How close can I get to Borges on Project Gutenberg?

November 4, 2016 10:11 PM

I like what I've read of Borges so far. I was browsing Project Gutenberg and wondering if there are any authors of a similar cant who can be found there. I like reading old books. Thanks.
posted by circular to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

Best answer: My Gutenberg reading tends toward generic British lit, but The Man Who Was Thursday might press a few of those buttons.
posted by Polycarp at 11:21 PM on November 4, 2016 [4 favorites]

Best answer: J. K. Houysmans's À rebours, translated into English as Against the Grain, is probably in your wheelhouse.
posted by kandinski at 11:31 PM on November 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers (elegant, mysterious stories with an imaginary book as a recurring motif).
posted by Wobbuffet at 11:39 PM on November 4, 2016 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Borges is considered a predecessor of the magic realists. You may be interested in following that thread.
posted by dondiego87 at 2:30 AM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: One of Borges's favourite authors was Wilkie Collins. Moonstone and The Woman in White are in my to-read list, as two of the more popular recommendations for Collins. I second The Man Who Was Thursday and would add by G. K. Chesterton the Father Brown stories. Actually, this list by Borges himself might provide many hours of delightful reading!
posted by TheGoodBlood at 8:43 AM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You would probably really likeTristram Shandy — Sterne is similarly playful and conceptually convolute, though works on a very different scale than Borges (Tristram Shandy is a very, very long book).
posted by spindle at 9:23 AM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Read Macedonio Fernandez' Museum of Eterna's Novel. Macedonio one of Borges' immediate influences and has that playful energy that I myself so enjoy in Borges. I can't find the book on Gutenberg, though. Only an article about it.
posted by ipsative at 12:10 PM on November 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Seconding Tristram Shandy. Don Quixote is also enjoyable in a similar way, and it's even better when you've read the various Borges stories and essays that touch on it.
posted by unreadyhero at 12:58 PM on November 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I didn't expect to have so much to read after asking this. Thanks everybody!
posted by circular at 5:44 PM on November 5, 2016

Don't know if it's on Gutenberg, but Umberto Eco, especially The Name of the Rose, scratches many of the same hard to reach spots as Borges. You might want to read a bit of Cortazar, as well, not exactly the same thing but also Argentinian and mind bending, I'd recommend starting with 'Cronopios and Famas'.
posted by signal at 7:19 PM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not on project Gutenberg, but free to listen: Borges's Norton Lectures on Poetry (And Everything Else Literary)
posted by kandinski at 9:38 PM on November 5, 2016 [1 favorite]