At first impression, “The South” misses many of the signature Borgesian qualities of stories like “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” and “The Library of Babel.” There are no magical numbers, no flights of philosophical fancy, no fake footnotes, and no intrusive first-person narrator. “The South” is just not that flashy.

But it subtly [...]

When I wrote about Borges last week, I mentioned I was often bowled over by him. “The Library of Babel” is for me another example of why. Borges returns to many of his usual themes: books and literature, infinity, words and their meaning, the universe and its comprehensibility (or lack thereof), numbers and mathematics. [...]

I’m going into May’s group reads of Borges stories a bit cold; I’ve read Borges before but only in the loosest, most casual sense of the term. I don’t think I’ve read “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” before, but couldn’t swear to it. Briefly, I loved it, and it has everything I expect [...]