The Total Library: Non-Fiction 1922-1986 (Penguin Modern Classics)

Superb collection of Borges’ essays, including some which are not available elsewhere. Each essay has the characteristics of one of his stories. Fascinating, sometimes startling, and packed with enough erudition to keep one googling for weeks. Highly recommended.

I love this book. The ideas, the expression, the style, the fine economy and the wit; everything about it is exceptional. So much to learn and so pleasurable. As he says: "Nothing comic is not serious".

I was concerned when it arrived because the pscking looked so flimsy. However, the book was intact and we are very pleased to have it. Quick service, too.

The many short, erudite essays in this collection span Borges' interests: literature, language, myth, "the perplexities of metaphysics", and perhaps most surprisingly, films. The outlook is generally literary though, even when reflecting on the horrors of Nazi Germany or King Kong. Much of the book is a tour around the shelves of the world library, offering insights into authors such as Homer, 13th-Century English poet Layamon, and many from the early 20th-century (Borges is a big fan of Faulkner and offers qualified praise of Joyce). Recurring subjects include Don Quixote, Dante and 1001 Nights. When it comes to the metaphysics, Borges' approach is playful; he enjoys raising questions more than answering them. He rarely moves things beyond the authors he quotes, but he is a sharp reader who delights in tracing common themes across disparate works. Readers of his fiction will be unsurprised to find Xeno, Berkley and Hume amongst his favourite sources. It's worth warning that in the very earliest pieces, Borges' vocabulary is pretentious and the concision of his prose is elliptical. (For example, I struggle to understand what the "increasing usury of dogma" means). However, he soon relaxes into something more readable. Many of the essays here are little jewels, and even pedestrian subjects are enlivened by a novel observation. Who but Borges, in an item on dubbing, would mention the chimera, hypercube and Holy Trinity?

Borges was master of concision, and most pieces in this collection are no longer than 4 pages long. The collection is beautifully translated from the original Spanish into English, and miraculously manages to preserve Borges' voice. English-speaking readers will be unfamiliar with Broges' non-fiction, as he is known primarily as an author of fiction. "The Total Library" reveals to this reader that Borges was also an essayist on a par with Bacon.

Jorge Luis Borges has long been acknowledged as a master of short fiction writing; here he reveals himself to be equally adept in his non-fictional output which ranges across philosophical essays, biographies and literary criticism.

No literary figure of the 20th century had wider or more eclectic interests than Jorge Luis Borges. The magical realism of his incomparable short stories and poems is reflected in the wide reading, thoughtful reflection and sheer intellectual exuberance of these essays. Brilliant!