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Borges looked inside the swirling mind of man and made a maze of it. A glorious maze! The maze that is Ficciones is a maze built of mazes, one opening unto another, circling around and looping back, an infinity of mazes, small as the smallest of small minds, large as the universe can be imagined. Its architecture is delicate and refined; the wry wit of its creator is apparent in every twist and turn. Borges' maze gently mocks yet empathizes with the self-important, the self-absorbed, and the self-denying. He understands the foibles of man and his maze offers diverse commentaries on such things. But there are darker things lurking beneath that amiable surface; Ficciones is more than an academician's cleverly constructed playground. Beware the prickly thorns of this maze! There is anger there, under the charm and the playful games; anger at the systems of man and the futility of certain behaviors, at the machinery of government. There is sadness there too, at the thought of those who would treat such mazes as homes, at the machinations of fate.

Like every writer, he measured the virtues of other writers by their performance, and asked that they measure him by what he conjectured or planned.

An ironic dig, but that phrase is more than a shot fired. Borges is fascinated by the concept that if something has been thought about, has acquired meaning through that contemplation, then that something has become real. Thought creates its own reality, and reality is composed of varied systems of being and behavior; thought becomes the way that reality is interpreted - and therefore enacted.

Ficciones tells stories about stories: each story is about the perspective of mankind, the symbols this species clings to, the metaphors they attempt to turn into living, breathing reality. Ficciones is an imaginarium; it is a weird and haunted carnival of games and sideshows come to life. It is a dazzling display of comic, sometimes cosmic gems... and each gem includes a seam of tragedy, fractures that can sometimes be seen on the surface but are most often buried within its heart.

Oh the mysterious fallibility and hypocrisy of the human kind! Their failures and their attempts to transcend their fates! The mazes and fictions that they create - and then proceed to live in!

each story title is a link to something that that story made me think about...

Part One: THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS



discard the download






Part Two: ARTIFICES