Borges Marathon, Part 17: The Garden of Forking Paths
A pacy wartime thriller mixes with an abstract meditation on the forking paths of time and fate in a classic short story by Jorge Luis Borges.
Borges Marathon, Part 16: The Library of Babel
An infinite library of every possible book sounds wonderful until you contemplate the realities of it, which Jorge Luis Borges does masterfully in "The Library of Babel".
Borges Marathon, Part 15: A Survey of the Works of Herbert Quain
Join me as I survey Jorge Luis Borges's survey of the works of the non-existent writer Herbert Quain.
Borges Marathon, Part 14: The Lottery in Babylon
How do you explain the effects of random chance? Borges invented an all-powerful Lottery governing all possible events in life to help us think through it.
Borges Marathon, Part 13: The Circular Ruins
What happens when one man tries to dream another into existence? Jorge Luis Borges imagines this scenario in this thought-provoking story.
Borges Marathon, Part 12: Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
In “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, Borges plays with ideas of authorship and originality by inventing a French Symbolist poet who embarks on the impossible task of composing Don Quixote.
Borges Marathon, Part 11: The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim
Only Borges could get away with writing a book review of a book that doesn't exist.
Borges Marathon, Part 10: Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
What would a world with no objective reality look like? How about a language with no nouns? Jorge Luis Borges explores these ideas in a fascinating thought experiment.
Borges Marathon, Part 9: Et Cetera
This section in A Universal History of Iniquity includes several interesting fragments, some of which could provide the basis for interesting stories but are not really developed.