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Labyrinths

4.47 of 5 stars 4.47 · rating details · 12,280 ratings · 631 reviews

If Jorge Luis Borges had been a computer scientist, he probably would have invented hypertext and the World Wide Web. Instead, being a librarian and one of the world's most widely read people, he became the leading practitioner of a densely layered imaginistic writing style that has been imitated throughout this century, but has no peer (tho Umberto Eco sometimes comes clo...more

Paperback, 251 pages

Published August 28th 1997 by New Directions Publishing Corporation (first published 1962)

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Apr 28, 2010 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: littry-fiction, my-summer-of-classix, books-everyone-loves-but-me, hey-shorty

why haven't i read borges before?? no one knows. and he was always pushed upon me - "how can you like marquez if you haven't read borges??" "you like donoso - you should read borges." "machado is good, but you should read borges." so - fine - i did. and i am utterly underwhelmed. so there. i am learning during my "summer of classix" that most of the books i have for some reason or another overlooked were probably overlooked for a reason. i naturally gravitate towards what i like - and i seem to...more why haven't i read borges before?? no one knows. and he was always pushed upon me - "how can you like marquez if you haven't read borges??" "you like donoso - you should read borges." "machado is good, but you should read borges." so - fine - i did. and i am utterly underwhelmed. so there. i am learning during my "summer of classix" that most of the books i have for some reason or another overlooked were probably overlooked for a reason. i naturally gravitate towards what i like - and i seem to have a filter that prevents me from picking up too many books i don't. when i force it, this happens. and i liked some of the stories. but borges isn't for everyone (although scrolling down my "friends who have read" list, it looks as though all my friends gave it five stars.) and i'm not accusing you bitches of inflating your ratings, but i have the sense with borges that some people are guilted into liking him. or pretending that they like him more than they do because he's borges. but i won't be. because i am not ashamed of my intellectual shortcomings. i embrace them. i am incapable of abstract thought. fact. as hard as i try, that whole achilles/tortoise thing? does not compute. so all of this hexagon spiraling into hexagon on top of hexagon... i feel like i am back in college (where every single person i ever knew had a copy of this book. and was a stoner.)but this is classic stoner thinking-chains. reflections, labyrinths, it's perfect for that kind of mindset. "dooood, imagine we were in a hexagon right now??" and i know this makes sense to some people with philosophical and theological mindbents, but for me its almost pain. there were about 6 stories i liked, but the first few almost made me weep with trying to find the value in them. sorry, borges. we were never meant to be.

mmmmkay - it seems that there are those who think it would be valuable "in a book review" to list the stories i did like. so: the shape of the sword, theme of the traitor and the hero, death and the compass, the secret miracle, three versions of judas, story of the warrior and the captive, emma zunz, the house of asterion, and the waiting. more than i thought i liked, but still - a sad minority.(less)

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Dec 07, 2011 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature, truthiness, invisible-pink-unicorn

A perfect book to buy for your early-teens little sister right when she starts showing interest in the opposite sex. Goes great in a Christmas bundle right along with Twilight, Gossip Girl, etc. Moms and pops and big brothers and sisters, make note! The holidays are right around the corner, after all...

(view spoiler)...more

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Dec 16, 2011 Ben Winch rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: argentine, short-stories, latin-american

For a few years in my early-20s I was obsessed with this book. Some of these stories I have read probably 10 times. The opening story ('Tlon, Uqbar, Orbius Tertius') is one of the most challenging, rewarding mind-f**ks in all literature. Borges's style is limited - this becomes clearer in his later work - but for me this collection is well-chosen. Rarely has so much innovation been crammed into such short a space - but innovation of the controlled kind. No displays of histrionics for this Argent...more

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Maureen Ben wrote: "@Maureen: Did you actually read the reviews I linked? I linked it because some of the reviewers explain pretty well what makes the Hurley...more Ben wrote: "@Maureen: Did you actually read the reviews I linked? I linked it because some of the reviewers explain pretty well what makes the Hurley translation inferior (in their opinions, of course -- I am ..."

i guess we can agree that opinions are opinions. i did in fact read what reviews i could the first time round. i didn't attempt the spanish one because i am lazy and portuguese but just now took a cursory look to see if i could discern anything about the translation itself, then put it through google translate just to be sure. nothing. so if you're talking about the first five reviews that gave the book one star and actually complain about the translation, yes, i read them. none of them make compelling arguments for using the word "atrocity" in my opinion: they certainly seemed to prefer other translations over this one. some of them suspect conspiracy, the last at least attempts to substantiate by giving two two-sentence comparisons which don't offend my sensibilities. for me, the most persuasive opinions on that page were the two comments on the first review. the fact that borges was moved to tears by the di giovanni translation is more compelling to me than all these opinions like this one: "Doubtless Mr. Hurley is a brilliant man, but he does not understand Borges subtle use of language. Hence in the stories Hurley translates, Borges words are stripped of their hidden meanings." well, that's certainly an opinion (not substantiated by any demonstration of this opinion with textual evidence) but it doesn't mean "abortion" to me. (that's me quoting a review not you. i use quotes, i might add, when i am quoting. and as to your objection of my using the word proof, saying i put words in your "mouth", i guess i'm sorry if you feel that it was overstated but it seemed implied. and in your last response to me you say "some of the reviewers explain pretty well what makes the Hurley translation inferior" translates, again, to the idea of proof in my mind. perhaps validation would have been more appropriate? i guess i am not an adept at the art of translating, either.(less)
updated 22 mar. 20:11

Ben Winch Whoa, I had no idea Borges could generate such interest! Back in the days before the internet I would have been thrilled to find 3 people who'd even r...more Whoa, I had no idea Borges could generate such interest! Back in the days before the internet I would have been thrilled to find 3 people who'd even read the guy, let alone felt passionate about him. Now he's in Popular Penguins and all!

