Ficciones

I wanted to love this. You can see, line by line, how many books, genres even, used Borges as a launchpad: the library, the labyrinth, the invented text reviewed as real. But a book has to survive being read late, and this one mostly doesn't. I admired almost every page and was moved by almost none. The influence is the experience now, which is a strange and slightly sad thing to say about the man who, in part, invented my favorite writers: DFW, Danielewski, Pynchon, all of them downstream of him. But you're better off reading the student than the teacher. As an academic exercise, there are few better books. But trace a great river back to its source and don't be surprised when you can step across it.