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Cecily's Reviews > Collected Fictions
Collected Fictions
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Cecily's review
bookshelves: short-stories-and-novellas, magical-realism, borges-and-borgesian, favourites, scifi-future-speculative-fict, read-only-cos-of-gr-friends, aaabsolute-favourites
Apr 12, 2015
bookshelves: short-stories-and-novellas, magical-realism, borges-and-borgesian, favourites, scifi-future-speculative-fict, read-only-cos-of-gr-friends, aaabsolute-favourites
Fabulous
For the last year or so, I've been working at a film studios.
As I wander around the site, what I find most fascinating is not star-spotting (they tend to be shielded from prying eyes anyway) but the many and varied pre-production activities needed to make the magic of cinema a reality: building sets and props; puppet-people in motion-capture suits; food carts for the crews; the whir of industrial generators; cabling for light and sound; the making of costumes, weapons and jewellery. Real, tangible crafts, performed by and for living, breathing people.
Reading Borges' multi-layered and ambiguous blending of truth and imagination has made me consider what is real, and what is fiction in new ways.
At the studios, there are sets within sets, to tell stories within stories, as well as different versions of the same story.
First, there was a traditional fairytale, then Uncle Walt's team made a blockbuster animation of it, and now they're making a live action version.
That in itself prompts philosophical musings, but there's more to it than that.
Even this "real" version of the story is illusory. The huge and impressive sets are made of cheap timber, plaster, plastic and polystyrene; their beauty is skin deep, and best viewed from a distance.
Blue and green-screen are used for backgrounds and special effects. Maybe audiences will think the sets are CGI as well, so why have builders, carpenters, and sculptors been toiling for months to create the ephemeral palaces of dreams? Would such a misapprehension diminish or enhance the importance of their work? (This question becomes more personal: I write help and user guides for software; if no one reads what I write, is my effort worthless, my job pointless?)
In a few months, the sets will be dismantled, props and costumes repurposed or thrown away. But an impression will live on in the digital realm and people's memories.
Ephemeral - or not?
Real - or not?
Last month, I touched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She's real.
Read the stories
See .
My reviews
The publications in this volume of Collected Fictions are reviewed individually:
� 1935, A Universal History of Iniquity 3* - plain, macho stories
Then a group of philosophical, mind-warping stories:
� 1941, The Garden of Forking Paths 6*, which includes:
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius 6*
The Library of Babel 6*
� 1944, Artifices 6*
� 1949, The Aleph 6*
� 1960, Dreamtigers (aka The Maker) 5*, which includes
1969, In Praise of Darkness 6*
� 1970, Brodie's Report 4* - back to plainer, more realistic stories, but some have a deeper, more ambiguous aspect
� 1975, The Book of Sand 6* - another switch: back to the style I like best. It includes
The Congress 5*
� 1983, Shakespeare’s Memory 6* - the master's final four stories are a triumph.
For the last year or so, I've been working at a film studios.
As I wander around the site, what I find most fascinating is not star-spotting (they tend to be shielded from prying eyes anyway) but the many and varied pre-production activities needed to make the magic of cinema a reality: building sets and props; puppet-people in motion-capture suits; food carts for the crews; the whir of industrial generators; cabling for light and sound; the making of costumes, weapons and jewellery. Real, tangible crafts, performed by and for living, breathing people.
Reading Borges' multi-layered and ambiguous blending of truth and imagination has made me consider what is real, and what is fiction in new ways.
At the studios, there are sets within sets, to tell stories within stories, as well as different versions of the same story.
First, there was a traditional fairytale, then Uncle Walt's team made a blockbuster animation of it, and now they're making a live action version.
That in itself prompts philosophical musings, but there's more to it than that.
Even this "real" version of the story is illusory. The huge and impressive sets are made of cheap timber, plaster, plastic and polystyrene; their beauty is skin deep, and best viewed from a distance.
Blue and green-screen are used for backgrounds and special effects. Maybe audiences will think the sets are CGI as well, so why have builders, carpenters, and sculptors been toiling for months to create the ephemeral palaces of dreams? Would such a misapprehension diminish or enhance the importance of their work? (This question becomes more personal: I write help and user guides for software; if no one reads what I write, is my effort worthless, my job pointless?)
