Borges has been my favorite author ever since I first read El Aleph. His work is amazing, and it sometimes surprises me how few of the "non literary scholar" crowd have read his works, since so many of his stories are crazy enjoyable poeticly written mind trips.
If you haven't read anything of his I can only say read la biblioteca de Babel :)
In a fair few of Borges' works, imaginary books play some important role. I was intrigued especially by his reviews of imaginary books. Borges himself has said this on the matter:
"It is a laborious madness and an impoverishing one, the madness of composing vast books, setting out in five hundred pages an idea that can be perfectly related orally in five minutes. The better way to go about it is to pretend that those books already exist, and offer a summary, a commentary on them." [1]
Since I couldn't help but agree with this sentiment, I have gone and searched for other authors who did similarly. The book that stands out is Stanisław Lem's A Perfect Vacuum, which is actually a collection of reviews of imaginary books. Lem was primarily a Sci-Fi author, but many of these have a philosophical undertone. My favorites are Die Kultur als Fehler and Non Serviam.
[1] Introduction to The Garden of Forking Paths (1941)
When Wikipedia got started, one of their early crises / edit wars had to do with people wanting very strongly to describe Tlön from an in-universe perspective. (People who've read the story will understand why!)
A kind of analogous later Wikipedia edit war had to do with whether the article about Gadsby (the lipographic novel that doesn't use the letter E) should be written with the same constraint as the novel itself, and also whether the article on E-Prime (an approach to writing English without using the verb "to be") should be written in E-Prime or not. But I feel like the Tlön issue was the granddaddy of all of these controversies.
> it sometimes surprises me how few of the "non literary scholar" crowd have read his works
He's long been seen as compromised because of his collaboration with the Argentinian dictatorship, and sort of swept under the carpet a bit. The more times passes, the more he's judged (and hence taught and promoted) on his works rather than his political choices.
I love him, although sometimes you really need context to appreciate his work... like his continuous use of literary references that are half-real and half-fiction, or his love of an Argentinian "far west" of old that is pretty unknown outside South America.
I wanted to like Borges, but could never get into him. His writing usually has interesting ideas in it, but once I finish one of his stories I never think about it again. Maybe I just don't like short stories.
You may accuse me of a lack of imagination, but I don't understand how Asterion's story is supposed to be conveyed by him.
Taking him at his word he shouldn't be able to write, and it would be most fitting if his story were just an internal monologue but the "footnote" about 14 meaning infinite disallows that possibility.
The "power" of a short story rests in its ability to imply interesting things that your imagination can play around with.
When you read the original story of Theseus and the Minotaur do you ask yourself the same question? Is the story less powerful because it couldn't be true as written?
The Apollodorus Bibliotecha is real compendium of Greek myths written in the 1st or 2nd century AD. The first section of the first book is the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. The House of Asterion is the same story told from the Minotaur's perspective.
The fact the the story itself includes the meta-fictional footnote implies this isn't the "original" and that the person writing this isn't the Minotaur himself. Borges like to play with this conceit in many of his stories, e.g., "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote." Don Quixote itself uses the same conceit, i.e., that what you're reading is something found and transmitted (and possibly altered).
So, to start, it might be worth putting up this story and the story of Theseus and the Minotaur side-by-side. What are some differences?
For example, why does Borges have the Athenians sending nine people into the labyrinth rather than seven? Borges wrote extensively about Dante and the Minotaur is in Dante's inferno, so it wouldn't totally surprise me if there's some connection between the nine people who get sent in and the nine circles of Hell in the Inferno.
etc. etc. etc. Peeling back these onion layers is why a lot of people enjoy reading Borges.
Unfortunately he really only writes short stories. Some of his work is even shorter (like most of the work in Dreamtigers). I would give the stories there a try, as they don't take very long to read and will almost certainly stay with you.
He was better known in his own country as an essayist than a short-story writer.
The essays are fantastic, but stressful if you came from first encountering him as a fiction-writer. The writing style is almost identical. You keep waiting for the shoe to drop.
That said, his essays on Dante are ... very powerful. Deeply moving.
Looking forward to reading this! The author, Elizabeth Hyde Stevens, wrote a book I really enjoyed called "Make Art Make Money: Lessons from Jim Henson on Fueling Your Creative Career" — https://www.amazon.com/Make-Art-Money-Lessons-Creative-ebook.... It's full of interesting insights about Henson's approach to not only his art but also the business that enabled him to sustain it. Big fan of Borges, so hoping this is equally great.
Borges taught himself German to be able read Arthur Schopenhauer in its original language. Interestingly he also learned to read Italian by reading an English translation of the Divine comedy with the original text in one page and the translation in the other. The translation was by John Carlyle, Thomas' brother.
I first discovered Borges in high school. We read "The Book of Sand" from a textbook. I've been wrapped up in the mysticism of the scenarios of his writing ever since. Years later, I visited his home city, Buenos Aires, and felt a bit of the magic he had written about.
I liked the story of Emma Zunz as a grieving daughter. The Garden of Forking Paths is clever and cited as an important work on possible worlds and predestination.
Further coverage of the 30 year anniversary of Borges' passing here:
If you haven't read anything of his I can only say read la biblioteca de Babel :)