[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 292 KB, 1410x2008, borges.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
10503561 No.10503561 [Reply] [Original]

Pretty much all fiction became boring to me after reading Borges for the first time. I can't read anything now without saying to myself "Let's see if this is as good as Borges."

Is there any other writer who even comes close to this guy in terms of originality, or was he truly one of a kind?

>> No.10503567

>>10503561
eh, i like stories about people

>> No.10503572

Adolfo Bioy Casares, his friend, writes pretty much exactly like him.

>> No.10503573

>>10503561
There is a little known author by the name of J. K. Rowling. Do you know of this person?

>> No.10503578

>>10503573
i know its bait, but it still angered me, so have a (you)
Fair's fair.

>> No.10503583

>>10503561

Read Correction by Bernhard

>> No.10503588

>>10503561
Doug, 's that you?

>> No.10503592

>>10503588
Nope, sorry. Do you know a Doug who likes Borges?

>> No.10503616

>>10503561

First of all, this:

>>10503567
>eh, i like stories about people

Like I said in another thread:

>He was too intelligent, extremely well read, devoted to books and literature as few people have ever been. However, he was too distant from people, too distant from real life, too shy near women, to the point of almost living as a celibatary for most of his life. His work is cerebral, it is beautiful, but more a work of ideas and elaborate allegories. We don’t feel in him the same kowledge of life and human beings that Shakespeare and Tolstoy emanated from every pour. Borges is not the creator of other human beings. I honestly think that García Márquez, even with all his flaws, was superior to Borges. Borges was a sublime writer, but he seems more like a teacher for the truly great poets of humanity and sages of human relations.

You want some other writers to read?

>Tolstoy

The best novelist of all time,one of the best short story writers, probably the only writer who could face Shakespeare face to face.

>Shakespeare

Greatest poetic language of all time.

If language is one of the supreme traits of humanity, and if writing is the greatest of all inventions, than Shakespeare is the one person who took these inventions to their extreme of beauty and invention.

>Chekhov

One of the greatest short story writers of all time. Of all the writers perhaps the one who had the most wise and emphaty-filled view of humanity.

>Gabriel García Márquez

If you like Spanish-language literature, go for One Hundred Years of Solitude: one of the most beautiful books ever created.

I also suggest some great novels I read recently:

>Lolita
>Memoirs of Hadrian

And the poetry of Wisława Szymborska

>> No.10503618

>>10503567
This, no wonder he didn't like Henry James, he couldn't write a character with psychological depth to save his life.

>> No.10503622

>>10503561
Trashy spic

>> No.10503624

>>10503616
>Greatest poetic language of all time

Not to say I necessarily disagree but you can't say that until you know and have read the literature in French, English, Russian, Italian, Ancient Greek, Latin, Ancient Hebrew, German and maybe Spanish

>> No.10503635

>>10503616
I get that all of those writers are great.

But when every other writer writes about people and characters, why bash the one guy who tried something different? There's already enough people who wrote "deep psychological realism." One less won't hurt.

I'm a huge fan of Chekhov and Shakespeare as well, but your argument is basically
>Borges is bad because he doesn't write like my preconceived view of how writers should write.

>> No.10503641

>>10503635
>but your argument is basically
>>Borges is bad because he doesn't write like my preconceived view of how writers should write.

But it didn't said he was bad. I even called him sublime. I love him.

>> No.10503648

>>10503641
I was exaggerating when I said "bad."
But why do you consider his social awkwardness a bad trait? That's what led him to be original.

Plus, even most of the writers who write great characters are awkward as fuck and don't have a clue on how to talk to people.

>> No.10503652

>>10503616
Adolfo Bioy Casares was intelligent and cerebral in the same level, yet had this human quality on account of him being a Tony Stark-level millionaire and womanizer. Few people read his books and almost everyone consider him inferior to Borges, but I disagree.

>> No.10503658

>ctrl+f
>no kevin b. macdonald
W T F

His prose is simply divine. It shines through like a golden light on a misty morning. Exquisite.

>> No.10503663

>>10503658
I'm all for shilling CofC whenever the chance arises too, but not in a Borges thread m8.

>> No.10503678

>>10503561
For short stories, I recommend Cortázar and Calvino if what you want is originality. There's also the greats of the genre like Joyce, Kafka or Chekhov who wrote in a less original style but put out material that rivals with Borges IMO. Some recs:

>The Follower, Letter to a Young Lady in Paris, Devil's Drool, Southern Highway by Cortázar
>Under the Jaguar Sun, Cosmiconomics by Calvino
>Dubliners by Joyce. This one is best read as a whole book
>The Silence of the Sirens, In the Penal Colony, Another Version of the Quijote by Kafka
>The kiss, the Student, Gooseberries, by Chekhov
>The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Hemingway
>A Simple Heart by Flaubert
>Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville

>> No.10503684

>>10503678
Forgot to say, you should also read Borge's poetry if you haven't already, because it's top notch

>> No.10503687

>>10503684
Borges'*

Polite sage

>> No.10503689

>>10503678
>>10503684
Thanks bud. I've read most of these and am a fan of them.
Never got around to Cortazar and Calvino yet, so maybe I'll try them next.

And yes, I've been putting off Borges' poetry for too long. I will do that too.

>> No.10503708

>>10503658
So you admit he's fiction?