In a few months, the sets will be dismantled, props and costumes repurposed or thrown away. But an impression will live on in the digital realm and people's memories.
Ephemeral - or not?
Real - or not?
Last month, I touched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. She's real.
Read the stories
See .
My reviews
The publications in this volume of Collected Fictions are reviewed individually:
� 1935, A Universal History of Iniquity 3* - plain, macho stories
Then a group of philosophical, mind-warping stories:
� 1941, The Garden of Forking Paths 6*, which includes:
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius 6*
The Library of Babel 6*
� 1944, Artifices 6*
� 1949, The Aleph 6*
� 1960, Dreamtigers (aka The Maker) 5*, which includes
1969, In Praise of Darkness 6*
� 1970, Brodie's Report 4* - back to plainer, more realistic stories, but some have a deeper, more ambiguous aspect
� 1975, The Book of Sand 6* - another switch: back to the style I like best. It includes
The Congress 5*
� 1983, Shakespeare’s Memory 6* - the master's final four stories are a triumph.
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Reading Progress
April 12, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
April 12, 2015
– Shelved
April 29, 2015
–
Started Reading
April 29, 2015
– Shelved as:
short-stories-and-novellas
April 29, 2015
– Shelved as:
magical-realism
April 29, 2015
–
0.0%
"Wow. I dipped into Borges with "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" and am so wonderfully and weirdly disoriented by the layers of reality and paradoxes of time and logic, that I didn't go on to read a second piece at this sitting. (That's a compliment.)"
April 30, 2015
–
0.0%
"Today, I contemplated, books, the infinite universe, the existence (or not) of God, making, dreamtiger... and toenails. Breathtaking."
June 23, 2015
– Shelved as:
borges-and-borgesian
July 18, 2015
– Shelved as:
favourites
July 26, 2015
– Shelved as:
scifi-future-speculative-fict
August 6, 2015
–
Finished Reading
June 20, 2016
– Shelved as:
read-only-cos-of-gr-friends
December 14, 2016
– Shelved as:
aaabsolute-favourites
Comments Showing 1-50 of 83 (83 new)
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Petra is wondering when this dawn will beome day
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Apr 12, 2015 08:44AM
Anticipation teaches patience. Or so they say -)
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Picking it up again tomorrow (I read half a dozen short pieces ten days ago).
What are you doing in film?
Lyn wrote: "I need to read him, thanks for the review"Reading them chronologically seems to work well in general, but the first collection, A Universal History of Iniquity, is much less Borgian than what follows, so it may be worth reading one or two pieces from later volumes to so you that he gets better, and that you notice the saplings. You might try Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (you can find PDFs online) and The Library of Babel.
Mummy wrote: "What are you doing in film?"I'm not, but my company is. It is a small company supplying film cameras and crew and post-production, that is a tenant in a much larger film studios. Everything is digital nowadays, and a couple of years ago, they branched out into software, specifically 3D and 360 visualisation. I'm the technical author and software tester.
A super fringe benefit (there aren't any others, because it's a small and new spin-off) is wandering round the site: most of the time, all the many workshops and stages have doors open, and you never know what you'll see.
Cecily wrote: "...they branched out into software, specifically 3D and 360 visualisation..."Not sure whether you're talking about the same thing, but I used to have some exposure to (Mark Roberts?) motion control cranes and rigs. I assume that things have moved on a lot since then.
No more Arriflex and Bolex then. LOLIt sounds like you have an interesting job.
The camera/filming part of the company is fairly separate from the software part. Well, we share premises, and a few staff, but it's mostly - and financially - separate. There are steadi-cams and cameras on rails etc in the workshop and storage areas, but I don't know much about them. I had to Google Arriflex and Bolex.But yes, the job, and especially the location, is interesting.
I try not to be jealous, but....Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!
It made my day to hear she is real. :D
Very real - and surprisingly big. I was more excited than an adult is expected to be. ;)
Makes perfect sense to me! :)
Thanks, Sketchbook. Have I tempted you to dip your toe in Borgian waters?
You're in for a treat. I'm about half way through, and they just keep getting better. As with any collection, there's the odd one that doesn't chime with me, but except for the earliest collection (Universal History of Iniquity) it's only a few.
Chitty-Chitty is real?!!
