Selected non-fictions
This unique volume presents a Borges almost entirely unknown to American readers: his extraordinary non-fiction prose. Borges' unlimited curiosity and almost superhuman erudition become, in his essays, reviews, lectures, and political and cultural notes.
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- Borges: Selected Non-fictions. Think his fictions are good? His non-fictions, imho, are even better. You can read three sentences and feel like you just listened to a symphony - you get that constant Borges wit, erudition, mystery. The English translations are SO good. Are they even better in Spanish?
- Alternatively, you could check out his non-fiction, say Selected Non-Fictions (https://www.amazon.com/Borges-Selected-Non-Fictions-Jorge-Lu...). Checking the table of contents, I particularly like "A New Refutation of Time" (Available from Gwern: https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1947-borges-anewrefutation...), "Pascal's Sphere" (also available: https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1951-borges-pascalssphere....), and the lecture "Blindness" (https://www.gwern.net/docs/borges/1977-borges-blindness.pdf; there may be some copyright issues here).
- Jorge Luis Borges, Selected Non-Fictions, 1999.
I first encountered Borges as a 15 year old student in high school. I am now 56. The book was ficciones. It changed my life.
Borges read everything. What made him the genius that he was, is that he remembered everything that he read, and he was consequently able to make droll observations across cultures and epochs.
- By far my favorite author. Most people begin by reading his short stories (which are amazing), but they should also read his non-fiction. I recommend Borges: Selected Non-Fictions. As far as I know he never discusses software or computer science explicitly, but all of his work is saturated with ideas relating to these things.
- Borges is most widely read for his fiction, but his Selected Non-Fictions[1] is life altering. Through his collection of nonfiction essays, one can begin to appreciate his unique place among 20th-century writers.
[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Borges-Selected-Non-Fictions-Jorge-Lui...
- With re Borges' attitude to Hitler and Nazism: clearly, neither the interviewer (Cavett) nor the author of this article (O'Connell) seem to be very familiar with Borges' writings.
No one who has read Borges' half a dozen essays on the war (written before and during WW2, collected in "Selected Non-Fictions") could accuse him of "refusal to engage with politics", at least as far as Hitler was concerned.
I quote:
"If I had the tragic honor of being German, I would not resign myself to sacrificing to mere military efficiency the intelligence and integrity of my fatherland; If I were English or French, I would be grateful for the perfect coincidence of my country's particular cause with the universal cause of humanity.
It is possible that a German defeat might be the ruin of Germany; it is indisputable that its victory would debase and destroy the world. I am not referring to the imaginary danger of a South American colonial adventure; I am thinking of those naive imitators, those homespun Ubermenschen that inexorable chance would bring down upon us.
I hope the years will bring us the auspicious annihilation of Adolf Hitler, this atrocious offspring of Versailles."
"Those who hate Hitler usually hate Germany; I have always admired Germany. My blood and love of literature make me a natural ally of England; the years and books draw me to France; but in Germany, pure inclination. I am certainly not one of those fake Germanists who praise the eternal Germany in order to deny it any participation in the present. I am not sure that having produced Leibniz and Schopenhauer cripples Germany's capacity for political action. Nobody asks England to choose between its Empire and Shakespeare, nor insists in France that Descartes and Conde are incompatible. I naively believe that a powerful Germany would not have saddened Novalis or been repudiated by Holderlin. I detest Hitler precisely because he does not share my faith in the German people; he has decided that to undo 1918, the only possible lesson is barbarism; the best incentive, concentration camps..."
"Things are much worse in Russia, I hear people say. I infinitely agree, but Russia does not interest us as much as Germany. Germany - along with France, England, the United States - is one of the essential nations of the Western world. Hence we feel devastated by its chaotic descent into darkness..."
Does this sound like "refusal to engage with politics"?
