BUY HERE (paid link): amzn.to/1fwZQM6 Support / Patreon: / booksarebetterthanfood Borges Lectures: • Jorge Luis Borges: Thi... You can find me here as well: / booksarebetterthanfood
The first time I read The Library of Babel, I immediately read it over again. When my husband got home, I made him sit down and I read it out loud to him! I cried all three times. So moving. So mind- bending.
After watching this I mentioned the book to a friend. He gave me his copy for free. I then started a degree in English and just recently wrote an essay on "The Circular Ruins". Thats my life after Borges. Thanks so much for your review!
When I first read Borges, I immediatly thought «this is the book I've always dreamed to read», a sort of evident revelation. Somehow, I knew it existed before I discovered it
This is so true.. I had the exact same feeling when I read about Borges in a philosophy book. He has this way of getting to those ideas we all kind of have but find impossible to articulate.
Just needed to let you know that your video made me drive to Barnes and Noble after a 10 hour day of work just to grab this book. Thank you for your enthusiasm!
It's hard to find a lover of Roberto Bolaño, Borges, Cortázar, Sábato, García Márquez, etc etc that doesn't have spanish as his native language. But is harder to find someone from "booktube" that speaks about real literature. You get a new suscriber, keep with those amazing videos. 😉😁
I am lately obsessed with Borges and can't get over how no one around me has heard of him (including myself until recently). We are truly missing out! Thanks for the other recommendations :)
I absolutely agree, this one and TheBookChemist might be the closest to "real" literature analysis (avoiding the ones who talk about fantasy, thing they do very well, but not with an exhaustive perspective). Also, I would love to talk about McCarthy, Pynchon etc with my spanish friends, but that isn't very popular here :(
here in Argentina we all read Borges and Cortázar in school since we are kids. Those authors are so granted in our culture that is very refreshing to see non spanish speakers talk about them and stuff. Wonder how much is lost in translation
I discovered Borges around 1995....I read the short stories with my mind reeling and my mouth slack jawed and drooling .....Could not believe how super fantastic his work is....Pity he is not very well known in the USA- I think he is the best writer of the mid part of the 20th century. if you have not read Borges, you are living a sad and deprived little life.
In his book "The Lesson of the Master", Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, one of Borges's best translators, wrote: Once when I read him the finished draft of his celebrated story 'The Circular Ruins', Borges wept. 'Caramba,' he said, 'I wish I could still write like that.'
When life feels so small and repetitive, I read these stories and feel the vastness and magic that existence has to offer. I bought this book on your recommendation Cliff, and that has made all the difference. Thank you 🙏
I started reading Borges around 18 years old. It became an adiction. I've read every short story and some of his poetry and essays. There were years I only read Borges. That mas was a GENIUS in writing, not only by the extend of his imagination, but also his way with words (I'm a Native Spanish speaker, so I can enjoy that, but since he was bilingual, i guess the english translations are great too). I recomend Borges to EVERYONE too.
Borges taught me how to modify a huge desert by “taking up a handful of sand and let it fall silently a little further”. He is the most philosophically empowering author I have ever read. Yes more than Nietzsche
I have Borges's face tattooed on my leg, he is by far my favourite author, everytime I read him I found something new and fascinating on his work, he is the kind of writer that you must read more than one time, the more the better he gets, because sometimes there is a lot of deepness that you don't notice on a first reading, recently while travelling I was reading "The Encounter", and thought it was just another short story like any other, but when I get to the ending a chill went through my spine and remember of course this is Borges, this isn't just a writer like any other
Man, I just started this. Been watching you for years and I didn't realize this is how it all started, but boy does this get me hyped. So far it is fantastic, and I'm not even though History of Iniquities. Can already tell I'll be recommending this one for years.
Borges says more in a 5 page story than a 1000 page tome....with 5 sequels. Yeah, he's that good! Very excellent and may I add, concise review...the master, would have loved it.
“Desvarío laborioso y empobrecedor el de componer vastos libros; el de explayar en quinientas páginas una idea cuya perfecta exposición oral cabe en pocos minutos" "It's a labourious and empoverishing notion to compose extense books; to elaborate in five hundred words an idea which perfect oral exposition fits in a couple minutes" Jorge Luis Borges
This passage has been a favourite of mine for some years: Toward dawn, he dreamt he had hidden himself in one of the naves of the Clementine Library. A librarian wearing dark glasses asked him: What are you looking for? Hladik answered: God. The Librarian told him: God is in one of the letters on one of the pages of one of the 400,000 volumes of the Clementine. My fathers and the fathers of my fathers have sought after that letter. I've gone blind looking for it. - The Secret Miracle, Jorge Luis Borges
@@KajiXD , ¿es la traducción de una editorial inglesa? Porque donde Borges escribe "desvarío" pone "notion" (concepto o propuesta, en el contexto), cuando hubiera sido más exacto algo como "lunacy", "raving" o "delirium". ¡Saludos!
