I assume anyone reading this is already famiiar with Borges, and won't need my opinions about the genius of his stories.
I'm writing to convince you to buy this exact edition*, which is long out of print, even though it might be expensive and tricky to find. This is the only version I've seen which has been translated (in part) by the author. He insisted on working with translator Thomas di Giovanni, because, he said, he didn't fully trust his own English. But Borges's feel for the language was sensitive, and he believed he had to rethink every idea in English, rather than just translating words. The result is a set of translations that I find more natural, lifelike, and funny, than any others.
Here's what I mean by funny: a bilingual friend, who read this edition side-by-side with the original, said that the translation is actually funnier than the original Spanish. We picked apart a section from the title story ... English idioms allowed Borges to make satirical passages more ridiculous than he could in his own language.
Other translators, like Hurley, and di Giovanni (working alone), are good in a technical sense. But none of them had the authority or professional latitude to get away with this kind of re-thinking. The result in most cases is a translation that's defensible in terms of accuracy, but which feels stiff and unnatural. In "Death and the Compas," the most popular di Giovanni translation starts with a remark about the detective's "reckless perspicacity." The Borges version translates this as "rash mind."
The former translation sets me up to think the story will be some kind of mannerist piece, with flowery, archaic errudition playing a central role. But it isn't, and it doesn't. The phrases just end up feeling forced. Looking at the Spanish, you can figure out why di Giovanni chose those words. "Perspicacity" is a fairly direct translation, and even shares a root with the Spanish word. But it sounds and feels wrong. Borges, as a translator, was able to leave the binds of the old Spanish behind, and make the story new again.
Other translations just sound ugly to me now. They're hard to read. This one doesn't read like a translation at all, which makes perfect sense. The sad news is that Borges was thwarted (by dying, I assume) in his attempts at translating the rest of his books. So this is the one collection that we English speakers with lousy Spanish can enjoy to the fullest.
*E.P. Dutton, 1978. Edited and translated by Norman Thomas Di Giovanni, in collaboration with the author.
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