Yes, she really, really is. I've seen her and touched her, so I know. (But no photos on site.)Also, they made half a dozen Chittys, but this was the main real one.
Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang! (But also, yay Borges)
I was more excited about Chitty than an adult is expected to be (the guy humoured me), but now I want to find Borges' infinite library...
Cecily wrote: "I was more excited about Chitty than an adult is expected to be (the guy humoured me)..."I'm excited hearing about your being excited. And I immediately flashed not only to the movie, but to a vision of my childhood copy of the book. Is that real?
I've read Ficciones but had an experience similar to the one Dolors expressed in another thread. In fact, Dolors and I sympathized with each other back then. As she said too, perhaps I should try again.
Teresa wrote: "a vision of my childhood copy of the book. Is that real?"It's real to you. Is that enough?
Teresa wrote: "I've read Ficciones but had an experience similar to the one Dolors expressed in another thread. In fact, Dolors and I sympathized with each other back then. As she said too, perhaps I should try again."
It may also depend on where you start. So far, I like the middle ones best (I've added my star ratings to the list/links above).
I've read only a couple in Brodie's Report, and they have similarities with A Universal History of Iniquity. Some people probably prefer those, but I prefer a dash of surrealism to knife-fighting gauchos. ;)
Cecily wrote: "It's real to you. Is that enough?."Spoken like someone who's been reading Borges!
Cecily wrote: "Teresa wrote: "a vision of my childhood copy of the book. Is that real?"It's real to you. Is that enough?
Plenty enough.
Though "Ficciones" came highly recommended to me. I see that it is fairly early in his oeuvre (1956), so yes perhaps I should try something later, in the middle, as you say.
Ficciones is my favorite. My guess would be that if you don't like it, Borges isn't your kind of writer. (Which is okay, and he can't be everyone's.) But hey, try something else and let me know if I guessed right.
Alex wrote: "Ficciones is my favorite. My guess would be that if you don't like it, Borges isn't your kind of writer. (Which is okay, and he can't be everyone's.) But hey, try something else and let me know if ..."Thanks, Alex. Yes, that was the exact conclusion I came up with about myself and Borges, but nice to hear someone who loves him say so too. :) I will report back if I ever do read him again.
Teresa wrote: "Though "Ficciones" came highly recommended to me. I see that it is fairly early in his oeuvre (1956), so yes perhaps I should try something later, in the middle, as you say."1956 isn't early Borges. A Universal History of Iniquity was 1935, The Garden of Forking Paths was 1941, Artifices in 1944, The Aleph in 1949, then a gap until Dreamtigers in 1969, and then more after that.
However, I don't have that particular permutation of stories, so I don't know what it contains or when they were first published.
Cecily wrote: "1956 isn't early Borges. A Universal History of Iniquity was 1935, The Garden of Forking Paths was 1941, Artifices in 1944, The Aleph in 1949, then a gap until Dreamtigers in 1969."It contains "The Garden of Forking Paths" and "Artifices".
I was originally looking at this list, which is rather confusing:
Yes, I found it confusing when trying to figure out what to get. Labyrinths is one of his best known, but that seems to be a later compilation from several previously-published collections. So many pieces were published several times, under different titles.
An excellent review Cecily, yet again!
Thanks, Lynne. I confess I rather like this one because it's so different from my usual reviews.
I don't know this author's works at all Cecily. The book sounds really good and so I've ordered a copy.
Ooh, exciting! I've actually finished the Brodie's Report section but not yet written a review. So I've read nearly all of it, and I'm still firmly of the belief that the advice I had as to how to tackle it was good, so I suggest you consider something similar. I read three or four of his best-known ones from his middle period (Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Library of Babel and a couple of others). Then I started from the beginning of this Collected Fictions, but pausing between each component.
There seems to be an arc - or two. A Universal History of Iniquity and much of Brodie's Report are plain (his word), realistic, and with a strong Argentine setting; they're good, but no so much to my liking. If I'd not adored some of his later works, I might not have carried on reading. The story collections in between are more mind-bending, philosophical, thought-provoking, beguiling: many of them I had to read twice (though that was no hardship). I think that the final two components, that I have not yet read, are more like the middle stories.
Thanks for that Cecily!I've made a copy of your comments too!
That sounds exactly right to me, Cecily.And have fun with Borges, Lynne! He's one of those authors where I'm jealous of people who haven't read him yet, because you still have the experience of reading him for the first time ahead of you.
