Why Jorge Luis Borges believed that making stories feel natural is a literary failure

Art · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Ficciones is not just a collection of short stories; it is a deliberate subversion of reality. By rejecting the attempt to make fiction appear natural, Borges transformed the page into a labyrinth of philosophy, secret societies, and infinite possibilities, cementing his status as a titan of twentieth-century world literature.

Published in stages between 1941 and 1956, Ficciones began as a collection titled The Garden of Forking Paths, which contained eight stories. By 1944, Borges expanded the work by adding a new section called Artificios, or Artifices, consisting of six additional stories. A final expansion in 1956 added three more pieces to this second section. This structural evolution mirrors the complex, layered nature of the narratives themselves, which often emphasize their own artificiality rather than attempting to mimic the real world.

Borges viewed the effort to make a story seem natural as an impoverishment of the medium and a falsification of its artistic character. Instead, he employed conspicuous literary devices to build a world where the labyrinth serves as a central motif. These mazes represent everything from the overwhelming complexity of human systems and physical existence to abstract concepts like time. The stories themselves function as literary labyrinths, challenging the reader to navigate intricate plots involving conspiracies, games of strategy, and philosophical inquiries.

The collection is deeply personal yet intentionally elusive. Borges frequently assigned his own name to first-person narrators, imbuing them with his own traits while refusing to idealize them, instead granting them distinct human failings. He also populated his work with detailed descriptions of fictional texts, once suggesting that a librarian might be holier than a saint. Despite his intellectual playfulness, Borges was famously resistant to external analysis, particularly Freudian interpretations of his work. He dismissed psychoanalysis as the sad mythology of our time, preferring his readers to engage with the text as a constructed, intellectual game rather than a clinical case study.

Recognized as one of Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century, the collection remains a touchstone for writers and critics alike. Karl Ove Knausgaard has even described the opening story, Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, as the best short story ever written. By weaving together his own ancestry, secret societies, and the ruination of systems, Borges created a body of work that continues to define the boundaries of modern fiction.

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