Reading Borges

Jorge Luis Borges is one of the greats. One of those writers that you really must read.

I've been carrying "Fictions" around in my bag for two weeks now. I've managed to read two stories from it.

I just can't read it. Perhaps if I'd come to Borges while I was younger and studying literature then I would have had the mental agility to read it, but not now when I primarily read for pleasure. I do like to feel challenged occasionally in my reading and certainly to learn something new, but this is too much. It is impenetrable.

The note from the translator says it all:
"I have presumed the reader to possess more or less the range of general or world history or culture that JLB makes constant reference to, or to have access to such reference books and other sources as would supply any need there".

It may be worth trying to find my way through, so that I too love Borges, but I'm just not in the right mindset at the moment.

I think Borges in going back to the library unread.