Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

A couple of years ago I wrote the name Jorge Luis Borges on a piece of scrap paper and put it in my wallet. It ended up on my nightstand and I came across it in July. Its origin is unknown although I suspect it was from a blog I read called "Ribbon Farm." Searching that blog it may have been this post. But I don't know for sure. It does not seem that familiar now that I reread it.

Anyway, Ficciones is a book of short stories by Borges, an Argentinian author who wrote in the 40s and 50s. He's a postmodern author and his stories are enjoyable to read and at the same time quite unorthodox. My favorite was probably a "critical review" of a scholar of Cervantes (Pierre Menard) who rewrites Don Quixote word-for-word, using the exact words of Cervantes, so deeply has he immersed himself in the work. The critic, however, perceives different meanings in various places, meanings placed there by Menard, even though the words are exactly the same. So there's the post-modern literary attitude at work, both in the critic's review and the fact that Borges himself does not seem to treat it as a parody but as...I don't know what, really.  "The Garden of Forking Paths" is another example of a post-modern tale, the story of an unpublished book that is ultimately a riddle that leads to a murder. It took a few readings to follow it properly, and I think I could reread it over and over and still enjoy it.

I probably won't get the chance to reread it so often. I checked it out of the library and read it on a trip to Atlanta in August 2013.