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Title: The Book of Sand (Large Print Masterworks) by Jorge Luis Borges, Norman Thomas Di Giovanni ISBN: 1-85290-022-9 Publisher: ISIS Publishing Pub. Date: December, 1991 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Utopia of a great wirter
Comment: The review's title is, of course, a paraphrase of one of the best stories in this collection, one written when Borges was already old and wiser than ever. His wisdom is a disenchanted one, but then again he was never an exactly cheerful writer. His scope is infinite, as he deals not only with far distant lands but also with entirely imaginary ones. One of the most peculiar characteristics of Borges, acutely present in this slim volume, is his constant mixing up of reality with fantasy, of different epochs, and of true and imaginary identities.

The best example of this is the first tale, "The Other", an encounter between the young and the old Borges. Both are sitting on a bench by a river, but the young one is in Geneva in the twenties, while the old is in Cambridge, Mass., in 1969. Their conversation is friendly but distant, and it is simply impossible to read it without imagining what you would say to your younger self if you had a chance to talk to him. All the stories are good -vintage Borges-, but some of my favorites are: "Utopia of a Tired Man", a chilling encounter with a man from the distant future; "The Night of Gifts", a gaucho story of learning about sex and death in a single night; "There are more things" (English title in the original), an homage to H.P. Lovecraft; "The Book of Sand", about an infinite book.

This mature collection is a strong sample of Borges's best qualities: concision, brevity, high-octanage imagination, philosophical profundity without pretentiousness.

Rating: 5
Summary: ONE OF THE BEST SHORT STORY WRITERS OUT THERE, PERIOD!
Comment: Speculative fiction writer Harlan Ellison was the one who introduced me to Jorge Luis Borges. In one of his introductions to his story collections, he was saying how he felt unfit to sweep up Borges' shadow, or something like that. He went on further to say that it was a pity that Borges didn't get the Noble Prize for Literature. I agree. As you can probably tell, I'm a HUGE Harlan Ellison fan, but I like Borges just as much. Anyway, this was the first book by Borges that I read, and I was MOST IMPRESSED. Here's what I remember of it: There's a short story in there somewhere where Borges says something to the extent that--the printing press was a bad invention. What! An author, whose very livelyhood depends on the modern methods of printing said THAT?! You'll have to read the story to see his explanation, but I was impressed with it. The Congress is supposed to be one of Borges' favorite stories. Personally, I didn't understand it that well, but I'm not saying that I hate it. My favorite story of the bunch? The Book of Sand. A very well written short story about a book with as many pages as there are grains of sand. The ending reminded me of the ending to Raiders of the Lost Ark in a way. If you like Ellison, Tolkien, Spanish history, literature, etc. you will like Borges a lot!

Rating: 5
Summary: Borges hits his private bullseye yet again
Comment: I don't know much about Jorge Luis Borges the man; I'm not an expert on him as a writer either. However, I do know that nobody can write a certain kind of story better than he. His specialty is to describe, in short, succinct sentences of utmost clarity, situations of eerie strangeness, earthy gaucho confrontations, or encounters with arcane religious figures. THE BOOK OF SAND is another volume of such stories that range over many centuries and thousands of miles of geography. Some stories appear to be ancient legends, others to be autobiographical, but all, I would say, are total figments of a superb imagination. If I knew more about the writer, I might know if he had a kind of tongue-in-cheek humor or not. In a few places, just a few, some sentences have the ring of earnest or forced whimsy--a sort of wrong note in a string sonata. But, if intentional, then I have misjudged. "The Night of the Gifts" is a classic gaucho tale combined with the element of coming of age. "Utopia of a Tired Man" is a gem, which would probably grow on readers as they get older, but which at any age packs a punch in its mere seven pages. If you have ever read Borges, you will certainly like this collection. If you haven't, this might be a good place to begin, a vintage selection of the work of one of the 20th century's great writers.