Ben, as to the 'Collected Fictions', well yeah I have looked at that one, but it failed the first-line-of-Tlon test so I didn't look real closely.

Mike, yeah I see your point about 'Man on the Pink Corner', and stupid was too strong a word, but I think it unwise to translate a title so literally if it's gonna require footnotes for the intended audience to understand it, especially when the story in question is in other respects Borges' most accessible and could be the one to communicate with a mass audience (as it has done in Argentina). OK, so a scholarly, footnoted, literal-as-possible version is worthwhile at some point, but I guess at first glance I just don't feel this one is it. (By the way, this story is the one crucial thing lacking from 'Labyrinths' in my mind, and suffers from being tacked on the end of 'A Universal History...')

Maureen, you mentioned 'The Other' earlier, and that story did stick in my mind, but still it seemed a little pallid as compared to his earlier stuff. I know, I'm the first to admit I get obsessed with certain points in my favourite artists' development (Knut Hamsun is another example) and tend to ignore the rest of their output. I just had my Borges phase in a big way a while back. Hence, realistically I'm probably never gonna appreciate other translations, as these stories have been burnt into my mind in their earlier versions. But still, 'I owe the discovery of Uqbar to the conjunction of a mirror and an encyclopaedia' - you can't get more direct than that!

As to the question of translation in general, being a typically monolingual Anglo Australian I confess I'm mostly at sea here, despite that most of what I read is in translation. Given how few English language writers I read I've often wondered if I actually enjoy the work of translators better than that of authors - whether they're more rigorous or if it's just the passing through another filter, like another redraft, that makes much of their work seem so brilliant. Or maybe I just crave the traces of other languages and ways of explaining or seeing that linger in the best translations.

Roberto Bolano relates (in 'Between Parentheses') an anecdote originally told by Borges concerning translation. Borges sees an amateur Argentine staging of Shakespeare: the translation and acting are poor, but still he feels the familiar shiver down the spine, the chill of recognition of the bard's genius. Bolano says the moral is this: if you want to know if something's a masterpiece, have it translated, badly; if it still inspires passion in its new form, no question, it's a masterpiece. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I find something moving in this; it seems to say that there's something universal in all languages that cannot be lost no matter who the interpreter. With this in mind, far be it from me to dictate to anyone which version of Borges they should read, so long as they read him! And so long as I can still get hold of a copy of 'Labyrinths' if I need to.(less)
23 mar. 00:43

Oct 01, 2007 Mark Becher rated it 3 of 5 stars

Borges typically gets lumped into the South American "magical realism" genre along with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (whom I've still yet to read; shame on me). But his style is very peculiar. The book is supposed to be a collection of short stories, or as Borges himself called them, ficciones. But few of them are what one would typically consider stories at all. They tend to be short fictional essays, book reviews, obituaries, articles, etc. (There's also a detective story and a couple o...more Borges typically gets lumped into the South American "magical realism" genre along with the likes of Gabriel Garcia Marquez (whom I've still yet to read; shame on me). But his style is very peculiar. The book is supposed to be a collection of short stories, or as Borges himself called them, ficciones. But few of them are what one would typically consider stories at all. They tend to be short fictional essays, book reviews, obituaries, articles, etc. (There's also a detective story and a couple of first hand narratives.) Borges reviews books that have never been written, eulogizes people who have never lived, and writes articles refuting scholars that don't exist. And why? The best I could tell was that he wanted to explore what the world would be like if modern philosophy were actually true. He toys with Bishop Berkeley's idea that the physical world need not necessarily exist. So long as the sense perceptions it supposedly creates affect our consciousness it's material existence is superfluous. He also plays with Hume's denial of the existence of personal identity. Need it necessarily be the case that this string of sense perceptions which I call myself has any actual unity? Need it necessarily constitute a "person" at all? What if it is nothing more than a random string of impressions? Also, Borges enjoys meddling with the sequence of time itself. If two events happened in exactly the same way, why could they not simply be the same event? Is it necessary to posit the idea of temporal sequence at all? Could not all moments be entirely unrelated to each other? If these thoughts sound bizarre, that's because they are. But the "philosophers" are out there thinking them and Borges fictional rendering of their implications is as interesting a presentation of these ideas as one is likely to run across.

