Word: borgese
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Borges' best previous stories were strange, dreamlike fables that cast an oblique, ironic light on the doings of this world. In this latest group, the world is all too much with the author. These are mostly plain, unadorned tales-some harsh, some tender-of love, hate and the inevitability...
The characters of these stories are the sort of people Borges grew up with in Argentina, the heroes and villains of the legends he was taught as a child. They are assorted freebooters and roustabouts who subsist precariously on the edge of civilization. Resigned as they are to a grim...
At his advanced age, Borges is a master at describing people who have come to the end of their world and their dreams. One engaging story, The Elder Lady, concerns an old woman who has not ventured out of her house in Buenos Aires since 1921. "The last pleasures left...
The pick of the collection is the title story, which is a partial return to the dream kingdoms of the earlier works. With powerful brevity, Borges limns a decadent nation where language-and all that it implies of hope and beauty -is the execrated enemy. Disdaining vowels, Borges' updated...
Is this, then, the role of the poet in a civilization sliding downhill-the metaphorical fate reserved for a Borges? Is prosaic reality the only escape today? Elsewhere in his writings, Borges suggests that there is such a thing as a surfeit of language. In a parable about Shakespeare, he...