The next up on my reading of the 305 greatest books is Ficciones (AKA Fictions, AKA Collected Fictions) by Jorge Luis Borges. The book can be found on the Norwegian Book List.
Initially, I had a rather difficult time trying to find the proper collection for my reading list. The book is listed as "Collected Fictions" on the Norwegian Book List. However, I can not find any book by Jorge Luis Borges with that specific title. After some internet sleuthing, I have come to the conclusion that it refers to Fictions, or Ficciones, as per the title of the book I read. This book is a compilation of two short story compilations by Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths and Artifices, totaling 17 short stories. I have a hard time reviewing short stories because some could be fantastic and others terrible, and really, they often have no correlation between each other. I also don't usually like short story collections because I don't have enough time to get into the story. It does take my brain some time to get accustomed to the writing style of the author and where the story is going before I am comfortable enough with the story to give it the attention it deserves, neither of which I usually get with a short story. With that being my caveat, on to the total review. Borges was an Argentinean short story writer who primarily wrote in Spanish, however I am led to believe that the English language itself and writings in English greatly influenced his work. I am surprised that his writings were not originally in English because typically translations tend to smooth over the language differences, choosing simpler, more common words, when translating into English. However, these translations are so rich in the language used that I can't even comprehend the translation abilities of the translator. I am certain Borges did have a hand in the translations, though, since he was proficient in both. Most of the stories in the first collection, The Garden of Forking Paths, had a very similar theme. Most were based on some made up book. Some of the stories were reviews of these made up books, others were entire mythological quests to discover these made up books about made up civilizations. And while I greatly enjoyed these stories, I definitely felt some of them were better than others. "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" stands apart as a marvelous story about a mythical, perhaps alien, culture that only has a few books scattered across the globe describing this place that I would love to hear more about. "The Babylon Lottery" also had me entranced because it definitely seemed like a precursor to Squid Game. In the second volume, Artifices, Borges branched out a bit more. In this one though he seemed to get more religious, or at least he became more fascinated with the Name of God, which came up in at least three separate stories. And while I did not get into these stories as much as the ones from the first collection, I did rather like "Death and the Compass" and was rather surprised at the twist ending. Overall, while I did enjoy them, and I thought the language, while it could be heavy at times, was beautiful, I did not enjoy all of them enough to recommend them to my list.
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