Welcome to Litsy!

This book of short stories is slim - but it took me a month to mentally scale the lofty (but beautiful) prose, dense with philosophy, history and theology. Borges is a master of magical realism (perhaps veering closer to fantasy and esoterica): his stories are riveting imaginings concerning the impermanence of time, the symbolic nature of labyrinths, the ambiguity of authorship, as well as how eternity may manifest on a human scale.

1/5 ⭐️ I regret choosing this book for #FoodandLit Buddy Read 🇦🇷 I found it confusing and boring. Just not my type of book at all.

I hope anyone who read it enjoyed it more than I did.

I think I get the theme. Maybe. Writers are gods who create worlds and Labyrinths. Or that all life is cyclical. I think Borges is more for philosophers and more erudite people than myself. Although, there were some stories that made me think of Hitchcock so I wonder if they collaborated. #FoodandLitBuddyRead @Catsandbooks @Texreader

A lot of the stories went over my head and I didn‘t manage to follow what happened. From the afterward, I understand that might be the point and that I‘m not alone. I kept on reading in the hope that it would improve. My favorites were “The Shape of the Sword” and “Death and the Compass”, probably because they were easier to follow. This is the second time this month that I run into the tale about Martin Firrro.

#foodandlit #Argentina group read

I‘m certain that there was plenty in this book that I just didn‘t get or pick up on, but I‘m also certain that I wouldn‘t have cared if I had gotten it. Heretics and heresy just don‘t do it for me, I guess 🤷🏻‍♀️. Part of me is glad I read this seminal work, even if it ultimately wasn‘t for me. #foodandlit

#FoodandLit Buddy Read Check-in for Argentina 🇦🇷

How are y'all doing with Ficciones?
I admit I'm having a tough time with it. I feel like I understand what's happening on one page and then the next I'm lost. It feels very cerebral and almost like a review of other stories. Overall I'm just confused with each story so far. Am I missing something? Is it just a bad translation? 🤷🏼‍♀️

The truth is that we all live by leaving behind

Century follows century, and things happen only in the present.

Jack and I learned today that Borges had been the director of the National Library of Argentina. #dogsoflitsy #Argentina

How many current successful novels have been inspired by or play with this same concept? “The universe (which others call the library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps an infinite,…galleries”. I can think of at least two or threeI have read in the last couple years. #foodandlit2022 #argentina

I am reading Borges in translation. I haven‘t read him since high school and that was in Spanish so the feeling of “mind bending” was both enhanced and detracted by my reading comprehension level. Seems like the connection of the short stories line up to Borges alleging that all fiction writers are in a sense heresiarchs. (Although none of the individual stories go so far yet). It‘s definitely an adventure. #argentina #foodandlit2022

This book of short stories is entitled “fictions”. Each of the stories, mentions heresiarchs as if they are a class of people that the reader would be familiar with. It‘s an interesting linkage between the stories that are some mind bending and others just another metaphorical stab at the concept of divine intervention. I am not generally a fan of short story collections, but this makes sense. As far as Borges can ever be said to “make sense”

This is lovely quintessential Borges

This quoted phrase feels like my work life now: “provoked a considerable reform whose complexities are not understood except by a handful of specialists “

“Plumbed the vicissitudes of terror and hope; . . . This notoriously delicious exhilaration”

February's #FoodandLit Buddy Read is Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges. This is a collection of short stories.

This is a casual read-at-your-own-pace buddy read. Anyone is welcome to join in! If you would like to be tagged in check-in posts please let me know!

I selected two titles for #Argentina the February prompt in #foodandlit2022 because I thought Borges might be dry and difficult. Turns out I found Fever Dream not as mood intense and promised, and I am LOVING the mind bending that is classic Borges. #dogsoflitsy

Been awhile since I had to look up a word in English from my reading.

Hoping to get a bingo for my birthday month! 💝
#bookspinbingo

Reposting for upcoming February #FoodandLit #BuddyRead @Catsandbooks @Texreader @Butterfinger

Raccolta di racconti molto eterogenea, ma affascinante. Il migliore è senz'altro La biblioteca di Babele, che descrive un universo formato da una biblioteca infinita che contiene potenzialmente tutti i possibili libri del mondo.

There is no experience quite like reading Borges. So often I would finish a story and think, Okay, I know what it‘s about, I guess, but I don‘t know what he‘s SAYING.

Because figuring out what he‘s saying in his esoteric, layered narratives—that is the trick. And once you do, there is a rush of satisfaction that—like I said above—is unparalleled; it‘s when the work goes from being a fairly cool but aloof exposition, to a full on revelation.

The truth is that we all live by leaving behind; no doubt we all profoundly know that we are immortal and that sooner or later every man will do all things and know everything.

#QuotsyMar21 Day 6: #Maze

#7days7books
Day 7
Seven books that made a deep impression and changed me.

@Suet624 you're tagged if you want to play, along with anyone else who hasn't and is so inclined!

Finished this for #mrbook1inamillion and absolutely loved it! Can‘t believe it took me this long to read. The people who say he‘s the master of the short story are not lying. I‘d love to study these or read some criticism of them, I feel like there‘s so much there that I didn‘t appreciate yet. I see now how many writers I love couldn‘t exist without Borges.

