This was one of the books I’d just as soon never have read.

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote
The Circular Ruins
The Lottery in Babylon
The Library of Babel
The Garden of Forking Paths

The writing is very dense and I find it is often difficult to follow. I don’t know if this is an issue with the translations or if it was Borges’ style (assuming the translations are accurate). I’m suspecting it’s more a case of the former because the stories are translated by different people.

The Lottery in Babylon, translated by John M. Fein, was, so far, the easiest to read (and the one I’ve most enjoyed, so far). Sadly, after thumbing through the book, it appears that a fellow with the initials J.E.I. is responsible for most of the translations; the stories translated by him have been the hardest to follow.

Then again, Borges’ writing style may also be an issue. It’s harder to read paragraphs that span an entire page(!) and run-on sentences that can go on for ten lines. If this is how Borges’ originally wrote, then I suppose that’s a bit of a strike against him. :-x

Also, sometimes I feel like there are cutural contexts that I don’t quite get. I found the story Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote to be especially opaque because of this.

The feeling I’ve been getting with his works so far is: confusion and vagueness for most of the story, then some illumination as something is more clearly stated near the end, and finally, at completion, a feeling like I kind of understand what the story is about, but that I am somewhat underwhelmed at the road that led to that point of understanding. Stated another way, it’s like, at the end, I feel “hey, that’s a neat idea, but I didn’t really enjoy the actual story”.

I’ve been looking up on wikipedia the “official” understandings of the stories I’ve read, and it seems that I have been understanding the points of the stories so far. I guess one reason why Borges’ works aren’t clicking with me is that they are much more allegorical than the stories I typically read and enjoy.

It seems I prefer stories where the primary point of the telling is to convey the story itself (for entertainment, enlightenment, whatever) as opposed to stories where the primary point of the telling is to convey a meaning that the story itself only represents (i.e. the story being just a vehicle to express something more profound). I think this preference may be in part because I prefer things that are straightforward as opposed to things that are vague or ambiguous. Also, a complete understanding of allegorical stories like the ones Borges’ writes require stepping into one of my most despised territories: literary criticism. But that’s a “whole ‘nother ball of wax”.

Still, I’m determined to read through it all. I may stumble across more stories, like The Lottery in Babylon, which I’ll enjoy more.

The system works fine now. Don have any problems with keyboard keys not working. Really amazing. Hope to watch it for the next couple of days. – note thu that i removed all the black labels on the board before doing the heat to avoid melting them or missing areas i wanted to concentrate on.

Thanks a lot for the tip.

The system works fine now. Don have any problems with keyboard keys not working. Really amazing. Hope to watch it for the next couple of days. – note thu that i removed all the black labels on the board before doing the heat to avoid melting them or missing areas i wanted to concentrate on.

Thanks a lot for the tip.

The system works fine now. Don have any problems with keyboard keys not working. Really amazing. Hope to watch it for the next couple of days. – note thu that i removed all the black labels on the board before doing the heat to avoid melting them or missing areas i wanted to concentrate on.

Thanks a lot for the tip.

Now I’ve acquired a second M1210 sold cheap for the same problem. Going to use the oven method. I ran this one through boot diagnostics (available with the F12 key) three times with no issues. After it’s been running awhile, the screen suddenly goes black. I’ll report after the baking effort.