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By the time of his death in 1986, Borges had been granted old master status by almost everybody (except, alas, the gentlemen of the Swedish Academy). Yet his work remained dispersed among a half-dozen different collections, some of them increasingly hard to find. Andrew Hurley has done readers a great service, then, by collecting all the stories in a single, meticulously translated volume. It's a pleasure to be reminded that Borges's style--poetic, dreamlike, and compounded of innumerable small surprises--was already in place by 1935, when he published A Universal History of Iniquity: "The earth we inhabit is an error, an incompetent parody. Mirrors and paternity are abominable because they multiply and affirm it." (Incidentally, the thrifty author later recycled the second of these aphorisms in his classic bit of bookish metaphysics, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Teris.") The glories of his middle period, of course, have hardly aged a day. "The Garden of the Forking Paths" remains the best deconstruction of the detective story ever written, even in the post-Auster era, and "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" puts the so-called death of the author in pointed, hilarious perspective.
But Hurley's omnibus also brings home exactly how consistent Borges remained in his concerns. As late as 1975, in "Avelino Arredondo," he was still asking (and occasionally even answering) the same riddles about time and its human repository, memory: "For the man in prison, or the blind man, time flows downstream as though down a slight decline. As he reached the midpoint of his reclusion, Arredondo more than once achieved that virtually timeless time. In the first patio there was a wellhead, and at the bottom, a cistern where a toad lived; it never occurred to Arredondo that it was the toad's time, bordering on eternity, that he sought." Throughout, Hurley's translation is crisp and assured (although this reader will always have a soft spot for "Funes, the Memorious" rather than "Funes, His Memory.") And thanks to his efforts, Borgesians will find no better--and no more pleasurable--rebuttal of the author's description of himself as "a shy sort of man who could not bring himself to write short stories." --James Marcus
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. The most popular anthology of Jorge Luis Borges's short stories, Fictions is a wildly original and influential collection of fantastic tales, translated from the Spanish with an afterword by Andrew Hurley in Penguin Modern Classics.'Nobody before Borges had ever attempted this strange and wonderful mixture of arcana, popular literature, national myth, the nature of time and classical themes. Now we can see it in all its intense and disturbing brilliance, certain that we will never see anything like it again' - Justin Cartwright, Independent on Sunday Offers accounts of 'Funes the Memorious', the man who can forget nothing; 'Pierre Menard, Author of the "Quixote"', who recreates Miguel de Cervantes' epic word-for-word; a society run on the basis of an all-encompassing game of chance in 'The Lottery in Babylon'. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780141183848
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Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780141183848
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 192 pages. 7.72x5.08x0.71 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0141183845
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Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Offers accounts of 'Funes the Memorious', the man who can forget nothing; 'Pierre Menard, Author of the "Quixote"', who recreates Miguel de Cervantes' epic word-for-word; a society run on the basis of an all-encompassing game of chance in 'The Lottery in Babylon'. Seller Inventory # B9780141183848
Book Description Condition: New. Offers accounts of 'Funes the Memorious', the man who can forget nothing; 'Pierre Menard, Author of the "Quixote"', who recreates Miguel de Cervantes' epic word-for-word; a society run on the basis of an all-encompassing game of chance in 'The Lottery in Babylon'. Translator(s): Hurley, Andrew. Series: Penguin Modern Classics. Num Pages: 192 pages. BIC Classification: FA; FC. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 197 x 129 x 13. Weight in Grams: 144. 2000. Paperback. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # 9780141183848