Scan barcode
aidaniamb's review
3.0
Borges is a profound Postmodern writer from Argentina. He is most famous for the short story collection “Labyrinths”, a book on my fiction shortlist. Although best know for his fiction he thought of himself first as a poet. As he became blind later in life he dedicated himself to the composition of his sonnets, as he could do that work in only his mind and then dictate the words to a typist later. His poems are cryptic but I remember enjoying them. Borges’ work was where I first discovered that artists could create their own language of symbols and images with an initially relative meaning that is gradually established and given to a reader through a whole body of work. I liked getting lost in Borges’ spinning dreams. There were a few of his stories at the back of “Dreamtigers”. They showed why he is so respected in that medium. He is definitely an author I will return to. I’ll probably understand him better next time
savaging's review
5.0
I admire Borges' ability to craft a plot, but maybe that's because the Borges story always cracks a little bit at the end, he always has the urge to take it all back and say Maybe this was a dream, maybe it was something happening far away and at another time than I've just said.
Dreamtigers is entirely cracks, notes, fragments. Dreams and recantings and odes to toenails. It's the best Borges I've ever read.
As an example: "Parable of the Palace," tells the story of a poet being shown an infinite palace, and afterward speaking, in a single stanza or line or word, such a perfect description of it the emperor puts him to death for having robbed him of something. Borges ends:
"Such legends, of course, are simply literary fictions. The poet was the emperor's slave and died a slave; his composition fell into oblivion because it merited oblivion, and his descendants still seek, though they shall never find, the word for the universe."
Dreamtigers is entirely cracks, notes, fragments. Dreams and recantings and odes to toenails. It's the best Borges I've ever read.
As an example: "Parable of the Palace," tells the story of a poet being shown an infinite palace, and afterward speaking, in a single stanza or line or word, such a perfect description of it the emperor puts him to death for having robbed him of something. Borges ends:
"Such legends, of course, are simply literary fictions. The poet was the emperor's slave and died a slave; his composition fell into oblivion because it merited oblivion, and his descendants still seek, though they shall never find, the word for the universe."
uncleflannery's review
5.0
Strange and prismatic. I wish I could read this forever.
"Islam asserts that on the unappealable day of judgment every perpetrator of the image of a living creature will be raised from the dead with his works, and he will be commanded to bring them to life, and he will fail, and be cast out with them into the fires of punishment. As a child, I felt before large mirrors that same horror of a spectral duplication or multiplication of reality... I watched them with misgivings. Sometimes I feared they might begin to deviate from reality; other times I was afraid of seeing there my own face, disfigured by strange calamities. I have learned that this fear is again monstrously abroad in the world. The story is simple indeed, and disagreeable."
"It was at the foot of the next-to-last tower that the poet-- who was as if untouched by the wonders that amazed the rest-- recited the brief composition we find today indissolubly linked to his name and which, as the more elegant historians have it, gave him immortality and death. The text has been lost. There are some who contend it consisted of a single line; others say it had but a single world. The truth, the incredible truth, is that in the poem stood the enormous palace, entire and minutely detailed, with each illustrious porcelain and every sketch on every porcelain and the shadows and the light of the twilights and each unhappy or joyous moment of the glorious dynasties of mortals, gods, and dragons who had dwelled in it from the interminable past. All fell silent, but the Emperor exclaimed, "You have robbed me of my palace!" And the executioner's iron sword cut the poet down.
Others tell the story differently. There cannot be any two things alike in the world; the poet, they say, had only to utter the poem to make the palace disappear, as if abolished and blown to bits by the final syllable. Such legends, of course, amount to no more than literary fiction. The poet was a slave of the Emperor and as such he died. His composition sank into oblivion and his descendants still seek, nor will they find, the one word that contains the universe."
"Oh, incompetence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for."
Reading Borges requires a certain faith, a suspension of disbelief, like religion or astrology. If you're not into it I'm sure all this comes off as tedious, pretentious, and overblown. BUT! If you have the patience I promise this book will send you straight down the rabbit hole. If anything, this collection left me sad to live in a world so big and beautiful and to have still never finished Don Quixote (nor even started the Divine Comedy):
"Tradition has it that, on waking, [Dante] felt he had been given-- and then lost-- something infinite, something he would not be able to recover, or even to glimpse, for the machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of man."
"Islam asserts that on the unappealable day of judgment every perpetrator of the image of a living creature will be raised from the dead with his works, and he will be commanded to bring them to life, and he will fail, and be cast out with them into the fires of punishment. As a child, I felt before large mirrors that same horror of a spectral duplication or multiplication of reality... I watched them with misgivings. Sometimes I feared they might begin to deviate from reality; other times I was afraid of seeing there my own face, disfigured by strange calamities. I have learned that this fear is again monstrously abroad in the world. The story is simple indeed, and disagreeable."
"It was at the foot of the next-to-last tower that the poet-- who was as if untouched by the wonders that amazed the rest-- recited the brief composition we find today indissolubly linked to his name and which, as the more elegant historians have it, gave him immortality and death. The text has been lost. There are some who contend it consisted of a single line; others say it had but a single world. The truth, the incredible truth, is that in the poem stood the enormous palace, entire and minutely detailed, with each illustrious porcelain and every sketch on every porcelain and the shadows and the light of the twilights and each unhappy or joyous moment of the glorious dynasties of mortals, gods, and dragons who had dwelled in it from the interminable past. All fell silent, but the Emperor exclaimed, "You have robbed me of my palace!" And the executioner's iron sword cut the poet down.
Others tell the story differently. There cannot be any two things alike in the world; the poet, they say, had only to utter the poem to make the palace disappear, as if abolished and blown to bits by the final syllable. Such legends, of course, amount to no more than literary fiction. The poet was a slave of the Emperor and as such he died. His composition sank into oblivion and his descendants still seek, nor will they find, the one word that contains the universe."
"Oh, incompetence! Never can my dreams engender the wild beast I long for."
Reading Borges requires a certain faith, a suspension of disbelief, like religion or astrology. If you're not into it I'm sure all this comes off as tedious, pretentious, and overblown. BUT! If you have the patience I promise this book will send you straight down the rabbit hole. If anything, this collection left me sad to live in a world so big and beautiful and to have still never finished Don Quixote (nor even started the Divine Comedy):
"Tradition has it that, on waking, [Dante] felt he had been given-- and then lost-- something infinite, something he would not be able to recover, or even to glimpse, for the machinery of the world is far too complex for the simplicity of man."
More...