luis Borges
I have recently completed a sampling of the fiction of Jorge Luis Borges, 30 short stories from his Collected Fictions. It is said that Borges has a novel’s worth of material in each short story and he himself despises the building of novels when the short story form is available. His interests include time, duplicates, language, sets, labyrinths, and Gnosticism. He is the forefather of magical realism and an obvious influence on a wide variety of authors.
My reading happily started with ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ (1941), the finest story I could subsequently find. For others, I would recommend only this story. Other stories seem in some way to be mere facets, echoes or confusions of this story, in a happily Borgesian way. It anticipates Heinlein’s seminal time travel story ‘All You Zombies’ and is the starting point for Grant Morrison’s fictional crossovers. Even more fascinating is the prediction and critique of the kind of fiction represented by The Lord of the Rings.
‘Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote’ is worth reading if you have the opportunity, expanding on a paragraph from ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ regarding the assignment of a different author to a work. Here a modern author deliberately and literally rewrites Don Quixote. Borges provides an insightful exploration of what this means.
Finally I’ll mention ‘Three Versions of Judas’ which is breathtaking in its idea of Judas as Christ. Other stories vary from clumsy to delightful, but the mental excitement of his stories wane, drawing you back to Tlon.
By David Golding, 1 month, 3 weeks after the fact
Some helpful analysis of ‘Tlon’ and ‘Pierre Menard’.