Review Of "Borges And The Kabbalah: And Other Essays On His Fiction And Poetry" By J. Alazraki

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

5-1-1989

Published In

Choice

Abstract

This beautifully written book is the type of precise and coherent writing that, over the years, we have come to expect from one of the major commentators of Borges's work. Although almost all of the essays contained in this study have appeared previously in journals and collections published in the US, particularly during the 1970s and early 1980s, this is the first time that they have been gathered in a single volume and made more accessible to a wider reading public. None of the essays included here are summaries or surveys of earlier scholarship; rather, these are critical attempts at filling in some of the glaring gaps in research on Borges. Each of the book's four distinct parts examines a specific aspect of Borges's writing, including the relationship between the Kaballah and his narrative, the stylistic and structural implications of his fiction (with particular emphasis on "The South" and A Universal History of Infamy, CH, Apr '73), predominant motifs and stylistic devices in his poetry, and a final section on Borges the essayist, accompanied by an excellent commentary on his impact on the "new" Latin American novel. Graduate and undergraduate levels.

Comments

This work is freely available courtesy of Choice Reviews. The review has been reproduced in full in the abstract field.

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