Aleph (Penguin Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Jorge Luis Borges (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 7, 2000 | Series: Penguin Modern Classics

Borges' stories have a deceptively simple, almost laconic style. In maddeningly ingenious stories that play with the very form of the short story, Borges returns again and again to his themes: dreams, labyrinths, mirrors, infinite libraries, the manipulations of chance, gaucho knife-fighters, transparent tigers and the elusive nature of identity itself.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Borges was born in Buenos Aires in 1899. A poet, critic and short story writer, he received numerous awards for his work including the 1961 International Publisher's Prize (shared with Samuel Beckett). He died in 1986. He has a reasonable claim, with Kafka and Joyce, to be the most influential writer of the 20th Century.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books (September 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141183837
• ISBN-13: 978-0141183831
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,682,772 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Can we get to the aleph in time, January 27, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: El Aleph (Paperback)

Borges is perhaps one of the only writers in the world who deserved to get a nobel price and never did. His book The Aleph is a short stories book (Borges never wrote novels, he thought if there was something to be said it could be said in a short story) with many interesting and different subjects. The short story The Aleph, takes the reader to an abstract and surreal place in the corner of a basement, where the world can be observed, much like the feeling of our everyday lives, when we discover a little thing that will let us escape from daily rutine for a second. The book is easy to read and the stories are easy to follow . They stole all my time and I found myself taking time from work, homework, and other duties just fo finish reading a story, that otherwise would live in my head for days. Knowing Borges' style and having read other magical realism authors as well as some modern literature might make it more enjoyable as there is constant references to religion, physics, metaphysics, cabala, etc. This book may not change the way you live your life, but it will bring you a smile during traffic hour when you stop thinking about the bumper ahead, and you become obsessed with finding "The Aleph"

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars To see the entire world, May 1, 2007

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aleph (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Trying to full describe the writings of Jorge Luis Borges is like trying to explain exactly why Leonardo da Vinci's art still captivates. The man wrote works of art.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" includes several of Borges' stories, with all sorts of surreal twists in a seemingly ordinary world. But this collection is a shining example of why people enjoy Borges -- magical, rich in language, and lets us glimpse the minds of anything and anyone he can conjure up.

The title story involves a sort of fictional version of Borges, who makes regular pilgrimages to the house of a woman he loved, and encounters her slightly nuts first cousin Daneri, who is composing a horrible epic poem describing the whole world. When Daneri's house is threatened, he reveals how he's composed the poem -- the Aleph, which he discovered as a child, and he allows Borges to catch a glimpse of... everything.

The other stories have tales of heretics and holy men, of a man's last days awaiting an assassin's bullet, of a girl who coldly seeks revenge for her father, and the Zahir (the opposite of the Aleph), which can cause an all-encompassing obsession in the one who sees it, until they shut out reality.

It's hard to even find a flaw with "The Aleph" -- Borges' writing is exquisitely detailed and atmospheric, and densely packed with philosophical pockets. The main flaw with this collection is that it's basically split into two very dissimilar styles -- some of them are short and relatively plain, while the others are dense pockets of philosophy. In fact, all the stories are based on the idea of shared experiences and infinite time, where there are no "new" experiences but only repetition.

And Borges wraps these stories in lush, digified prose that takes a little while to wade through, but the richness of the words he uses is worth it ("every generation of mankind includes four honest men who secretly hold up the universe and justify it"). And his writing takes on many different people's selves -- he even makes readers squirm by taking us into the mind of a loyal Nazi.

It's almost like another world, Borgeworld, which is almost like ours, but where magical items are hidden in the cellars, soldiers are forgotten, the Minotaur plays in his maze, and God dreams of mortal lives. The most entrancing foray into Borgeworld is "The Immortal," about a Roman soldier who goes searching for a city of immortals, and finds an ancient poet who seems very familiar.

"The Aleph and Other Stories" is a brilliant collection of Borges' exquisite stories. Magical and gritty, beautiful and haunting -- this collection should be cherished.

5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful short-stories, March 30, 2008

By 

Ronald van Vollenhoven (Sweden) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Aleph (Penguin Modern Classics) (Paperback)

Borges' short stories are masterful, unique, enchanting, seducing. I cannot compare them to anything else I have read, except perhaps - very remotely - to Edgar Allan Poe. However, the most striking feature of Borges' stories is a complete and singular quest for the metaphysical in even the simplest occurence, the smallest word. Befitting then that this selection of stories is named after the story "The Aleph", about the Hebrew letter that contains the whole universe. Borges makes it possible and plausible!

Hint to first-time reader: read the first 1-2 pages of each story quickly without trying to understand and then go back and read it again from the start. Try it, it works.

PS This edition also includes "The Maker", a series of very short "vignettes" written by Borges later in his life, and not as convincing as "The Aleph".