Another major theme of Borges thinking, and perhaps the most representative expression of his view of reality, centers on the notion of Labyrinths. For him, the mystery of reality can be best summarized by as a grand labyrinth. It is a puzzle which gives the appearance of reason/order to those trapped within its confines but which in truth is nothing more than an elaborate game. What does one accomplish upon reaching the center of a labyrinth? Is there indeed any purpose at all to the journey? And yet how can a man help but attempt it? Yet ultimately there is no meaning behind the movement; only the appearance of meaning; truly a torturous state for humans to find themselves in. But then again, that's where the modern quest has left us all at present. Final verdict: interesting but not amazing. Intensely cerebral fiction and so probably not to the taste of everyone; but short enough to make some dabbling in the work worthwhile.(less)

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Mar 25, 2013 Mike Lester rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I first encountered Borges as a young boy. I must have been 11 or 12. His name kept appearing in interviews with writers I was interested in, always popping up here and there like some kind of signpost pointing out a path I had yet to wander along. Borges. I was too young to really know how to pronounce the name, and thus it became a kind of magic word, like abracadabra. The way in which others talked about his work only enhanced this, adding mystery upon mystery. One woman I talked to described...more

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Nov 29, 2008 miaaa rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to miaaa by: Ronny, Lamya

Shelves: fictions-others

My first encounter with Borges was amazing. I looked into this great author from the eyes of Luis Fernando Verissimo. He idolised Borges, immortalised him in Borges and the Eternal Orangutan. Now that I met him on my own, I was in a nervous state and thinking of what should I do?! It's like a good friend of mine who was dumbfounded, not even able to say a single word when her idol -Bre Redana- stood next to her and talked to her.

And so I stood at the main entrance to Borges's Labyrinths. Think a...more My first encounter with Borges was amazing. I looked into this great author from the eyes of Luis Fernando Verissimo. He idolised Borges, immortalised him in Borges and the Eternal Orangutan. Now that I met him on my own, I was in a nervous state and thinking of what should I do?! It's like a good friend of mine who was dumbfounded, not even able to say a single word when her idol -Bre Redana- stood next to her and talked to her.

And so I stood at the main entrance to Borges's Labyrinths. Think about Harry Potter's fourth year in Hogwart and competed in the last task of the Triwizard Tournament, when he stood before the spinx answering the riddle. I experienced similar task. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius was the riddle I have to answer it or I would never be able to enter the labyrinth. It confused me first as I prepared myself for the regular Latin authors I've read, the way I react towards Marquez or Allende. But that was not the way it is. So I prepared myself for something broader than that border I made up, and voila I was inside the labyrinth.

I turned left. I don't know when exactly I read that if you're in a labyrinth just go left. Surprisingly, Borges enquires that common procedure as well. I arrived in the espionage era when he paid a visit to the garden of Ts'ui Pên, a labyrinth of labyrinths, and witnessed one of the best espionage trick we might know ever. Everytime I turned left, I found different worlds in each labyrinths. The class clash in Babylon, the confusion occured when I was in Don Quixote's labyrinth -this probably more because I haven't read it, or how Borges reminds me to be careful of what I wish for in the Secret Miracle because sometimes the death is better than passing the days all alone as the physical universe came to halt for everybody but you.

Again I turned left, and I found further amazement of Borges's labyrinths. I met a hero of a nation who was sentenced to death because he's a traitor. The death sentence carried in a way those Hollywood high-budget conspiracy movies would have done so well. I entered the Library of Babel, where all men would wander in searching for the Man of the Book. Then I met Judas, according to Borges, Judas betrayal was not accidental. It was a preordained fact which has it's mysterious place in the economy of redemption.

I had a one-life-time experience wandering throughout Borges's labyrinth. His fictions are amazing, however I've found it's hard to attach myself to his essays. He talked about those authors and their works that alienated me from the discussion. His concept of infinite bothers me, the theory of why Achilles would never overtake the Tortoise although we're all aware that Achilles -do not even think about Brad Pitt in the Troy movie- probably one of the fastest man on our humankind history. Last but not least, I wonder what affliction Borges has with mirrors.

***

Versi Indonesia menyusul yah hehe

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Sep 27, 2012 Kaput rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, really-enjoyed

Whilst I was reading this something odd began to happen. Borges is so obsessed with symmetry that I became obsessed about his obsession. I started thinking that maybe it applied to his writing and started counting the amount of words in each sentence, or noted when opposite words would appear next to each other like good/bad, right/left. I was sure I was seeing the topics he is most obsessed with such as mirrors, labyrinths and repetition imprinted within his style of writing, it was like I'd di...more Whilst I was reading this something odd began to happen. Borges is so obsessed with symmetry that I became obsessed about his obsession. I started thinking that maybe it applied to his writing and started counting the amount of words in each sentence, or noted when opposite words would appear next to each other like good/bad, right/left. I was sure I was seeing the topics he is most obsessed with such as mirrors, labyrinths and repetition imprinted within his style of writing, it was like I'd discovered some secret portal in to his mind. Then I realized that I was reading him in translation and I felt pretty stupid.

It was with one story in particular that this happened called "The Zahir" I don't think I've ever felt an author get so completely inside my head as Borges managed with this one. I've no idea how much time passed reading this six/seven page story as I was so transfixed in contemplation, savouring every paragraph and feeling horrified by the idea of a single object, the zahir (in this case a coin), becoming an all consuming obsession. That it can come to represent everything within the universe, a singular image within the minds eye that everything, endlessly relates back to.

"First I could see the face of it, then the reverse; now I can see both sides at once. It is not as though the Zahir were made of glass, since one side is not superimposed upon the other; rather it is as though the vision were spherical and the Zahir flutters in the centre. Whatever is not the Zahir appears to me filtered and distant:"

In all honesty I found this story so potent it could well become my Zahir. I haven't been able to get the image this paragraph contains out of my head, it is, absolutely, the best short story I've ever read. It can be found here -

http://southerncrossreview.org/66/bor...

