In a copy of the Iliad of Pope, who came from an antique dealer named Cartaphilus, it discovered a strange manuscript which tells a strange story Told in first person by an ancient Roman than a day is dying in Egypt with a rider from the east. Before dying, she explains that seeks immortality river on whose banks stands the City of the Immortals. The Roman meets two hundred soldiers and set off on the arduous search of the river and city immortal ...
The Aleph is a book of short stories, some as telegraph, which shows that it is possible to have a lot in very few lines. Borges's style is impeccable, a record written in easy to read cult but a few lines makes superb descriptions that say it all.
The subject matter is varied, but most of the stories have a historical background (from antiquity to the recent past). Numerous references also symbolic or esoteric about universal themes: immortality, rebellion, pride, suffering, obsessions ...
Perhaps most famous stories are the ones to initiate and close the book: immortality and the Aleph. I have really enjoyed both, but however, has impressed me most is "The writing of God" where pre-Columbian remains a priest in a dark dungeon without hope that his jailer (the English conquistador Alvarado) have mercy on him and comes to free some day. His only contact with the outside world is the light coming through the hatch by feeding it once a day, takes time to see a jaguar with which it shares room, separated by a wall. Spend hours days, years or decades to decipher the language in which God has inscribed the secrets of the universe and whose symbols are articulated in the spots of the jaguar.
Many of the stories I was left feeling that after a few lines, there is a hidden message or the author meant to convey an important idea, but often I fail to grasp. (You may need many more readings to capture the fullness of the work of Borges).
My rating: very good.
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