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Bill Kerwin's Reviews > The Aleph and Other Stories
The Aleph and Other Stories
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This is a masterful collection by a writer of genius. I believe The Aleph is just as good as Fictions," and Fictions is as good as any book of short pieces produced in the 20th Century. If you like paradoxes, puzzles, doppelgangers and labyrinths used as metaphors for the relation of microcosm to macrocosm and the fluid nature of personal identity, then this is the book for you.
These stories are profound, but they are written in such an entertaining traditional narrative style that they might often be mistaken for pulp fiction if they weren't so astonishingly elegant.
by
This is a masterful collection by a writer of genius. I believe The Aleph is just as good as Fictions," and Fictions is as good as any book of short pieces produced in the 20th Century. If you like paradoxes, puzzles, doppelgangers and labyrinths used as metaphors for the relation of microcosm to macrocosm and the fluid nature of personal identity, then this is the book for you.
These stories are profound, but they are written in such an entertaining traditional narrative style that they might often be mistaken for pulp fiction if they weren't so astonishingly elegant.
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Reading Progress
May 18, 2007
– Shelved
Started Reading
March 6, 2009
–
Finished Reading
December 6, 2010
– Shelved as:
weird-fiction
April 13, 2014
– Shelved as:
short-stories
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Jibran
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rated it 5 stars
May 27, 2015 10:23PM
You have captured the essence of this wonderful collection of stories so succinctly and precisely, Bill :)
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Jibran wrote: "You have captured the essence of this wonderful collection of stories so succinctly and precisely, Bill :)"Thank you. This is an old review, recently reposted. I tend to write longer reviews now--I hope not too long!--and it is good to be reminded, by a person of taste, that brevity has its virtues.
Bill wrote: "Jibran wrote: "You have captured the essence of this wonderful collection of stories so succinctly and precisely, Bill :)"Thank you. This is an old review, recently reposted. I tend to write lo..."
I enjoy your longer reviews more for the great insights you put into them, Bill. Keep up the good work :)
Jibran wrote: "Bill wrote: "Jibran wrote: "You have captured the essence of this wonderful collection of stories so succinctly and precisely, Bill :)"Thank you. This is an old review, recently reposted. I te..."
Thanks. Your encouragement is appreciated.
Amen to that, old or not.
Cecily wrote: "Amen to that, old or not."Thanks, Cecily!
After that review, Bill, I have no choice but to add it to my TBR list.
I still remember reading this book around 1971 at a school friend's family cottage. I was mesmerized by the fact that I couldn't grasp the great writer's motives in writing the title story. Was his basic orientation gnostic, postmodernist or religious? I couldn't make up my mind!Well, it was probably all three.
Borges shared the "quest mentality" with so many of us baby boomers...
And I still remember reading the rambles of Heidegger when I was 18 or 19, and saying to myself, "all this is well and good, but if I don't read it from a Christian viewpoint I may as well not read it at all."
That moment served as an anchor for the rest of my life, especially as postmodernism grew in scope to the despairing Medusa it is today.
Fergus wrote: "I still remember reading this book around 1971 at a school friend's family cottage. I was mesmerized by the fact that I couldn't grasp the great writer's motives in writing the title story. Was his..."I think what Borges cared about most were traditional narrative, the uncanny, and the paradoxical. In the title story he got all three.
For me, the worst thing about postmodernism is that the critic assumes that the critic himself is superior in his viewpoint to the author. I try to read every work, if I can, from the author's point of view first, as far as i can understand it, and then afterwards apply any other viewpoint I may have.
Bill, that's perfect - in one stroke you've deflated the postmodernist balloon.
