What's your favourite Borgesian story/poem?
Other than these:
Library of Babel
The Circular Ruins
Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Personal fave is Funes the Memorious. I don't know how to judge his poetry since Spanish is all Greek to me. But it seems okay, with a few metaphors and images standing out.
funes was great, one of my top ones too, OP
garden of forking paths was also pretty cool
>>8195192
Theologians.
>>8195192
The Immortal is one of my personal favorites. The moment when he finds outthe troglodyte was Homer all alongis the most /lit/erary plot twist I've ever read.
Shakespeare's Memory
>>8195192
Bustos Domecq with Casares is full of laughs
The Lottery of Babylon deserves to be on that shortlist
Three Versions of Judas is powerful - I feel like Scorcese's The Last Temptation shows the same idea that, yeah it was hard to be Jesus - but it must have been REALLY hard to be Judas
>>8195192
I really liked The House of Asterion, because of the flipped perspective. The final line made me punch myself for not getting it earlier.
>>8195211
I didn't understand that one, sadly, since I am not Christian/didn't grow up in a Christian household/know nothing about Christian mythology/history.
Parable of the Palace
Aleph
Book of Sand
Borges and I
Funes
whats the one with mirrors? I think he references some ancient literary text and plays around with historical characters. If I recall corerectly he mentions the southern region of Argentina. That one.
>>8195365
>Book of Sand
I haven't read all of his Fictions yet but I didn't like this one. It seems on first glance the epitome of the kind of story Borges would write but it is not well executed. He introduces an infinite book... and leaves it at that. The anxiety the presence of the book causes in his life is barely treated (for a paragraph or so).
>>8195403
Yeah I recall that one being kind of week, like a second rate Library of Babel
Aleph is very fun, especially that pretentious epic poem
>>8195875
That's an interesting observation considering Borges considered the story of the gaucho his weakest writing.
I enjoyed the Aleph.
>>8195403
I don't follow your logic here
>>8195192
The one about the old exiled king and the one-sided coin. The MC kills the king and steals the coin but loses it in the snow. Don't remember the name.
Then there was one about a knife fight on a plain...yeah, I'm gonna have to narrow that down, don't I? All I remember is it references a famous scene from a different Argentinian writer, a remake of sorts.
Then there is this one that's like an autistic, dreamy, intellectual love story. It never gets mentioned as anyone's favourite, but I find it endearing as much as it is weird. You don't see many love stories in JLB, or female characters. It's in one of his late collections.
There's one about a macabre race between two men with slit throats. Not that it's one of the greatest, but the subject matter is indeed remarkable. Of course I forgot its title too.
The one about the two lady painters who find themselves in a lifelong tacit competition between themselves. I never see it mentioned either.
Looks like Alzheimer's beginning to set in a little sooner than expected. Or maybe it's just this hellish heat.
Oh, and there's El Sur. There's no way I'm forgetting that title.
>>8195192
I find that ironically there is a lot of crap to sift through in the case of Borges. He has a handful of interesting ideas reiterated and permuted endlessly in his Ouvre and one really has to parse it down into the most essential of his works. You almost ruin the experience of reading Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius or Garden of Forking Paths by reading some of his lesser works.
>>8195206
The Immortal is beautiful. So dense with themes.
I love how he explained how the Immortals didn't perceive time because they were so enraptured in thought; one hadn't moved for years and a bird nested on him, one fell in the riverbed and they didn't throw him a rope for years and when they did he didn't even notice.
That one's probably my favorite too, but j haven't yet read them all
The Book of Sand
The Immortal
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.
Really interesting and raises a lot of questions about how we think about the author when reading literature.
>>8196615
First three are:
The Disk
The South
Ulrikke
Idk the others i havent read full works only Ficciones, Aleph, Labyrinths, Book of Sand and Shakespeare's memory and Dreamtigers and so i gues its not in those collections
>>8196631
Yes. I have ventured beyond his popular stories and a lot of it is tripe, really, coming from a man who loved literature but could not go beyond simple namedropping (such as "Berkeley's God"). Never does he exposit borrowed ideas either in his stories or in his poetry.
I'd say about 10% of his oeuvre is worth reading, and even less is worth mulling over.
His nonfiction, however, for example his book on poetry (This Craft of Verse), seems to begood.
>>8195206
This post gave me Borgesian feels. You've posted this before.
Lottery of Babylon is basically a better Library of Babel and quite possibly his best.
>>8196631
>>8199063
I wouldn't say it's tripe, but it certainly isn't literature and it wasn't meant to be. The Garden of Forking Paths is one of Borges' best and it's just a detective novel at heart. Borges was playing around with everything he'd read and he loved when he wrote.
The South is my second favourite.
>>8199330
From what I've heard, he was well-known for his poetry back in his country and elsewhere in the Hispanosphere.
Y'all should read some of it if you haven't. Penguin has a nice edition of most of his poems in a bilingual edition.
>>8196631
>>8199063
It is true that Borges repeats to present a few ideas. To say that it's not worth reading is an exaggeration. Many of the stories are still great. As if Shakespeare's memory would be somehow bad, for example. Still well worth reading. He's an exceptional writer. But yes, repetitive. This is even more the case with his poems, but that doesn't make it unworthy of reading because it's still great.
>>8200721
I am only saying you don't want to read them out of order (in terms of best to worst not chronology) if you want to get the full impact. I made the mistake of reading them in the order the book presented them (likely chronological).
>>8195192
I have a special affinity with El Sur.
It's my favorite short story, and probably always will.
>>8199312
They concern entirely separate subject matter. Did you literally just go and read the titles?
What's the one with the king and the musician? I think the musician kills himself and the king becomes a beggar by choice.
The Immortal
The House of Asterion
The Theologians
The Two King and the two Labyrinths
>>8195192
>Adamasgender: a gender which refuses to be categorized
Borges lives
>http://genderfluidsupport.tumblr.com/gender/