(That sentence was awful, sorry.)
Alex wrote: "That sounds exactly right to me, Cecily.And have fun with Borges, Lynne! He's one of those authors where I'm jealous of people who haven't read him yet, because you still have the experience of r..."
Thank you Alex! No problem with the sentence either.
I'm actually not very well read. I have read all the classics and all that good stuff but when it gets to contemporary authors, I'm very ignorant.
I always like to see/meet people who get "jealous". It shows they have feeling and depth of character!
Actually, when one talks about contemporary, does this cover 1899, when Borges was born?
I know there's a big argument over who gets Borges on their team - the modernists or the postmodernists. ("I'll take boring debates no one cares about for $200, Alex.") It's not when they were born so much as when they wrote important work, right? 40s is pretty recent and 60s is basically yesterday, A friend of mine just broke down what she used to understand as the periods of literature:
- Super Old Stuff (The Odyssey)
- Wicked Old Stuff (anything involving horses, fainting, men wearing gloves) (I'm paraphrasing, i.e. making this up, what she actually said was "Defoe to Hardy")
- New Stuff (1950s on)
and then she was like, "and from 1900 - 1950 I just didn't know what happened at all."
I was especially amused by this because that's how I was too, until like seven years ago when I decided to crack down and figure some of this out.
I guess I call "contemporary" from like 1950ish on? Borges feels right at the beginning of contemporary.
Lynne wrote: "Actually, when one talks about contemporary, does this cover 1899, when Borges was born?"Alex wrote: "It's not when they were born so much as when they wrote important work, right?...I guess I call "contemporary" from like 1950ish on? Borges feels right at the beginning of contemporary."
Good question, Lynne, and I think Alex has the right answer. Borges was ahead of his time, and his more experimental stories feel decidedly modern/postmodern.
(PS I've now reviewed Brodie's Report - link added to review, above - and am a little sad I have only two collections still to go.)
Cecily, you've inspired me to read Borges now but I'm wondering if I should go for the Norman Thomas di Giovanni translation or Andrew Hurley. Or are both equally good?
I'm so glad to share the joy, Gisela.I've only read the Hurley, so I can't advise on translations, I'm afraid.
If you want to get started on Borges, there will be discussions in September in the group On Paths Unknown. We're going to start with a few, then open it out to all and any. You'd be very welcome to join - as would anyone else reading this: /topic/group...
That group looks cool! I'm sorta maxed out on groups, though. (To be honest, I'm starting to realize that my max group number is one.)
Cecily wrote: "I'm so glad to share the joy, Gisela.I've only read the Hurley, so I can't advise on translations, I'm afraid.
If you want to get started on Borges, there will be discussions in September in the..."
Thank you, Cecily: if Hurley is what you are reading, that will do me. And thank you also for the heads-up about "On Paths Unknown". Have joined now and look forward to sharing thoughts on Borges in September.
Alex wrote: "That group looks cool! I'm sorta maxed out on groups, though. (To be honest, I'm starting to realize that my max group number is one.)"I know what you mean. I found a couple of groups really helpful for finding friends with similar tastes when I joined GR, but I've never wanted to commit to reading a group's book every single month. I'm still in quite a few, but ignore the email update. Recently, I've started skimming the Groups tab on the newsfeed, and I occasionally find things worth dipping into. Hence the Borges read.
Thanks, Chris. JLB is inspirational.There's a discussion of individual stories in this group; you'd be welcome to join in:
/topic/group...
Fascinating review, Cecily! It's often the most interesting to read a review where the reviewer brings in a snippet from their life they relate and interpret a book through.
Thank you, Junta. Many of the reviews I've most admired on GR have a personal element. It's something I struggle to include, but I've made conscious efforts recently, so it's pleasing when it pays off.
That's fascinating, Fatty. I've not heard of that before, but yes, it's the same analogy.
Fatty wrote: "By the way, I should point out that your job isn't worthless...."You're very kind. My comment was tongue-in-cheek. But only slightly.
Cecily, I'm reading this book at the moment.I don't know why but I started with "The Maker" - magical and mesmerising indeed. And I will go through to the end and then start at the beginning. Sounds ridiculous I know...
I find this book absolutely exquisite!