Bro, you are a man after my heart. I read Sun and Steel and the only review I could find was yours. Now to find you have my favorite as your first review has me excited and ready to take any of your recommendations.
Oh my goodness, now I HAVE to read these short stories! Your reviews are so great because they give me the same desire I have to read a specific book after watching the movie adaptation (for example, I recently watched again The Time Machine and learned that it's actually the first sci-fi book ever written and I just can't wait to buy it and get into it as soon as possible!). Thanks for your channel, it's a real gift. :)
Thanks . We have a book club and this week we are reading Borges. He is more than words can describe. Really fascinating. The universality in his writings is unique.
Got my copy of this book today. I ordered it right after watching this video of yours like a month ago. It didn't come cheap but honestly I don't mind. The feel, texture, and pages of this book are awesome. Absolutely stoked to see what nuggets of genius they will contain.
I know it's almost four years later.. But I've just come across this video and I feel like I should comment on it, because: 1. I share your love for Borges' prose. 2. I really like the way you talk about books. 3. I have a Latin American literature exam tomorrow and hopefully leaving a comment will bring me me luck. Fingers crossed. Thank you for talking about this amazing book and its absolutely fascinating author.
"It doesn't get better than this." I totally agree with you! It's hard to believe he wasn't "worthy" enough to win the noble prize. Maybe the noble wasn´t worthy of Borges. Regards from Buenos Aires!
Actually, It's said that the reason why he didn't get the Nobel prize was his public opinion about Latinamerican dictatorships, specifically the ones in Argentina and Chile in the '70s.
Same puzzling notion that Jung struggled with, or perhaps danced alongside for his entire life.. "People don't have ideas, ideas have people"..gives me the chillz
@@BetterThanFoodBookReviews just read his autobiography, he himself says which are his big works there (Modern Man In Search of A Soul is a favorite of his)
Dude! As a mathematician who also enjoys some literature, I really enjoy Borges' works. If you draw a Venn diagram of Mathematics and Literature, you will surelly find Borges' stuff in the intersection. I'm pretty confident that he did knew some advanced maths. (basic advanced stuff, but still advanced)
If you like Borges you'll also like Cesar Aira. Aira cites Borges as one of his key influences. He's more evidently influenced by European Surrealism than Borges but there's still that ludic quality. He writes 'novellas' - 80 to 100 page books. The one I'd start with is 'The Literary Conference'. They're all published by New Directions. Btw he's an Argentine too.
I definitely agree with the statement that there's life before Borges and life after Borges. Reading his work expanded my imagination in ways I never knew were possible.
I just so happened to stumble on your "Heart of Darkness" review as I was searching for a good reason to do the full reading for class. I found it extremely difficult to get into, but your review kept me looking forward for the bigger picture. On a more relevant topic: I cannot believe how much time two of my classes were spend on "Garden of Forking Paths". I kept debating whether to get the "Laberintos" (or another of Borges's collections) or not, but this review just helped me reach a conclusion. I'm looking forward for more spanish/latin authors being addressed in this channel. Keep up the good work Sergeant! You just got a new subscriber.
Cheers for the heads up on this. Been on my shelf for at least 4 years. Picked it up. Flicked to The Circular Ruins and found another short story to add to my list of all time favourites. And a killer reason to pick up his other works that are sitting forlornly gathering dust. A skoal x
Ten years later... Lost on a camp fire in Central America I discover your channel... And shoot..., this is one of the best book reviews I've ever seen, and in deed, Borges and his library are better than food, as well as Bolaño... Thank you very much for these great insights into other realms of the universe.
I absolutely agree with you. It has been my favorite book for years. My only thing to add to your review: try to read it in Spanish. I have not read it in English, but I cannot imagine it is at all possible to translate all the texture, flavor, hidden genius: all the intangibles that make me come back to it. Everything else you said about the content is spot on. Even if there's no other reason in your life to learn Spanish, this one is worth it. Go back and read it in Spanish, you'll know what I mean.