And a fair portion of the other stories aren't far behind, exploring ideas such as memory, time (he questions whether it even exists), chance, determinism and most strongly the concept of infinity - its existence in every split second and event, whether it means every choice is played out endlessly, whether it means every possible you comes in to existence or whether it means that everything has already happened. The lines are constantly blurred between reality and fiction, alternative histories seep through the pages, dates have something practical and portentous about them, an entire lifetime of learning is thrown at you.

Repetition, repetition, repetition - these same themes are worked on over and over again with little variation. Some of the stories sag because of this and don't seem that distinct from each other. Maybe this was intentional, the idea of taking an idea and then subtly altering its outcome each time. It would chime with his idea of every choice having a multitude of paths and his desire to explore them all, but I don't know, maybe I'm reading too much in to Borges and I need to come up for air.

I enjoyed this book despite not particularly agreeing with his philosophy. There is a heavy dose of solipsitic indulgence which pervades his thoughts. "If a tree falls in a forest" comes to mind. I don't particularly like this idea when you may aswell ask does the world cease to exist when I die? Borges would see this as a serious metaphysical problem where I think the answer is pretty straight forward. Of course it doesn't - the world does not revolve around us. To think otherwise is to believe our minds created the entire universe – the stars, other people, plants – just for ourselves, and Borges comes pretty close to alluding that this is what he thinks.

Dry in tone, detached and reeking of alienation. No matter which quixotic character he assumes it is always Borges speaking to you, it's always him, he can be nobody else. (less)

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Dec 27, 2010 Erik Graff rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Erik by: Martin Steinfels, Mike Miley

Shelves: literature

This is the first Borges book I ever read. Since then, of course, he's died and all of his short stories have been collected in English. Mike Miley, the person who spends more money on books than anyone I've ever known (and is very generous in sharing them), purchased that complete collection, bringing it up to the cottage in Michigan during his last visit. When I saw it amidst Michael's travel bags (a small one for clothes, a big one for books and papers) I immediately asked if I could have at...more

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Mar 04, 2008 Josh rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Theseus

A labyrinth is a structure of indeterminate size made up of walls that twist and turn into the unknown, loop back around to familiar corridors and terminate in impassible cul-de-sacs. Unlike a maze – a game with an achievable goal – labyrinths are built with the intent of getting and keeping its occupants irrevocably lost.

It’s kind of how I felt reading Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths.

That isn’t a bad thing, mind you. Borges’ storytelling is complex and dense, and some of the stories required a s...more A labyrinth is a structure of indeterminate size made up of walls that twist and turn into the unknown, loop back around to familiar corridors and terminate in impassible cul-de-sacs. Unlike a maze – a game with an achievable goal – labyrinths are built with the intent of getting and keeping its occupants irrevocably lost.

It’s kind of how I felt reading Jorge Luis Borges’ Labyrinths.

That isn’t a bad thing, mind you. Borges’ storytelling is complex and dense, and some of the stories required a second skimming before I really felt like I understood them. But this “lost” feeling - of distractions by too many choices, of confusion then revelation - is inevitable in a collection of stories whose most frequently occurring theme is the idea of infinite time and space implying infinite variation.

One thing that struck me as interesting is that many of Borges’ labyrinths (and as a previous poster has noted, no, he doesn’t exactly let you forget the title) are themselves books. There’s the encyclopedia of a fictional planet in Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertis, an ancient Chinese novel in The Garden of Forking Paths, a verbatim rewrite of Cervantes in Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote, a play in The Secret Miracle, a theological essay in Three Versions of Judas, a sort of historical reenactment of Julius Caesar in Theme of the Traitor and the Hero, the back-and-forth of competing philosophers in The Theologians, and more.

The best example of both book-as-predestination and infinite variation themes, however, is The Library of Babel, about a library the size of the universe (or a universe whose only contents are a library). The library is a presumably infinite number of floors made of interlocking hexangular galleries, each occupied by one or more librarians and walls lined by every book conceivable – as well as some that are not. The narrative is told from the point of view of one such librarian and describes how books of every combination of letters and words possible means the biography of every individual that has ever existed or ever shall exist is shelved somewhere, how almost religious crusades have been mounted to find the one volume that describes the origination and purpose of the library itself, and how even if one comes across a book filled with seemingly garbled text, eventually another book can be found which describes that jumble of miscellany as a language, prompting the narrator to ask, “You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?”
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Sep 24, 2007 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories

I thought I would love this book, but it ended up being so inaccessible. I can see how it would really speak to someone who has studied the intricacies of the historical or literary subjects Borges covers, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. Maybe I didn't try hard enough.

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May 11, 2008 E rated it 5 of 5 stars

Why hasn't anyone smacked me over the head with a copy and said, "Read this, dummy"? I want to live in his brain.

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Sep 14, 2011 Aaron rated it 5 of 5 stars

I followed the winding labyrinth from Cervantes, to Sterne, to Rabelais, to Chesterton—on and on into paradoxical writings I go, 'til I come to believe that irony is the all.

Paradoxically, Borges sits in a library high above; that is cerebrally and intuitively. Borges being a librarian only partially explains how he came to read such obscure authors. I am impressed, and inspired to leave postmodern commonality in literature behind.

What can be said of the stories, essays, and strange parables col...more

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Sep 08, 2010 Simon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-story-collections, fantasy

This is a collection of stories exploring the various themes that interest Borges such as infinity, time, identity and paradox. They are densely written stories evoking complex imagery that require deep concentration on the part of the reader, and probably several re-readings.

