The Aleph

[poliphilo]

Borges is chiefly valued for his earliest stories, but I find the later ones- collected in the Aleph- much more satisfactory. The excellent ideas came early; artistic control was more slowly achieved. The Aleph is a beautiful book, a meditation on the themes of time and identity, story echoing story through the shuffling and dealing out of a wicked pack of images- labyrinths, doubles, tigers.  The early stories are clever, ingenious, mind-stretching, the later stories melancholy and profound. 

Comments

[ryanstrong.livejournal.com]

I'm inclined to agree. Not just about Borges, but about most authors and artists of all types. It seems, if you'll excuse the generalization, that peoples' works tend to get more self-indulgent as they get older. Many of those I identify closely with, I greatly prefer these later, less accessible (if that's the right word) works.

I do, however, dislike this tendency in many film directors (Ridley Scott is a good example).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The danger is that the writer simply repeats him or herself, only in a more accomplished style. But, like you, I'm generally a fan of "late" works.

Fellini said a film-maker has a window of ten to fifteen years in which to do his best work. That certainly applies to Fellini himself- whose later films are only shadows of the great films of the 50s and 60s.