>> No.10503712

>>10503689
Happy reading, anon

>> No.10504277

>>10503561

Danilo Kiš - Tomb for Boris Davidovič

>> No.10504576

>>10503561
Borges was boring as fuck and the only people who jerk him off have middlebrow taste in literature

>> No.10504607

>>10504576
This, sadly

>> No.10504613

Eco and Sebald (particularly Rings of Saturn).

Calvino and Cortázar were already mentioned.

>> No.10504632

>>10503561
Victor Segalen.

>> No.10504779

>>10503561
Same, anon. Borges is just amazing. His concepts are always so clever. Readimg him is almost like watching Black Mirror or The Twilight Zone but even better.

>> No.10505047

>>10504576
>Borges was boring as fuck
t. brainlet
He's only as boring as your intellectual capacity dictates. He communicates in a mere 4 pages what lesser authors fail to attain in a lifetime.

>> No.10506700

>>10504613
Yes OP read Calvino. If on a winter night is incredible.

>> No.10506810

>>10503561
What did Borges like in the way of fiction? Find out, compile a bibliography, begin reading. I've done this with two poets and it was entirely worth the effort. Hidden gems.

>> No.10506877

>>10506810

http://www.openculture.com/2015/03/jorge-luis-borges-personal-library.html

Here you go, this is a list of his favorite books.

>> No.10506882

>>10505047
Pretty much this. Stories like The Circular Ruins and The Library of Babel deal with more complex ideas in 5 pages than other pleb writers can't even convey in 300 pages.

>> No.10506886

>>10503561
>Is there any other writer who even comes close to this guy in terms of originality
Dante and Shakespeare
>>10506877
Very nice

>> No.10506902

>>10506886
Who were the two poets you did it for?

>> No.10506920

>>10506877
>Papini
We're reaching patrician levels that shouldn't even be possible

>> No.10506939

>>10506882
Borges is for people who would rather talk about literature than read it. So /lit/, basically.

>> No.10506946

>>10506920
It's a bummer about translations though

>> No.10506970

>>10506902
Yeats and Dickinson.
Concerning the latter I read some Ik Marvel (really liked Reveries of a Bachelor) Longfellow's FANTASTIC short novel (structurally similar to Tolstoy's Cossacks FWIW) Kavanaugh, Elizabeth Barret Browning's short epic Aurorah Leigh, which is actually quite good, etc.

>> No.10506989

>>10506920
Can vouch for Maeterlinck's prose (same BELGIAN mod dramatist of the Bluebird, etc.) whose book on bees was fantastic.

>> No.10506990

>>10506970
I'd be interested in knowing some of Yeats's favorites. I know the guy was kind of into Celtic mythology, and occult stuff. And he was a big fan of Tagore. But that's pretty much it.

>> No.10507006

>>10506939
In most threads, anon. But perhaps not this one.

>> No.10507097

>>10506990
If (you) haven't read A Vision, I recommend it. It's both ridiculous and fascinating, and very helpful for whoever like his poetry. In his Autobiography I learned that he had read the entire Human Comedy (Balzac), was fond of a book which absolutely no one reads but is truly great, Castiglione's The Book of the Courtier, and admired Cardinal Newman. Whereas I consulted Jay Leyda's book The Years and Hours of Emily Dickinson to find out what of her contemporaries she was reading, I had to rely on Yeats himself and Richard Ellmann's biography to attempt to chart my way through Yeats, who pretty much read everything.

>> No.10507116

>>10503616
>Tolstoy the only writer who could face shakespeare
>Not Dante or Joyce
Oh boy...you've really messed up. That's a shame

>> No.10507314

Most of the people fellating themselves for reading the same hackneyed stories are the ones regurgitating empty platitudes that unoriginal critics say in LARB and the New Yorker. None of you have anything original to say, which is probably why you all like Borges

>> No.10507385

>>10507314
actually you, not i, are bad

>> No.10507398

>>10507116
>joyce
>good
ok, r*ddit. it's time for your nappy change

>> No.10507399

>>10507385
Okay, soyboy, keep crying

>> No.10507417

>>10507398
Thinking that Joyce is bad is the mark of a reddit poster, anon. That site collectively hates him.

>> No.10507434

>>10503684
Are they okay in English?

>> No.10507500

>>10507417
Never looked into it myself. However, not everyone here likes Joyce; in whole or in part, all memeing aside.

>> No.10508988

I like Borges precisely due to how impersonal his work is. His characters aren't fleshed out people but just cyphers that help explore ideas or themes.

Similar things, I'd recommend Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, and whichever anthology of Dino Buzatti and Henri Micheaux you can find.

Also, the only stuff I have found that's similar in that regard of "humans don't matter, here's a crazy idea instead" belongs to the sub-subgenre of weird fiction. If you don't mind horror, you can mine for some interesting things there. For instance: http://weirdfictionreview.com/2011/12/the-red-tower-by-thomas-ligotti/

>> No.10509003

>>10504779
nice bait

>> No.10510612

>>10503561
I think Kafka is a little better. If Borges' work is the literary equivalent of philosophy, Kafka's is the equivalent of mysticism

>> No.10510652

For some reason I never could get into Borges. The writing was always intensely cerebral, he rarely ceased from that. It became very tired after several stories. I always liked the subject matter and themes of his stories and all but I could never get past this.

>> No.10511492

>>10504576
Oh, the Middlebrow Cuckoo is back~

>> No.10511611

>>10511492
Oh, the babbys first literature Cuckoo is back ~