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Nov. 13th, 2008 02:35 pmSo I usually say that I'm not a huge fan of short stories - but there are some definite exceptions to that. I read a few of Jose Luis Borges' short stories in course classes, and I've been meaning to read more forever. Labyrinths is supposed to be the best collection, and it did not disappoint at all.
Borges is deservedly famous for writing these fabulously twisty little concept stories that are usually only a few pages long, but leave you stumbling out the other end with your mind bent into a completely different shape than when you began. Most of the stories have to do, in one way or another, with the boundaries between fiction and belief and reality (so of course they are right up my alley). One story is set in an infinite and circular library full of gibberish; in another, a fictional world gradually becomes reality through the determined preference of the global audience. The essays are also pretty fantastic and there is one passage on writing 'local color' that I am keeping here just for my own future benefit.
( Camels! )
In other news, I am sitting here at work in this thirty-foot-tall tower and the wind is literally howling outside the windows, incredibly loud and eerie. I would say 'wuthering' but I am not sure that is applicable in the absence of moors; regardless, it's adding sort of an almost gorgeously unnerving quality to my day. I keep half-expecting us to get blown away and carried off to Oz.
Borges is deservedly famous for writing these fabulously twisty little concept stories that are usually only a few pages long, but leave you stumbling out the other end with your mind bent into a completely different shape than when you began. Most of the stories have to do, in one way or another, with the boundaries between fiction and belief and reality (so of course they are right up my alley). One story is set in an infinite and circular library full of gibberish; in another, a fictional world gradually becomes reality through the determined preference of the global audience. The essays are also pretty fantastic and there is one passage on writing 'local color' that I am keeping here just for my own future benefit.
( Camels! )
In other news, I am sitting here at work in this thirty-foot-tall tower and the wind is literally howling outside the windows, incredibly loud and eerie. I would say 'wuthering' but I am not sure that is applicable in the absence of moors; regardless, it's adding sort of an almost gorgeously unnerving quality to my day. I keep half-expecting us to get blown away and carried off to Oz.
