The Aleph and Other Stories (Penguin Classics) [Paperback]

I was surprised to find when I picked up this book that it is not the same selection of stories as the earlier published THE ALEPH AND OTHER STORIES 1933-1969, translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni in collaboration with Borges himself. Instead, it is a translation of two volumes published by Borges in Argentina, THE ALEPH and THE MAKER (EL HACEDOR), translated by Andrew Hurley.

As for the stories themselves, I can say only that they are some of the most magical tales written in the last hundred years, perhaps even ever. Stories like "The Immortal," "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden," "The Zahir," and "The Aleph" are worthy of being read over and over again.

Since I already have these stories in other form by other translators, I wanted to determine how good Hurley's translation is. To that end, I'll compare some of my favorite passages. Let's start with the title story in the Hurley translation:

"Under the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbelievable brightness. At first I thought it was spinning; then I realized that the movement was an illusion produced by the dizzying spectacles inside it. The Aleph was probably two or three centimeters in diameter, but universal space was contained inside it, with no diminution in size. Each thing (the glass surface of a mirror, let us say) was inifinite things, because I could clearly see it from every point in the cosmos."

Here di Giovanni with the same paragraph:

"On the back part of the step, toward the right, I saw a small iridescent sphere of almost unbelievable brilliance. At first I thought it was revolving; then I realized that this movement was an illusion created by the dizzying world it bounded. The Aleph's diameter was probably little more than an inch, but all space was there, actual and undiminished. Each thing (a mirror's face, let us say) was infinite things, since I saw it distinctly from every angle of the universe."

I'd say that Hurley did a workmanlike job, but I like di Giovanni, especially with "the dizzying world it bounded," much more idiomatic than "the dizzying spectacles inside it." Now here's Hurley with "A Biography of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz":

"As Cruz was fighting in the darkness (as his body was fighting in the darkness), he began to understand. He realized that one destiny is no better than the next and that every man must accept the destiny he bears inside himself."

From di Giovanni's "The Life of Tadeo Isidoro Cruz":

"Cruz, while he fought in the dark (while his body fought in the dark), began to understand. He understood that one destiny is no better than another, but that every man must obey what is within him."

Again, I accept the Hurley, but prefer di Giovanni."Every man must obey" is simpler, more idiomatic than "every man must accept the destiny."

One complaint I have against both translations is that neither bothers to provide translations of quotations from the Latin. This is particularly disturbing in the case of "Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden," in which two four-line excerpts are taken from a Latin tomb of a Lombard warrior that turn out to be quite interesting. I finally had to turn to Thomas Hodgkin's THE BARBARIAN INVASIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE to find the whole epitaph Englished.

In summary, it is better to read Hurley than not to read Borges at all; but, given the chance, I would prefer di Giovanni by a slight margin.

Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes two different books of Borges', very different in their styles -- one is rich and epic, while the other is sort of short and quirky. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

And in the second book, he spins up a long string of very, VERY short stories (some only a paragraph). Some are musings on his toes, and nothing much more. But there are also brief stories of startling depth, such as God speaking to Dante and the "Divine Comedy's" leopard, and assuring them of their literary immortality.

The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories in the first portion of the book are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

This excellent collection of short stories is an example of the "esthetic of the intelligence" of Borges. His metaphysic storytelling always goes beyond the immediate, to other cultures, other frontiers and other realities. Borges seeks to capture the essence of Universe and Time, and as a result, he creates stories with an exquisite poetry and an abismal, even terrifying depth. The ones I like the most are. "The immortal", an overwhelming and disconcerting study of the effects immortality would have on humans; "The theologians", an allegory about personal identity, full of erudition and irony; "Emma Zunz", the only realistic tale in the collection, about a sick and terrible revenge; "In search of Averroes", an attempt at depicting the failure of a philosopher who is unable to distinguish between comedy and tragedy; "The writing of the God", or the aprehension of divinity from a pit, thanks to the signs stamped on a jaguar's skin; "The waiting", anguished tale about a resignation and the transformation of reality into dream; and especially "Aleph", fantastic story about that point in the Universe where all points in the Universe meet; a tale that mixes the remembrance of a woman still loved after death, with the absolute vision af the Absolute: the point from where you can see all points. Simply splendid, Borges's literature stands out alone in the history of all literature. There is nothing to which it can be compared. Check for yourself the dimensions of one literary giant. Come find out what you thought you'd never be looking for.