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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
Big smile on my face whenever I read this book. I flip around a lot, dragons to sirens to chimera.
A great reference book but definitely, as the introduction says, a little difficult to just read straight through.
Don't read this is you're interested in trying Borges' work. Don't read this all in one go. This is an encyclopedia mixed with fairy tale in the driest sense of the term. Borges has collected the names and descriptions of a bunch of different imaginary beings. The collection is set out alphabetically. I think that hurt the reading experience. In one of the prefaces it says to pick your way through the book one entry at a time at random, but you shouldn't HAVE to do that. I wish it had been categorized by culture of origin or elemental region or how long the creature has been a legend... something to give it more personality and structure. There's a lot of direct quotations in the entries, which adds to the dryness of the work. Also, he completely left out mermaids. WTF?
A beautiful edition and an impressive compendium, but as many people have said, apart from the odd entry, it is more of a dictionary than a showcase of his writing. Impressive, but not particularly lovable.
I don’t think this is a particularly interesting book, but it makes for a very interesting reference book if you’re ever interested to see what kind of fantasy creatures exist in myths and stories around the world.
A cute little bestiary that jumped out at me and me hooked. Has the squonk in it. So worth it.
Borges open the mind like earth to be cultivated with the seeds of imagination. A must read for the fantasy lover, those who search for symbols, and those who hunt the impossible.
This fun book is a collection of descriptions, musings, exerts, etc of imaginary beings the world over. Some of the 'tales' are just a blip, no more than a paragraph, while others run through several pages. There are also fantastic illustrations to accompany most of them. While I did throughly enjoy this book, it is the kind of book you can lay down for several days, and pick up something else to read that is more involved (which is exactly what I ended up doing...). Some of Borges snippets are a little dry, and not dry as in his sense of humor, but dry as in they were just a brief description of the being without any of his witty commentary thrown in. But others were laugh out loud funny. He's a master at slipping in just a sentence or two and cutting the culture or creature he's commenting on to the core. His gentle mocking is what kept me reading and I'm really glad I did! Consider it a 'high brow monster manual' and definitely a window into other works that will be of interest to you if you enjoy the mythical and imaginary.
Contained here is a brief but entertaining collection of beasts, monsters and creatures from several cultures. Notably included are those from Chinese, Greco-Roman, Norse, Buddhist, Abrahamic and Hindu societies; also included are some more recent inventions, from North America and from specific authors (such as Kafka, bizarrely).
Concise entries light-heartedly reviewing these wonderful creatures, with a particular emphasis on the tradition of knowledge surrounding them.
Concise entries light-heartedly reviewing these wonderful creatures, with a particular emphasis on the tradition of knowledge surrounding them.
About the only fault that I can find with this book is the lack of illustrations. I assume illustrated editions exist, but this isn't one of them, so I had to make do with the meager projections of my brain. 120 entries describing imaginary beasts from all around the world and from different times and even a few sprung straight from the fertile minds of CS Lewis and Franz Kafka. Written with dry wit and effortless erudition, each entry is a polished gem, each being a wonder of shape and marvel of history and odd curate's egg of the culture that produced it. A book to be kept handy for dipping into, I think.