The Aleph

After reading Ficciones, Borges struck me as one of those writers whose greatness you have to acknowledge, but might personally never be able to really enjoy reading. The Aleph disproved this for me, mostly because of Emma Zunz.
Emma Zunz, while written in third person, has a masterful feminine tone to it; very reactive and emotional, but in a simplified sense. This work strays from Borges usual form. The sentences are more concise and information is delivered more slowly. It's very psychological, and I feel that Borges' ability to elaborate on details works nicely with a protagonist going through emotional upheaval.

Deutsches Requiem interested me just because the voice is geographically and culturally so separate from many of Borges' other stories. It's rather dark, but definitely a good addition to the collection.

The short story The Aleph seemed a nice crowning finale for the collection. It's a solid work work of metaphysical fiction. I did not really find it to be believable, but it was interesting nonetheless.

There were still stories I could not find an element within to reasonate with, such The Writing of the God. As beautiful as the language is, it's a story about a guy trying to solve fur. A lot of Borges strikes me in this way. He uses langage to convey a trememndous amount of information, yet its hard to glean very much information from it at all. A lot of it seems more like poetry writing than fiction writing; meant to be analyzed line by line rather than as a whole. Personally I've always found that the more details and background given which are not absolutely essential to a story, obscure its plot. I've always been a fan of concise, direct writing, and Borges drags the reader to the sky and underground with rambling sentences. His use of words is wonderful, but it's somethign I can't quite get into.

Ficciones by Jorge Luis Borges

A lot of the stories seem to relate to the Ancient World, or at least slightly older world. They often involve real or imaginary texts to connect the plots to another time and space. Don Quixote and Arabian Nights are mentioned, and because the reader is familiar with these works, at least in awareness of their themes, their presence greatly enriches the stories.
The stories involving imaginary texts, such as the encyclopedic article of Tlon, the Garden of Forking Paths, and The Enemies, are infinitely interesting, but not grounded in reality. While they are wonderful to read, and absolutely inspired, it was difficult for me to attach meaning, to really let myself trust the story. Because Borges distorts the boundaries between genre so effortlessly, it can leave the reader feeling incredibly uncertain of what exactly they are reading, even though the books title clearing states, Ficciones.
It is for this reason that I found The South and Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote to be my favorite stories. There is something beautiful and chaotic about Borges' writing. It is like a manic bombardment of data; some imagined, some "real." But even when his language achieves impossible heights of skill, I often found myself gritting my teeth in confusion. A sentence may seem clear, but how can I tell that I am correctly interpreting any of this information? The book reads like a mystic guide to artistic creation, like a jumbled alchemist's equation of words. In all of this, knowing that I can at least trust the reference of a book alluded to in the text is extremely helpful.
However, I also loved The Circular Ruins, which does not mention any text, as I recall. I have a background in various mythologies, so this sort of humanist creation story was fascinating for me. I found it to be, in many ways, the simplest of the short stories, in its theme and language. Its brevity and minimalism made it much more accessible for me than some of the other stories.
despite my confusion during the text, I have to say that I am truly awed by Borges' writing. If I could write that well, I would nto care if many people could not understand it.

The Underdogs

We talked a little in class about the novel's machismo, and I'd have to strongly agree with it. It's an action movie of a book. The characters are mostly male, and the few female characters have classically masculine traits; assertiveness, crude humor, etc.
The novel itself moves very quickly. Action and dialogue work together nicely, and the descriptions are concise, yet effective. It reads like a screenplay. It conveys information through "show, not tell," which is very impressive.
As a result of the novel being fast and cinematic, there isn't a very strong sense of compelling language. You don't really get to see the internal workings of the characters so much as I would have liked. Overall, though, it's a very important cultural work and good read, just not rich in the aspects of writing I enjoy most.