The Book of Imaginary Beings [Hardcover]

Jorge Luis Borges (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1969

In a perfect pairing of talent, this volume blends twenty illustrations by Peter Sís with Jorge Luis Borges's 1957 compilation of 116 "strange creatures conceived through time and space by the human imagination," from dragons and centaurs to Lewis Carroll's Cheshire Cat and the Morlocks of H. G. Wells's The Time Machine. A lavish feast of exotica brought vividly to life with art commissioned specifically for this volume, The Book of Imaginary Beings will delight readers of classic fantasy as well as Borges's many admirers.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The master, writing with sometime collaborator Guerrero, compiled 82 one- and two-page descriptions of everything from "The Borametz" (a Chinese "plant shaped like a lamb, covered with golden fleece") to "The Simurgh" ("an immortal bird that makes its nest in the tree of science") and "The Zaratan" (a particularly cunning whale) in An Anthology of Fantastic Zoology in 1954. He added 34 more (and illustrations) for a 1967 edition, giving it the present title, and it was published in English in 1969. This edition, with fresh translations from Borges's Collected Fictions translator Hurley, and new illustrations from Caldecott-winner Sís, gives the beings new life. They prove the perfect foils for classic Borgesian musings on everything from biblical etymology to the underworld, giving the creatures particularly (and, via Sís, whimsically) vivid and perfectly scaled shape. "We do not know what the dragon means, just as we do not know the meaning of the universe," Borges (1899–1986) and Guerrero write in a preface, and the genius of this book is that it seems to easily contain the latter within it. (On sale Nov. 7)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Erudite and whimsical, a model handbook of fantastic zoology. (Michael Dirda, The Washington Post)

Of all the Latin American authors in this century, [Borges] is the most universal. (Harold Bloom) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: E P Dutton (June 1969)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525069909
• ISBN-13: 978-0525069904
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,380,354 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Zoology of the Imagination - Literary Compilation by Borges, November 11, 2003

By 

Michael Wischmeyer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Imaginary Beings (Mass Market Paperback)

Borges has compiled a zoology of the imagination under the title The Book of Imaginary Beings. He arranges these fantastical creatures from world literature alphabetically, but urges the reader to skip around, looking for subjects of interest. Some are familiar creatures: centaurs, nymphs, harpies, sirens, banshee, phoenix, hippogriffs, minotaur, mandrakes, and unicorns. Others I failed to recognize: A Bao A Qu, lamed wufniks, kujata, nagas, odradek, catoblepas, and others.

Ctesias, physician to the Persian emperor Artaxerxes Mnemon, compiled a deficient description of distant India in the fourth century B.C., in which he mentions the crocotta, a blend of a dog and a wolf. The Roman writer Pliny expands on this work by describing a cross between the hyena and antelope.

Kafka tells about an unnamed creature, that is half cat and half lamb, not only in appearance, but also in behavior. C. S. Lewis describes chilling monsters in his fantasy fiction Perelandra. Dante paints a vivid, horrifying picture of Cerberus, a creature with clawed hands that rip the skin of the souls of the damned as they file past him. In The Time Machine H. G. Wells predicts the future split of mankind into the weak, aristocratic Eloi living on the surface, and the carnivorous Morlocks, a race of underground proletarians that feast on the Eloi.

While I enjoyed perusing The Book of Imaginary Beings, this little collection is not among his best works. Perhaps, his structured approach, that of assembling accurate depictions of creatures from literature, unduely prevented Borges from freely exercising his own uniquely creative imagination. Nonetheless, the reader familiar with Borges will find this little book an interesting addition to a larger collection of his works. The Book of Imaginary Beings was co-authored with Margarita Guerrero.

The first edition with 82 topics was published in Mexico in 1957 and titled Handbook of Fantastic Zoology. In 1967 a second edition with 34 additional entries was published in Buenos Aires. My 1969 yellowed paperback edition (Penguin Books, UK) is slightly larger with 120 subjects. Newer editions are available.

In 1971-72 Robert Parris composed a chamber work, a suite of seven musical portraits and a final reprise, based on this book and sharing the same title, The Book of Imaginary Beings. The first performance was on May 7, 1972 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. during the American Music Festival under the direction of Richard Bales.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Addition to a Grand Tradition, December 22, 2006

By 

Jason Fisher (Dallas, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Book of Imaginary Beings (Hardcover)

Other reviewers have commented that Borges is too far removed here, or that it's a "minor work from a major author" -- all of which is true. If you're looking for serious *Borges*, this may not be of much interest. But if what you're looking for is a bestiary in the medieval tradition (with roots going back even further, to the 2nd Century Greek Physiologus), this is a great addition to the literature.

Wry and clever on some pages, deliciously ambiguous and foggy on others, Borges' compendium of curious creatures makes for enjoyable perusal. The only thing missing, of course, is more creatures. Borges himself begins the work with a disclaimer that any such undertaking can never be complete, yet there was plenty of room for more here. Some omissions are surprising. But in any case, for what it is (and not for what it's not), I can recommend the book without reservation.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the best Borges but still Borges, January 11, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Book of Imaginary Beings (Mass Market Paperback)

A much more full and informative review of this book is made by a Mr.Wischmeyer on the Amazon site. I recommend it.
I remember reading this book with disappointment. It seemed to me as dictionary- like works often do constructed in a formula- like fashion. Of course it has Borges tremendous learning, and his capacity to search through literatures no one else gets to , to find for the reader certain treats and insights. Yet on the whole like the fantastic creatures themselves the work does not have real life, and the deepest kind of human feeling. A minor work of a great master.