Labyrinths (1962)

Enjoyed the fiction, fascinated by the essays, in love with the parables. ( )

A delight. Each piece hovers a different lens across the remarkable erudition of its author. Borges’ deep, dreamlike prose is difficult to read but highly re-readable.

Using myriad allusions to science and the western canon as tools, Borges writes fictions that takes apart ideas in human thought. Many stories follow an encounter with the philosophical or esoteric unknown. The tension comes as much from the intellectual implications as from the protagonists’ apprehension. For example, in Funes the Memorious, a meditation on a boy with perfect memory, Borges concludes that the gift destroys cognition. Other stories feature concepts like a world where Berkelian idealism is literally true, a library of every possible book, or an immortal city in the era of Rome.

Borges’ literary criticism sheds light on the origins of his ideas as it deconstructs the western canon. One thing that sets these essays apart is that Borges is learned in mathematics as well as literature, and his logical tendencies distinguish him from other pansophic critics like Harold Bloom. In particular, Zeno’s infinitesimal paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise shows itself again and again in Labyrinths, and finally receives a full treatment in the essay Avatars of the Tortoise.

The parables show Borges at his purest, unconstrained by the demands of form. Though short, their exotic ideas leave the reader with a strange and singular aftertaste, like waking from a dream.
Borges is not for the faint of heart, but if you find yourself looking for something tough to chew on, few authors are richer than he. ( )

Fabulous volume. Favorite stories are:
Asterion
Circular Ruins?
Shape of the Sword

Amazing that every time I read Borges stories, I always get something new out of them. ( )

I was disappointed to realize this is largely the same material as Ficciones, and the stuff that's not also in that collection isn't really that much better. Borges is still great for pushing your brain to weird new places but ultimately I'd say just get Ficciones instead. ( )

"You are everything, and everything is you" -The Stylistics
-also, Jorge Luis Borges

infinite recursive labyrinths and god. ( )