About this title: A generous anthology of Borges's work, including short stories about such things as imaginary universes, mysterious parables, and Chestertonian detective puzzles.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Acceptable. Book is in good reading condition. Cover has wear at edges and corners, and may have creases. Spine has wear at edges and creases. read more
Edition: Augmented ed. 13th printing.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1964
ISBN-13:9780811200127ISBN:0811200124
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Exterior worn, creased, rubbed. Front pages slightly age-tanned. Text otherwise clean, unmarked. Previous owner s embossed seal on front pg. 260 p. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. New Directions Paperbook, 186. Includes bibliography. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780811200127ISBN:0811200124
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. New Directions Paperbook, 186. Audience: General/trade. read more
Description: Good. Paperback, New Directions Publishing Company, 1964, Ninth Printing, Pages are clean, free of marks and age faded. Cover is faded with chipping, spots where color has come off, a smudge on back and edgewear. Edges are slightly soiled with foxing to the top edge. read more
Binding: PAPERBACK
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
ISBN-13:9780811200127ISBN:0811200124
Description: Fine. 0811200124 33rd printing, New Directions trade paperback, 1964. NF, w/ clean text, tight binding, straight & uncreased spine; appears to be unread, though has light crease to upper front corner. Free delivery confirmation. read more
Edition: Reprint.
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation, New York
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780811200127ISBN:0811200124
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Terrific copy. Totally clean & unmarked inside & out. Light wear to the covers. Slightly bent corners. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. New Directions Paperbook, 186. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First edition
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: New Directions
Date Published: 2007
Description: Selected Stories and Other Writings. Review copy with slip enclosed. With a new introduction by William Gibson. Very fine wraps. read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780811200127ISBN:0811200124
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. New Directions Paperbook, 186. Audience: General/trade. like new condition read more
"Labyrinths as the title shows will throw you in endless abysses of thought and inquiry. Borges by his vast knowledge is all the time surprising our minds by his subtle questioning of things that we previously took for granted. I enjoyed his fictitious stories mingled with reality, his concise essays about literature and his personal readings. I was amazed by his universal interest in worldly literature: Averroes was just a single example and I have to admit that he enlightened me concerning the appearance of drama or theatre ingeneral in Arabic culture."
"I should have read this years ago. Borges writes terse experimental narratives that lie somewhere between fantasy and creative non-fiction. His writing is full of ambiguous overlappings between the world of literature as we know it, and imagined universes of knowledge. These form the eponymous "labyrinths" of Borges: worlds created by humans, that must be interpreted by humans, and from which there is no escape. Borges' world is an idealist one, where fictions produce reality. The influence on later writers like Eco and Baudrillard is clear. Other themes continue throughout the stories, like alternative notions of time, and the concept that that the world is one instance of almost infinite possibilities.
Borges is like Philip K. Dick in that both are great at imagining radically different worlds, but don't necessarily excel at expanding these ideas into complete works. Still, both authors make it work. My favorite pieces in this collection include "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Terrius," in which a secret society of scholars have created an encyclopedia for an imaginary world, including a coherent philosophical outlook. Upon learning about this world, the reader is met with the uncanny feeling that it is more real than the "real" world. Another great one is "Library of Babel," in which a library is hypothesized that contains every possible permutation of the alphabet. I also enjoyed the short parable "Borges and I.""
"why havent i read borges before?? no one knows. and he was always pushed upon me - "how can you like marquez if you havent 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 dont. when i force it, this happens. and i liked some of the stories. but borges isnt for everyone (although scrolling down my "friends who have read" list, it looks as though all my friends gave it five stars.) and im 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 hes borges. but i wont 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, its 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."
"I actually found a used copy of this New Directions Edition for .39 cents in the front window of a Half-Price Books in Seattle when I was in my early twenties. Myself and a small crowd was gathered in front of the store waiting for it to open when I spotted it. As soon as they opened the door I whisked right over to it and snatched it up - if anybody would have tried to beat me to it, there would have been fisticuffs! This was within a week or two of discovering Borges, so of course I took the book home and ravished it...
This is mind-expanding, mind-blowing stuff. I know I said Cortazar's "Blow-up and other stories" is probably my favorite book of shorts by an author, but I might have to recant... but these "stories" aren't exactly stories in the traditional sense - they are elaborate forays of the mind...
Just read it! or read The Aleph and other stories... or Ficciones... but this collection is the best entry into Borges..."
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