Labyrinths
1962
- anachronisms
- speculative fiction
- subjective idealism
- duodecimals
- aneurysms
- adjectives
- hermeticism
- philanthropy
- cabala
- persecution
The story
Labyrinths is a collection of short stories and essays by the writer Jorge Luis Borges. It was translated into English, published soon after Borges won the International Publishers' Prize with Samuel Beckett. It includes, among other stories, "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "The Garden of Forking Paths", and "The Library of Babel", three of Borges' most famous stories. Stories [Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL444914W) The Garden of Forking Paths The Lottery in Babylon Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote The Circular Ruins The Library of Babel Funes the Memorious The Shape of the Sword Theme of the Traitor and the Hero Death and the Compass The Secret Miracle Three Versions of Judas The Sect of the Phoenix The Immortal The Theologians Story of the Warrior and the Captive Emma Zunz The House of Asterion Deutsches Requiem Averroes' Search The Zahir The Waiting The God's Script Stories 1-13 are from Ficciones; 14-23 are from The Aleph. Essays The Argentine Writer and Tradition The Wall and the Books The Fearful Sphere of Pascal Partial Magic in the Quixote Valéry as Symbol Kafka and His Precursors Avatars of the Tortoise The Mirror of Enigmas A Note on (toward) Bernard Shaw A New Refutation of Time All essays are from Otras inquisiciones, except The Argentine Writer and Tradition and Avatars of the Tortoise which are from Discusión Parables Inferno, I, 32 Paradiso, XXXI, 108 Ragnarök Parable of Cervantes and the Quixote The Witness A Problem Borges and I Everything and Nothing All parables are from The Maker
What it’s like
Cool, precise prose in a cerebral, dusty-library register: studious lamplight on bound volumes, marginalia, the hush of a reading room where the walls are shelves that seem to go on forever. The voice is spare and formal, pitched somewhere between an encyclopedia entry and a dream, so each sentence arrives with the calm assurance of a fact that may not be true. Vibe: austere wonder, quietly uncanny, intellectually playful. Fit for a slow, attentive evening with a cup of tea, a long-haul flight where the mind wants to wander, or a rereading of the familiar labyrinth after dark. Pacing is brief and deliberate; many pieces are only a few pages, and they circle a single strange conceit, returning to it from new angles. Emotional register stays cool and ironic, with flickers of melancholy and vertigo rather than warmth. The figures are scholars, readers, and obsessives who lose themselves in systems, mirrors, and infinities, and their arcs unfold as slow, inward drifts toward recognition. Intensity is low: occasional violence, persecution and execution appear in passing, with no gore and little on-page cruelty; fear is intellectual, a dread of endless recursion rather than shock. Written for readers who love puzzles, philosophy, and literary games, and for anyone wanting intelligence over spectacle.
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