I was forced to spread this collection out over several weeks, reading other books in between, because it would have been far too intense reading them all in one go. They certainly aren't light reading.

The stories were pro...more

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Sep 06, 2008 John rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: adults who think, read, & savor

Recommended to John by: maybe Arturo Arias

Shelves: avatars-gods-energy-sources, short-story-masters

BOAR-hez? The name met with blank looks, I was shocked to discover, when I mentioned it on this year's first day of fiction workshop. Look, the man realigned the spine of Creative Writing. He did it with a feather touch, too, a mere dozen or so swiftly unfolding ironies, calibrated for maximum contortion of whatever you expect. The range of reference, to be sure, is encyclopedic -- literally: the Britannica features in a few of his essentials, like "Tlon, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius" -- yet the cor...more

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May 25, 2009 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: barthelme-syllabus

Reading Borges is a little like taking your vitamins. I know he's probably good for you, important and influential to literature, but his stories don't always make for the most enjoyable reads. However, I'm proud of myself for finishing this and am glad that I have some knowledge of what he's about.

The fiction in Labyrinths is full of academia surrounding religious myth, science, history, conspiracy theories, Cervantes, etc. It's possible that one could read some stories and be unaware that they...more

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Mar 13, 2009 Kristi Thompson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: halucinatory

The sorts of bizarre little stories I'd rejoice over if I found them in isolation, but all of them together was a bit much. Very intellectual, rational, a lot of work to read. Puzzle-box stories. Not just puzzles-- the puzzle-box idea conjures up something of the very abstract, esoteric flavour: pure intellect.

I didn't quite solve the puzzles, though, at least I think I'm missing things. The first story, for example, with its initial discursion on stories hiding another layer of reality undernea...more

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Dec 09, 2008 Jason is currently reading it

This is why you should read this book. The amazing creativity and profundity of it all.

"The Immortal" p. 114

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal. I have noted that, in spite of religions, this conviction is very rare. Israelites, Christians, and Moslems profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since...more This is why you should read this book. The amazing creativity and profundity of it all.

"The Immortal" p. 114

To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is immortal. I have noted that, in spite of religions, this conviction is very rare. Israelites, Christians, and Moslems profess immortality, but the veneration they render this world proves they believe only in it, since they destine all other worlds, in infinite number, to be its reward or punishment. The wheel of certain Hindustani religions seems more reasonable to me; on this wheel, which has neither beginning nor end, each life is the effect of the preceding and engenders the following, but none determines the totality. . . Indoctrinated by a practice of centuries, the republic of immortal men had attained the perfection of tolerance and almost that of indifference. They knew that in an infinite period of time, all things happen to all men. Because of his past or future virtues, every man is worthy of all goodness, but also of all perversity, because of his infamy in the past or future. Thus, just as in games of chance the odd and even numbers tend toward equilibrium, so also wit and stolidity cancel out and correct each other and perhaps the rustic Poem of the Cid is the counterbalance demanded by one single epithet from the Eclogues or by an epigram of Heraclitus. The most fleeting thought obeys an invisible design and can crown, or inaugurate, a secret form. I know of those who have done evil so that in future centuries good would result, or would have resulted in those already past. . . Seen in this manner, all our acts are just, but they are also indifferent. There are no moral or intellectual merits. Homer composed the Odyssey; if we postulate an infinite period of time, with infinite circumstances and changes, the impossible thing is not to compose the Odyssey, at least once. No one is anyone, one single immortal man is all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedius way of saying that I do not exist.
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May 06, 2013 Greg Talbot rated it 5 of 5 stars

Usually you can read a couple short stories of an author, and get a pretty good idea of their style, worldview and general stream of thought. Borges's always stays steps beyond me. A bibliophile who imperiously positions vocabulary and subtle shifts in a story, "Labyrinths" is wondrous and unique.

Based on my initial understanding of the stories, Borges often focuses mostly on the imagination and internal thoughts of a first-personal narrator. Often a subtle detail will reveal something about th...more

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Mar 26, 2013 William rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you want to read Borges, this is, I believe the best collection in English to start with. It has all the best stories, and the translations seem to me to be generally better than the Collected Fictions, where all the stories are translated by Andrew Hurley. Borges invented a new type of literary story by combining real sources with imaginary ones and then adding an element of the fantastic to the mix. He was all but unknown until he was sixty years old, but by the time he was seventy he was a...more

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Nov 06, 2012 Tom Bensley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-best-of-the-very-best

Read this book. Read it twice. Tell your friends to read it, force them to read at least one short story so you can have somebody to talk about it with. And If they refuse to read it, constantly badger them until the only way they can remain friends with you is by reading this book.

As you could guess by all the other reviews, this isn't your average book. It's a book of (very) short stories, essays and parables. It's not a book with beautiful drawn out characters that you can love and relate to...more Read this book. Read it twice. Tell your friends to read it, force them to read at least one short story so you can have somebody to talk about it with. And If they refuse to read it, constantly badger them until the only way they can remain friends with you is by reading this book.