#litsypartyofone #24b4monday @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @Clwojick @MrBook

Manages about 2 hours 20 of reading yesterday - not bad for a full workday, evening out with my boyfriend then travelling back to my parents house for the weekend it was quite a busy one! Should manage more today. Very excited to be in a bathtub again, my new flat doesn‘t have a tub! #mrbook1inamillion

#litsypartyofone #24b4monday @MrBook @Alisnazzy @Lynnsoprano @Clwojick @TheReadingMachine @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @Rachel.Rencher @jb72

Made my start on #mrbook1inamillion challenge! Excited to be sharing this with you all I love group reading challenges like this.

1 hour reading this morning audiobook on way to work, gonna get another half hour in now on my lunch break 😊

#litsypartyofone #24b4monday @MrBook @Alisnazzy @Lynnsoprano @Clwojick @TheReadingMachine @TheReadingMermaid @Andrew65 @Rachel.Rencher @jb72

“Buckley did not believe in God, yet because wanted to prove to the nonexistent God that mortals could conceive and shape a world.”

How have I not read Borges before??? This is so incredible

I‘ve finally managed to get back into meditating the last three or four days which is great news for me and my fitness challenge! I‘ve had a horrid cold that‘s put a dampener on a lot of things - you don‘t feel very spiritual when you‘re full of snot 🤷‍♀️ - but just did my fourth day running of meditation on gorgeous bankside and then some reading. Feel like I‘m back on track.

#bfcr4 @wanderinglynn @jessinikkip @Melmar @LauraJ @suzie.reads

It‘s on one of the walls of our public library

2/2 of the replenishments for my #HispanicHeritageMonth Display 😊!

Have you read any of these?!

#LitsyLovesLibraries #MrBooksDisplays

Everyone need to read this... especially The Library of Babel.
4.8/5 😩👌❤️

#DontCryforMeArgentina #WanderingJune
Turns out that Borges was not a fan of Evita or Juan Peron- interesting Wikipedia article describing their feud. He might be the only Argentine author I've read, but Cortazar is high on my list of authors to try.
@BarbaraBB @Cinfhen

“Perhaps old age and fear deceive me, but I suspect that the human species -the only one- is nearing extinction and that the Library will endure: illuminated, lonely, infinite, perfectly still, armed with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.”

❤️

“To one of these gnostics, the visible universe was an illusion or (more precisely) a sophism. Mirrors and fatherhood are hateful because they multiply and spread it.”

My Goodreads review is too long to fit here, alas! https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2802451787

A collection of odd stories, all having to do with books (thus the title). The vocabulary, structure, and content of this book mean it‘s not an easy read, but I liked the oddness. Like a cross between Calvino and Mieville—but Borges came first. #intranslation #1001books #1000books #501books

'In life, he suffered from a sense of unreality, as do so many Englishmen; dead, he is not even the ghostly creature he was then.'

I ordered from a bookseller called “reuse a book” (through Abe Books) and was bemused but thrilled to get a totally unrelated bookmark with my book. (Who doesn‘t love bonus bookmarks!) Then I looked closer and it seems the bookseller has a mutually beneficial deal with the Jane Austen Centre. Awesome. But I don‘t think I can use it with this book. 😂 Need to look through my bookmark collection for a better match. 🤓

Just finished the first story in this collection. Highly imaginative as to be expected. On to the next.. #litsypartyofone

Collection of short stories, which are written in different styles/genres, but all of them revolve around labyrinths, infinity, death, dreams, memory ... they are glimpse in Borges‘ abstract reality - a world driven by imagination, human complexity and absurdity. I didn‘t understand all of them, their hidden meanings is too hidden in metaphors for me ... however, I was deeply seduced by his poetic language and by eccentricity of the stories.

My favorite book from Argentina is "Ficciones" (Fictions) by Jorge Luis Borges, one of the best writers of the 20th century in the world. Short stories, magical, mystical, about the universe, about literature, fantasy and fantastic.
Would recommend it to anyone who loves literature. (It's still baffling that he never got a Nobel)

#Whereintheuniverse Which is yours? Don't forget to tag me!

#library #quotsy #quotsynov17

"The Circular Ruins" is one of my favorite short stories. #SouthAmericanWriters #FallIntoBooks @RealLifeReading

I've read pieces of this book, but need to give it another try when I have time to focus. Anyone tackled it? #southamericanauthors #tbr #fallintoreading

These stories will definitely take you through the looking glass and make you feel #InsaneInTheBrain . Infinite libraries, scholarly analysis of non-existent lands, duplicating Don Quixote... In these stories Borges invites you into his brain, which clearly has some insanity to spare, but in the best possible way- a strange, dizzying, and pretty wonderful place. #90sInJuly @Robothugs @Cinfhen

These short stories were so strange and intricate. Each one had layers--or rather labyrinths--that made you want to read slowly and savor all the depths. Certain images kept popping up--mirrors, simulacrums, books, libraries. At times the narratives blurred fiction and reality. My favorites were "Death and the Compass", "The Circular Ruins", "The Library of Babel", "The South", "Funes, the Memorious", and "The Garden of Forking Paths."

"The goal that led him on was not impossible, though it was clearly supernatural: He wanted to dream a man. He wanted to dream him completely, in painstaking detail, and impose him upon reality."