Bookpile 4: The Garden of Forking Paths
Bookpile is short posts on Fridays about what I’m reading now and what I’m liking about it. This week, it’s The Garden of Forking Paths, a very small collection of stories by Jorge Luis Borges.
Re-read mode continues. This very tiny book of short fiction by Jorge Luis Borges contains a few of his finest mind-benders. I took it off the shelf this week to re-read my favourite of all his works, "On Exactitude in Science." It's an extremely short story, one page in all, and written like an encyclopedia entry. I won't spoil the story by saying what it's about. Like much of Borges' work, it wraps a very on-the-nose observation in layers of pleasing strangeness.
Every time I get this tiny book out to re-read "On Exactitude in Science," I wind up reading the other stories too. His best works – or the ones I find myself liking best – have an evergreen quality to them. If you like magic realism, philosophy, or indeed detective stories, but somehow haven't managed to read Borges, why?