I wanted to accentuate something that you didn't mention. That he intends, and often succeeds, to induce the feeling of unreality in the reader. I often put the book down at the end of a story and look around me at a room that seems to be different. Of course it is I who have changed while reading the story, not the room about me. He uses so many tricks, one is that some of his stories loop back on themselves, so you read a sentence that suddenly induces a feeling of déjà vu simply because you had read that sentence an hour ago in the same story. This man was really a genius, and I intend to read everything he wrote over the next months. Beware his inappropriate adjectives!!
Great book!! My favorite story is the Garden of Forking Paths. Borges basically invented the concept of the hypertext with this story, which inspired to some extent the internet and choose-your-own-adventure stories.
Just picked this volume up, along with Marquez's collected novellas and Neruda's collected poems to bring with me to South America in a couple days. Looking forward to reading this down there now. Solid review.
What a delightful breath of fresh air this video was after listening to 2 hours of Terrence McKenna and musing on the Philosophy of Austin osman spare. Looking forward to reading Borges, I have 3 of his books, one of them being "labyrinths", but hes still some ways down on my reading list.
that was a pleasure to read these comments. It's really great to know that there are so many people who share my obsession about him. I think the best word which can describe his magnetism is ... Zahir
It's an interesting book that is always shifting. For example, I read The Circular Ruins in September. I recently decided to read some more Ficciones and re-read The Circular Ruins and the story had changed slightly; the words were replaced with other words that had a slightly different meaning, some sentences were relocated and some paragraphs were eliminated. I swear even the font type had changed.
I know its been 4 years but I finally read the short story "The Circular Ruins". I love this channel but I honestly forgot that you had even made a video on Borges and went about my life. Now it's May of 2019, I go into my first day on the job as a Barback at a local pizza restaurant/bar and have the pleasure of being trained by a fellow history nerd. We get into conversations about the ancient Greeks, ancient Mediterranean Literature, Roman Statues, Spanish painters during their civil war- so on and so forth. We eventually get onto the subject of Latin, Latin-American, and Spanish authors and he absolutely implores me to read Circular Ruins along with the rest of Borges' work. It's just funny that now I've come to read it, absolutely loved it, and completely had my jaw drop at the ending. This is just such a perfect short story in so many ways. Now it is all circling back here to this video with me trying to learn other people's thoughts on Jorge's fantastic work 😂 P.S. You're the one who got me into reading Roberto Balono many years ago, and I've never been able to get enough of him!
This book literally changed my life. I felt that my life had no meaning and that I was a willless machine, adhering to the determinism and randomness of the universe. But when I read this book, all of that melts away, it doesn't matter, I am reading Borges and I am happy.
Can't believe I hadn't seen this video--the first--and learned where the title for the show comes from! Jeff Noon is fantastic too, Vurt is one of the strangest and most engaging SF books I've ever read.
Your book reviews are quite awesome, especially seeing that you talked about The Consumer by Michael Gira, excellent taste! And you look like Bradley Cooper which is a plus!
Started reading Borges about 8 years ago, and now I honestly can't remember what it was like without Borges in my life. He made me passionate about books (which I already were, but El Maestro certainly stoked the fire), and gave me the will and desire to become a writer myself. It always makes my day to meet someone who likes Borges. I have a lot of favorites among his works - 'The Library of Babel', 'The Book of Sand', 'Tlön Uqbar Orbis Tertius' and the like - but the one that stands out is 'The Immortal'. Love the tone and the ideas he explores in that one.
I agree with you that there is no reason you HAVE to know about the author to enjoy their work, however, I find a great amount of joy in learning about an author or artist that I enjoy the work of. I feel as though learning about their life helps you connect more deeply with their work and I have found things in an authors work that I would've otherwise missed if I had missed out on knowing how the piece was written or what the author was going through when the author wrote it. I am also a bit of a history nerd so it may just be the historical part of my brain that also enjoys the biographical aspect of learning about authors and artists.
El Maestro Jorge Luis Borges. Lees sus historias 5 veces y las cinco te dan impresiones diferentes, una página es un velo pesado de términos e ideas. Y sus recopilaciones de historias son laberintos en sí.