As you could guess by all the other reviews, this isn't your average book. It's a book of (very) short stories, essays and parables. It's not a book with beautiful drawn out characters that you can love and relate to desperately wish you could get to know, nor is it a plot driven book that keeps you guessing on every page as to what's going to happen next. It's because of this absolute removal from anything conventional that Labyrinths remains unforgotten by its readers. Borges is concerned with thinking, and with making his readers think. Not just think, but think about their thinking and think so much that they eventually wonder what they are even thinking about.

It's important that I don't spoil this book for you, so I will remain vague about the content actual stories. What I want to talk about is the feeling of reading these stories. Labyrinths seems inspired from Borges having too many complicated questions in his head. Have you ever thought about the ultimate metaphor to the universe, life itself? How you would express it? Borges has. Do you wonder what makes something real? What makes something false become more real when it is thrown in among the real? (Think Baudrillard's Simulacra). Do you think about death? About the desire to do something important, something so important that you will need to transcend death in order to complete it? Borges thinks about that, and he shows you, in his own way, how one might approach these questions.

This collection is philosophy, it's fiction, it's fantastical and it's science fiction. Tt's even murder mystery and magical realism. It is the literary equivalent of wandering into a labyrinth with no intention of getting out. If you have ever thought there may be limitations in what the novel can do, Labyrinths will prove you wrong. In less than two pages.

One last note: There are many writers inspired by Borges, but the one I have come across who is absolutely mesmerised with his work and using it in his own way, is the Latin American author Roberto Bolano, author of The Savage Detectives and 2666. If you happen to be a fan of his, check out his biggest source of inspiration. The guy LOVED Borges.(less)

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Sep 08, 2012 Alec rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed, oddness

Jorge Luis Borges has a tremendous reputation among slightly odd people (I think I first encountered him during my efforts to read everything JG Ballard ever wrote, from classics to curiosities to shopping lists), so he’s been on my radar a while, without my ever having read anything by him. He was fairly notable for his essays and poetry, too, but I concentrated on his short stories and what Labyrinths classifies as ‘parables’, which, thankfully, ain’t exactly New Testament material.

So after m...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Jee Koh rated it 5 of 5 stars

There are marvels in Borges's mazes, but there are no monsters, or more precisely, the monster is the maze. The thin line between fiction and fact, the multiplying paths of choice, the confusion of chance and fate, the interdependence of memory and forgetfulness, the regressions of infinity: these are the speculative themes embodied in his short stories, which are ostensibly about secret cabals, German spies, an endless library, ancient sacrifice, murder mystery, theological controversies, and t...more There are marvels in Borges's mazes, but there are no monsters, or more precisely, the monster is the maze. The thin line between fiction and fact, the multiplying paths of choice, the confusion of chance and fate, the interdependence of memory and forgetfulness, the regressions of infinity: these are the speculative themes embodied in his short stories, which are ostensibly about secret cabals, German spies, an endless library, ancient sacrifice, murder mystery, theological controversies, and the failure of a medieval Muslim intellectual to understand the Greek categories of comedy and tragedy. Borges takes a popular genre, such as crime thriller or science fiction, and, by exploring and subverting its conventions, exposes our assumptions about reality. My favorite stories in this collection are "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis, Tertius," "The Garden of Forking Paths," "The Library of Babel," "Funes the Memorious" and "Death and the Compass." In these the starting premise is developed to the fullest extent; the mazes are not only complex but shapely.

A few of the stories, such as "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" and "Three Versions of Judas," read like essays. I find them unsatisfying as stories, but wonderfully teasing otherwise. This collection does give a selection of Borges's essays written as essays. The two essays that shed the greatest light on his stories are "Avatars of the Tortoise," which is about Zeno's paradoxes, and "A New Refutation of Time" about his idealistic outlook. The essay "The Fearful Sphere of Pascal," which traces the evolution of the image of "a fearful sphere, whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere," reads like one of his stories.

In the essay "The Argentine Writer and Tradition," he argues that the Argentine writer should not limit himself to local or national subjects. Instead, the whole world lies at his feet. "For that reason I repeat that we should not be alarmed and that we should feel that our patrimony is the universe; we should essay all themes, and we cannot limit ourselves to purely Argentine subjects in order to be Argentine; for either being Argentine is an inescapable act of fate--and in that case we shall be so in all events--or being Argentine is a mere affectation, a mask." The sentiment here resonates with me. A writer "creates" his own predecessors, as his essay on Kafka argues, and the writings finally create a symbol of a man, like the infinitely sensitive Paul Valéry or the liberating George Bernard Shaw, who wrote in a letter, quoted admiringly by Borges, "I understand everything and everyone and I am nothing and no one."(less)

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Dec 12, 2011 Brown.carolyn rated it 4 of 5 stars

A labyrinth is not only a maze in the garden of a castle; it is also the interweavings of a journy, the unexpected surprises of life, the dreams of someone who doesn't know who s/he is, the plans of someone who thinks s/he knows who s/he is, the mysteries of the past, the confusions of the present, the unknown of tomorrow,the homes we make to hide from others but which then become our prison, the libraries which are not but the universe itself, the adventures of humans, and the plots of the Gods...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Amanda Canupp rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Borges: Efficient and Poignant

Labryinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges. New Directions, 2007. Originally translated from Spanish. New York City.

This collection of short stories features Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’s great works translated from Spanish into English. From “The Library of Babel” to “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Borges evinces his mastery of the short-story mystery genre coupled with the Modernist underlying mess...more Borges: Efficient and Poignant

Labryinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges. New Directions, 2007. Originally translated from Spanish. New York City.

