A smaller group of Brown Baggers turned up to discuss “Ficciones” by Argentinian writer and poet Jorge Luis Borges. “Ficciones”, originally published in Spanish in 1956, is a collection of 17 short stories that proved to be a challenging read for our group. Just one of our group managed to get through all 17 stories in the collection. Most only got through a few, but after the discussion thought they might try again to digest some of the selections.
Some of our readers had never heard of Borges and wanted to know why he was so acclaimed but others remembered reading or hearing of him in college. Borges was fluent in several languages and struck our readers as clearly a genius.
One reader said that Borges certainly had “something in mind” when putting these stories together, but most of us felt that we weren’t smart enough to figure out what. Readers found some of the vocabulary off-putting and too cerebral. Was the writer showing off how smart he was? But then we also had to consider that the selections were translated, so what role did the translator play in choosing one word over another?
Our group felt that exposure to Borges enhanced our cultural literacy and most were glad “Ficciones” was selected as they never would have picked it up otherwise.
Stories from the collection that stuck out to our readers included “The Library of Babel”, The Babylon Lottery”, “Theme of the Traitor and the Hero” and “Three Versions of Judas”.
Due to the Brown Baggers facilitator (the writer of this summary) waiting until the last minute to do her research😊, the group missed out on a potential opportunity to invite a local expert on Borges to assist with our discussion of “Ficciones”. Borges was here in Charlottesville at the University of Virginia in 1967. That visit resulted in a University librarian developing a passion for the works of Borges, resulting in a special collection of his works currently housed at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections library at UVA. We could have really benefitted by having an expert to help interpret and explain some of the stories!
Article on Borges collection at UVA
Description of Borges collection at UVA
Other titles mentioned:
Upcoming Brown Baggers dates and titles:
- August 20, 2026 Charlottesville by Deborah Baker
- September 17, 2026 Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
- October 15, 2026 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark
- November 19, 2026 The Human Stain by Philip Roth