Borges: Selected Non-Fictions

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Borges: Selected Non-Fictions Pub. Date: 11/28/2000 Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
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Borges: Selected Poems Pub. Date: 4/1/1999 Publisher: Viking Adult

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Overview

This unique volume presents a Borges almost entirely unknown to American readers: his extraordinary non—fiction prose. Borges' unlimited curiosity and almost superhuman erudition become, in his essays, reviews, lectures, and political and cultural notes, a vortex for seemingly the entire universe: Dante and Ellery Queen; Shakespeare and the Kabbalah; the history of angels and the history of the tango; the Buddha, Bette Davis, and the Dionne Quints.

"The sheer range of cultural territory covered in these essays compels awe and bemusement." —Robert Irwin, The Washington Post Book World

"Superb ... indispensable to both the longtime Borges reader and the newcomer."—Alexander Theroux, The Wall Street Journal

"One reads these many essays ... with amazement at their author's impetuous curiosity and penetrating intelligence." —Richard Bernstein, the New York Times

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism
Chosen International Book of the Year by George Steiner in the Times Literary Supplement

Winner of the National Book Critic's Circle Award for Criticism.

Editorial Reviews

Joshua Klein

It has been said of Shakespeare's genius that were his plays not easy to write, they would have been impossible. The implication is that under Shakespeare's working conditions--dim candlelight, quill and ink on parchment--the Bard could not have been so astoundingly prolific had his enduring classics not emerged from his mind all but fully formed. That's also the root of persistent yet baseless rumors that Shakespeare's works were not all of his own devising; how could one man truly be so great? But you don't work hard to become a genius: Genius drives you to work hard. A perfect example is Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges. Revered for his intellect and fascinating breadth of knowledge, Borges is best know for his fiction and poetry. Along with James Joyce, Joseph Conrad, and Vladimir Nabakov, he's universally regarded as one of the great 20th-century authors to have never been awarded a Nobel Prize in literature. Yet until his death in 1986, Borges wrote a vast expanse of essays, reviews, and other non-fiction pieces, much of it collected and made available in English for the first time in Selected Non-Fictions. Edited by Eliot Weinberger and diligently translated by Weinberger and two helping hands, the book is a revelation. Much of Borges' non-fiction echoes the metaphysical themes of his fiction, and his favorite subjects (The Arabian Nights, Don Quixote) recur again and again. But perhaps the most revealing aspect of Selected Non-Fictions is Borges' meeting with the mundane. It seems that over the course of his 87 years, he consumed and digested anything he could. Consequently, Selected Non-Fictions' pieces reflect his fascination with the profound (religion, war), the popular (King Kong, which he pans for its clunky ape portrayal), and some combination of the two (a positive review of Joyce's Ulysses, even though Borges, to the empowerment of college students around the world, admits he hasn't read the whole thing). Selected Non-Fictions also collects some hilarious reviews of popular detective fiction and the like that Borges wrote for El Hugar (an Argentine women's magazine), a few commissioned prologues, and, ultimately, transcripts of speeches and lectures made after he had gone blind. Reading through the book's surprisingly accessible and entertaining works raises a perplexing question: How can one man know so much about everything? Thankfully, with Selected Non-Fictions, Borges' enviable gifts have been made more apparent than ever before.

More Reviews (1) Fewer Reviews

From The Critics

Reviewing a book that seeks to validate the existence of ghosts through testimony by the upper crust of British society, Borges writes: "the Honorable Reginald Fortescue became a firm believer in the existence of `an alarming spectre.' As for myself, I don't know what to think: for the moment, I refuse to believe in the alarming Reginald Fortescue until an honorable spectre becomes a firm believer in his existence." In this compilation of nonfiction prose, the third of Viking's magisterial three-volume collection of Borges's complete works, a new, fuller Borges emerges, as the writer becomes a joker; the fabulist shows himself to be a rationalistic skeptic; and the alleged conservative skewers upper-class pretensions. We also find the familiar man of letters in such classic essays as "A New Refutation of Time" and "Kafka's Precursors" (which foreshadows the most interesting ideas of Harold Bloom in a mere two and a half pages). Among the gems to appear in English for the first time are slyly brilliant literary essays, such as an appreciation of Flaubert's enigmatic novel, Bouvard and P cuchet, and an authoritative critical history of the translations of the 1001 Nights. Other newly available aspects of Borges's oeuvre are trenchant critiques of Argentinean anti-Semitism; contemporary reviews of such works as Citizen Kane, Absalom, Absalom and Finnegan's Wake (Borges finds it incomprehensible); and capsule literary biographies for a woman's magazine. While the translations capture Borges's unfailingly elegant style, the editing at times seems overly academic: certain sentences, even paragraphs, are repeated, and certain topics (particularly time and eternity) are overrepresented, a tendency that makes the book rather difficult to read straight through. Even so, this is a volume of inexhaustible delights. First serial to Grand Street. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780140290110
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Publication date: 11/28/2000
Pages: 576
Sales rank: 442,913
Product dimensions: 5.61 (w) x 8.52 (h) x 1.49 (d)

Meet the Author

Jorge Luis Borges

This legendary Argentine poet, essayist, and short-story writer's works have become classics of 20th-century world literature, leaving a legacy that serves as an enduring testament to the politics and passions of Jorge Luis Borges.

Biography

Jorge Luis Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899 and was educated in Europe. One of the most widely acclaimed writers of the 20th century, he published many collections of poems, essays, and short stories before his death in Geneva in June 1986.

In 1961, Borges shared the International Publishers' prize with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, Columbia University awarded him the first of many degrees of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, that he was to receive from the English-speaking world -- eventually, the list included both Oxford and Cambridge universities. In 1971 he also received the fifth biennial Jerusalem Prize and in 1973 was given one of Mexico's most prestigious cultural awards, the Alfonso Reyes Prize. In 1980 he shared with Gerardo Diego the Cervantes Prize, the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary accolade.

Borges was director of the Argentine National Library from 1955 until 1973.

Author biography courtesy of Penguin Group (USA)

Good To Know

Borges began writing at the age of six, mostly fantasy stories inspired by Cervantes. When he was nine, he translated Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince into Spanish, and the piece was published in El País, a local newspaper.

To the outrage of his followers, Borges never did receive the Nobel prize. "Not granting me the Nobel Prize has become a Scandinavian tradition," Borges once quipped. "Since I was born they have not been granting it to me."

Several of Borges's short stories have been adapted for the movies, most recently Death and the Compass (1996), directed by Alex Cox (Repo Man).

1. Date of Birth:
  
  August 24, 1899
2. Place of Birth:
  
  Buenos Aires, Argentina
1. Date of Death:
  
  June 14, 1986
2. Place of Death:
  
  Geneva, Switzerland
1. Education:
  
  B.A., Collège Calvin de Genève, 1914

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Anonymous

Posted May 18, 2007

Combining literature of the world - beautifully

I was recently turned on to Borges' work by an Argentine friend of mine who suggested it. These writings combine storytelling and literature from all over the world, especially English literature, and they're wonderful. Read the stories of this seemingly-nowadays little known writer, and benefit!
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Borges: Selected Non-Fictions

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Overview

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Editorial Reviews

Joshua Klein

From The Critics

Product Details

Meet the Author

Jorge Luis Borges

Biography

Good To Know

Rating Distribution

Combining literature of the world - beautifully