This collection of short stories features Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’s great works translated from Spanish into English. From “The Library of Babel” to “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” and “The Garden of Forking Paths,” Borges evinces his mastery of the short-story mystery genre coupled with the Modernist underlying message. Each of these stories is short, but dense, with setting, character, plot, and major dramatic moment compiled into X words. That means a lot of story in just a little bit of space and it is what made Borges such a brilliant author.
In “The Library of Babel,” the narrator draws the reader into a world of infinite connected libraries, filled with books of knowledge that a particular librarian is responsible for. Every person is a librarian in this world and has a section of books in the library of their own. The problem is that these books are not ordered or even sensible--these books are not put into words, just randomly ordered with all the characters of the alphabet and all the punctuation marks--yet they are valuable because they contain every possible combination of characters in the language. Because the caretakers of the books cannot glean the knowledge from these nonsensical books, they are angry and despondent. Borges confronts the reader with this question: what does it mean to live in a world in which we do not, cannot, and will not know everything?
“Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” is a dense story with a narrator who has discovered an encyclopedia entry about a mysterious place called Tlön. The protagonist obsesses over this other planet, searching the world for the meaning behind this mysterious article. Everyone knew about Tlön, yet no one could remember how they knew about it. Ingrained in their culture, in the end it turns out that the entry was created as part of a conspiracy; Tlön was never a real place, yet the world the narrator describes is slowly becoming like Tlön, a place that is unreal. Borges used this story as a message about the Nazi party marching through Europe with their dangerous messages of hate and racism. Borges is a tinkerer of language, playing with our conception of thoughts and how they can manifest into what we know of reality. He twists fiction into reality and back, making this a tightly-packed purveyor of multi-faceted messages.
“The Garden of Forking Paths” is another famous short story about a narrator who must navigate a labyrinth of ideas to send an essential message to the outside world. The protagonist literally must find his way through the garden to come to the ultimate conclusion, but he must also rake through the cornucopia of falsehoods to get to the truth. Borges uses this story to work on multiple levels, introducing the idea of a text that can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways depending on the reader’s understanding of meaning. In other words, something is only meaningful if it has meaning for the individual. This introduced the radical concept of “new media” or “hypertext,” which allows for development in the way we approach reading. This, of course, was written more than fifty years ago, which makes Borges decades before his own literary time.
Even translated into another language, this work is beautifully written, with specific attention to detail and concise language that packs imagery and imagination into short, complex sentences. What’s fascinating is that fact that even in other languages, this still works to send the same message, the same images, which means that the original writing had to be efficient, carrying layers of meaning with just a few words. With so much to get out of these stories, they definitely take several reads, which challenges a reader, but makes him or her a more learned citizen of the literary world as a result. I learned that I could make diction work for more than one purpose, that you can attach significance and poetry into your works to make them more effective. Writers should be voracious readers, and any writer who not only consumes but also stops to consider the meaning of this collection of Borges’s great works can’t help but take away the same lessons.

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Sep 20, 2011 Marie rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm somewhat afraid to type up a review about this book, in case it becomes gushing and sounds fan-boy-ish. Put very simply, I adored this book. It felt (I know this is corny) like some sort of spiritual awakening to find Borges - I just connect so much with his style of writing, his subject matter, that I can't help but laugh when I read it.

My personal favourite of the stories in this book - The Library of Babel - jolts the reader. It feels like the concept has been distilled so many times tha...more

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Sep 17, 2011 David Williamson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: great-fiction

I tend to have a problem with the format of short stories, as I can't invest in them. It does seem that it will continue as Borges didn't quite capture me with his wonderful shorts. 'Labyrinths' by Borges is a book with some beautiful imaginative stories, and does delve into thought that wouldn't be predominant until the late 60s.

In this sense he is very ahead of the game, but sadly not in his ability to actually make any connection out of it. His notions on identity and authorship are what mak...more

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Apr 06, 2011 Jorge Garcia rated it 5 of 5 stars

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

By: Jorge Luis Borges

New York: New Directions Publishing, 1964.

Cervantes, secret societies, lotteries, and Babel. At times, using the word "masterpiece" comes off as hyperbolic, very few things in the world warranting that phrase which captivates imaginations and yet has lost its meaning over the years of artistic expression. Jorge Luis Borges' collection of short stories, "Labyrinths," deserves to be acclimated by no less than that phrase and it is...more Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings

By: Jorge Luis Borges

New York: New Directions Publishing, 1964.

Cervantes, secret societies, lotteries, and Babel. At times, using the word "masterpiece" comes off as hyperbolic, very few things in the world warranting that phrase which captivates imaginations and yet has lost its meaning over the years of artistic expression. Jorge Luis Borges' collection of short stories, "Labyrinths," deserves to be acclimated by no less than that phrase and it is without a doubt one of the (of a very small group) most well-written, skillfully edited, engaging, and mystifying anthologies in the history of the written language.

Borges has always had respect in the field of writing when it came to world-building and philosophical world-sense. Borges was (is) also famous or his astounding knowledge and encyclopedic mind. In Labyrinths, we, the readers, are presented with a small bookshelf of fantastic reads that show the breadth of Borges' talent and range in the craft of writing. The small tome itself is categorized into three blocks of medium: Fictions, Essays, and Parables. The fiction block is the longest in the book and takes up about half of the whole product. There are about 20 fiction pieces represented (depending on the edition that you are reading). The essays are less dramatic and more insightful and offer a fair glimpse into Borges' mind. The parables are the smallest chunk of the book and present the reader with bite-sized flash mythologies that have just as much life and contemplation in them as his larger works. In the forthcoming lines we'll speak about his fiction specifically as trying to get everything involved
is nary impossible without writing a book about the pieces themselves.

