On writing

Translator-editor Levine has distilled the critical writings of one of the 20th century's most distinguished men of letters into a serious treatise on style and the power of words. Included are essays written in the 1920s, the 1980s, and every decade between, providing a mirror that reflects not only Borges's artistic evolution, but much of the century. Broken into seven sections, the slim volume begins with a collective manifesto on aesthetics written when Borges was just 22, revealing a young writer already in serious contemplation of the artistic philosophies that would define his life: "Two aesthetics exist: the passive aesthetic of mirrors and the active aesthetic of prisms." He goes on to discuss literary pleasures found in English, French, Irish, and American writing; the `20s found him occupied with Joyce and the mythic fiction of Turkestan; the `30s with Woolf, Eliot, Valery, and Faulkner. He gives serious consideration to the often-dismissed detective story, highlighting Poe, Adolfo Casares, and Ellery Queen. Many of the essays included were written in the `20s, when Borges was still a young writer working hard to establish his place in the literary community. (June) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

On Writing Contents   Introduction by Suzanne Jill Levine A Note on the Translations I. Becoming a Man of Letters * Ultra Manifesto * On Expressionism * After Images * Joyce's Ulysses *  The Ballad of Reading Gaol   II. Word Music * Verbiage for Poems * An Investigation of the Word * The Art of Verbal Abuse * On Literary Description * On Metaphor * Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass   III. On Translation * Two Ways to Translate * The Homeric Versions   IV. Reading as Writing * A Profession of Literary Faith * Literary Pleasure * The Superstitious Ethics of the Reader * The Paradox of Apollinaire * Kafka and his Precursors * Flaubert and his Exemplary Destiny   V. The Critic at Work * Virginia Woolf * T. S. Eliot  * Paul Valéry  * William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! * Herman Mellville, Bartleby the Scrivener * Henry James, The Abasement of the Northmores * Marcel Schwob, Imaginary Lives * H. G. Wells, The Time Machine; The, Invisible Man * Julio Cortázar, Stories   VI. The Perfect Plot * The Labyrinths of the Detective Story and Chesterton * Ellery Queen, The Halfway House * Adolfo Bioy Casares, The Invention of Morel * Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone * The Detective Story   VII. Narrative Art * Stories from Turkestan * The Cinematograph, the Biograph * Narrative Art and Magic * Preface to the 1954 edition of  A Universal History of Infamy * When Fiction Lives in Fiction   Notes Sources Excerpted from On Writing by Jorge Luis Borges All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.