If you like Borges, Kafka, Bolano and Gaddis, I'd highly recommend almost anything by Pynchon. You seem to be a very versatile reader, as in you read through a lot of genres and different kinds of writing ranging from ficiton to poetry to non-fiction to literary criticism to plays. I'm very surprised you haven't fallen into reviewing well known books that are still really good reads (classics, dystopians, popular contemporary fiction etc.) It's a bit frustrating because it makes me feel ignorant of most of what you review, but it also gives me an opportunity to read things out of my comfort zone. Nonetheless, you've reviewed some of my favorite reading experiences ever: Hopscotch, 2666, the Name of the Rose, Blood Meridian. Good job carrying on your channel. I'll be happy to support your channel! as soon as I get a paying job :P All the best Cliff Sgt. !
Throw me off the rails of the Library of Babel, I'll be happy all the way down where I would finally find the book of my life. Reading Borges is for me a sublime experience because you know that unless you're reading more Borges, there is nothing else like it out there... although for me Lydia Davis comes close. I wondered what a Borges novel would be like.
Something you might be interested in: *"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole*. Since you like Bolano, I read he mentioned this book in some of his interviews as an influence. It is one of the funniest books around. The paradox however is, that its writer committed suicide, because he did not find a publicist willing to publicise the book. The edition I have as a forword in it by Tristan Egolf. Another author struggling to get publicised until a french author helped him. Strangly however Egolf also committed suicide after finishing his third book. It is a funny book. The reality behind it is pure tragedy. :s
Great review. You should also read/review El Aleph. Well, the complete collection of his works are worth it. You should also read La Invencion de Morel from Adolfo Bioy Casares. Another you should read is Niebla from Miguel de Unamuno. You wont be disappointed. Sorry for my bad english. Keep doing this reviews!
I recently read El Aleph, in spanish, and I have to admit it was the most sublime and intricate reading experience I've had in a while. I don't really know how to talk about Borges, I guess the wonder and the awe tend to speak for themselves.
I really enjoyed this, I have the same edition (the uncut pages are great btw) I'd have to say my favourite books overall were Fictions and The Maker, the latter being just 30 pages long but incredibly rich nonetheless. And Fictions was just, you know. Also "The Secret Miracle" is underrated as hell.
Hello friend. I've recently purchased a copy of this book and have been unable to put it down, and when I do the images and philosophical wonders occupy my mind. I find the stories immensely laborious to digest, though, and can only read one or two a day. I've decided not to read the book from flap to flap, and my favorites so far are "The South," "Death and a Compass," and "The Garden of Forking Paths." I was wondering if you could direct me to your favorites. Thanks.
I am so impressed that you love Fictions of JLB. I love his books too, so impressive personality and author. Maybe you can help me to find one of his books where he tells the story of two men who are related but fighting for power and one of them offers the other one a 6 ft. of land? meaning he is giving him a place where to rest. Do you know about it. I cannot remember very well. Hope you know something. Thank you! I recommend you to read Juan Rulfo: El Llano en Llamas y Pedro Paramo.
i first heard of Borges through the references in Performance - Turner n Rosie reading it, various mirrors, the bullet through Turners brain etc... i found the plight of Funes particularly moving - ive read/seen other riffs on it like the Black Mirror episode the Entire history of You n a Jeremy Dyson short story but they dont quite have the visceral punch/sad reality that Borges conjures (i think he would approve of the usage of this verb haha)...poor old Funes!
My apologies for the necro, but I just found your channel and subscribed. The Chinese philosopher with the butterfly dream is Chuang Tzu. He has some great stories worth reading.
'The Aleph', favorite short story ever, from the greatest short story author ever. First found about Borges from an interview with Harlan Ellison back in the '80's who referred to him as a giant so I had to find out about him, bought Ficciones, fell in love with his writing immediately.
The Twilight Zone Magazine, now long defunct, also first came across the name John Crowley and his masterwork, Little, Big, the greatest fantasy novel ever written, in the magazine. Have read every word written by Crowley, a favorite of the esteemed critic Harold Bloom, classic novels like Engine, Summer, The Deep, Beasts, and the 4 novel fantasy masterpiece consisting of 1)Aegypt - aka The Solitudes 2)Love and Sleep 3)Daemonomania 4)Endless Things. A masterful writer.
I have labyrinths which is a collection of stories from ficciones and other books. I live in Uruguay and so bought Cuentos completos to help me with my spanish. Tough in both languages but incredible writing.
You have to read Rayuela (Hopscotch) by Julio Cortazar, the quintessential "I am a changed man after reading it" book. You also must read El Tunel (The Tunnel) by Ernesto Sabato, a journey into loneliness, love and obsession, its the first book that really moved me when I was a teenager. Love the channel, saludos desde Buenos Aires!