To see everything that Borges had to offer, one would have had to take a tour of a massive library but in Labyrinths, all of his great, short works are brought together. Eschewing in-depth
exhibition of plot lines, we'll take very short glimpses at what Borges has to offer. “The Circular Ruins” offers a deeply moving recursive tale of an old magician who slowly brings a boy to life through his dreams. “The Library of Babel” is a short piece that offers a whimsical and awe-inspiring description of an ancient library in which every possible combination of letters and words is stored, a nearly infinitely sprawling collection of books (what a pipe dream). “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Terius” is a strange tale which rides on a wave of metaphysical mysticism and philosophical science-fiction. The short story is mind-bending and fits within the space of fifteen pages.

The mention of fifteen pages brings me to what makes Borges one of the most unique and talented writers the earth has ever known. Short stories are not simple fare. To get a point across within such a limited amount of space is difficult when a story must be told along side it. Borges writes flash-fictions that might have more impact on the reader than a 300 page novel. Borges knows how to trim the fat and show you what he wants to, removing everything that is unecessary to tell the reader what they must know.

Aside from the indelible mark he has left on the short-story form, he has also left an inspirational mark in the minds of many stylists. Borges' style is complicated and pensive, his words have weight and tell stories all their own. What might take another writer a page to describe, Borges describes in a single sentence. It is difficult to find something wrong with this collection but perhaps it is that very complicated style which might detract some readers. I found myself looking over lines and even pages multiple times through my read-through to understand the whole story but that is just something one must become accustomed to when it comes to Borges voice. At times clear as day, at times opaque as night. When all is said and done, Borges is a literary genius and this collection should grace the shelves of every literature or essay enthusiast.
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Sep 27, 2010 Leanna rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is for a class. I read just under half of the stories; we read the essays next week.

I first read many of these stories as a high-school senior. I remember they absolutely blew my mind. The idea of reality being not what it seems; the idea that any reality can exist if logically constructed minutely enough--all of these brilliant "what-if" worlds and thought-experiments were glorious to me, for, as a teenager, I spent most of my life in a dream world. Nothing at all interesting was happenin...more

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Apr 05, 2010 Amanda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is incredibly difficult, especially in the beginning. I had to read the first story, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," three times, and to be honest, I still don't quite grasp it. Borges is smart, creative and seems to inhabit a world quite unlike the one with which we are most familiar. He plays with the concept of language, not to mention our ideas of self, God, and pretty much everything else. I tend to read incredibly fast, and this short little book took me almost a month to finish.

D...more

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Feb 09, 2010 Tony rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-mainstream

Borges, Jorge Luis. LABYRINTHS. (1964; this ed. 2007). ***. This work by Borges is divided into three parts. The first part contains a series of fictions (short stories) that for the most part leave one baffled as to what one has read. Although they are called fictions, they are really approaches to fiction – or, indeed, a deconstruction of the fictional techniques used by this author and by writers in general. Borges, born in Argentina in 1899, was an extremely well-read man and a polyglot. His...more Borges, Jorge Luis. LABYRINTHS. (1964; this ed. 2007). ***. This work by Borges is divided into three parts. The first part contains a series of fictions (short stories) that for the most part leave one baffled as to what one has read. Although they are called fictions, they are really approaches to fiction – or, indeed, a deconstruction of the fictional techniques used by this author and by writers in general. Borges, born in Argentina in 1899, was an extremely well-read man and a polyglot. His readings – at least those that he refers to in his writings – are mainly in philosophy, ethics, religion, and turn-of-the-century fiction from around the world. The stories in some way use the metaphor of the labyrinth, or, in many cases, a mirror, as the core of the tale. Some of the fictions can be read on a fairly simple level; others are multi-dimensional and multi-leveled, and probably require re-reading to further understand them. His reasoning in many of the tales teeters on the edge of the absurd, much like the old religious debates on the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. Dipping into the tales themselves, I found that several of them were more accessible to me than others. These included: “Tion, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius,” “The Garden of Forking Paths,” “The Library of Babel,” and, “Death and the Compass.” The second section of the book contains “Essays,” which – on the whole – are easier to read and understand, although he does continue to use obscure references and obfuscating reasoning in many of them. The final section is called, “Parables.” These are typically one-page works that expand on one thought and become opinions rather than parables, per se. If you are the kind of reader that likes to put a lot of effort into reading a writer, and, in many cases re-reading him, then this is the book for you. My take is that writing is only as good as the thinking behind it. Sometimes writers think too much.(less)

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About Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (Spanish pronunciation: [xoɾxe lwis boɾxes]) was an Argentine writer and poet born in Buenos Aires. In 1914, his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school and traveled to Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in Surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. Bo...more

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Quotes from Labyrinths

“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.” — 72 people liked it

“Whatever one man does, it is as if all men did it. For that reason, it is not unfair that one disobedience in a garden should contaminate all humanity; for that reason it is not unjust that the crucifixion of a single Jew should be sufficient to save it.” — 66 people liked it

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