The Aleph
(Jorge Luis Borges)
The Aleph is a strange name for the title of a group of stories by the Argentinean Master writer Borges. One of the tales, perhaps the best acomplished, has this name. Maybe you're a beginner in this author's somewhat complex but fascinating reading, then you must know, before crossing the portal to this fantastic alter-world, these are not "normal" tales, these are strange stories, filled with mystic symbolism that give various rich and ambiguous readings.The narration, as part of the the style and by itself, is of a cold and erudite storyteller.His tales take us thru labyrinths, mirrors and dreams of a philosophy, a certain way of looking to life close, in some points of view, to the budist pesimism.There are many quotations, dates, names, but the beautiful stories have the richness of their own plot, the richness of the ideas that populate them.After reading some of the tales, specially the more fantastic ones, you will have the sensation of an strange and complex existing real world, in another plane or dimention, where they take place.You'll may better center your atencion in the fantastic storyteller Borges, and not in the initial Borges, more conventional and "Argentinista" (Argentinian). Indeed, one of the more recommended is a story about the circular teory of time: An Old Borges finds his young self in a park bench and gets involved with himself in a beautiful conversation.In another story the central point is a strange sphere where you can see at a glance the whole universe, it is also a perspective focused in the time as a theme, and has another budist idea behind, the dissolution of the ego and its dissolution in the universal fluid as a way of understanding illumination.The formal particularity of these wonderful stories is in their vanguardist quality, a mixture in their configuration of generes like short story, essay, Haiku.In his private life, in spite of his geniality, Borges had a love-hate relation with his compatriots. He didn't liked tango or soccer, the two proclaimed loves of argentineans. His political orientation of a despise for what he considered a democracy of hypocrital idiosincracy, of which he once said: "it's an error of the stadistics"; his proximity and gestures toward dictators liko Videla or Pinochet gave him not a few enemies. But it was in this way how he could travel with his genious and his pen the complex labyrinths in which he himself sometimes got lost too.Reading Borges is a whole experience, he'll take you, if you like a fine reading, to a "in crescendo" of interest and a later passion for his incredible universe.In The Aleph, Fictions, as well as his texts, among poems and shot stories, his essays and his interesting life, i'm sure they'll guide you to a singular different space in the unexplored places of your mind, giving you a lot of creative posibilities, transforming yourserlf into a better reader and, Why not? a better writer. Do yourself a favor: Read Borges.By Gustavo Adolfo Rios Eslava.Translation: Luis Salgado Duarte
Resumos Relacionados
- Universal History Of Infamy
- Fictions
- Fictions
- The Aleph
- Strange Pilgrims
|
|