A review by megea
The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges

3.0

It's difficult for me to rate this. Perhaps it's very good at being what it is. I just don't happen to like that much. What is it? Essentially it's a reference work, an encyclopedia of imaginary beings. (And surely, it must be a very incomplete one...) I had a very difficult time concentrating on the short entries for each species. Longer, more fully fleshed, anecdotal descriptions of each of them would have been much more engrossing. But of course, what I would really wish for is a plot. The reference format is not incompatible with incorporating a plot. The Dictionary of the Khazars and Pale Fire brilliantly carry plots despite the extremely nonlinear and disjointed structures they adopt (of an encyclopedia and end notes to a poem, respectively).