El libro de los seres imaginarios es una de las obras más singulares y fascinantes de Borges que refleja todas sus inquietudes y su maestría formal.
“Ignoramos el sentido del dragón, como ignoramos el sentido del universo, pero algo hay en su imagen que concuerda con la imaginación de los hombres”, asevera Jorge Luis Borges en El libro de los seres imaginarios, que traza un extraordinario catálogo de ciento dieciséis seres fantásticos que han poblado la mitología y la religión desde la noche de los tiempos. Algunos, como el gólem, la esfinge y el centauro son hijos de la metafísica o la literatura; otros, como los gnomos y las hadas, son fruto de la invención humana. Al hilo de las evocaciones de los clásicos, las revelaciones de los místicos y los sueños de escritores y poetas, Borges da vida a viejos relatos olvidados y demuestra que, pese a la disparidad de la procedencia y las formas de esos seres extraños, todos proceden del mismo imaginario humano, de deseos y temores parecidos.

This is not a collection of short stories. I'm not sure why many users label it as so, but this is non-fiction and an encyclopedia. Borges cites a lot of other authors. One of the negatives I have with this book is it's very little of Borges words and more of what he thought of other writers words based on these creatures. This is my first Borges book too. I want to read his other stuff soon, but read this first because it was shorter. I still liked this though. I wonder what Borges would have though of yokai? While this contains a lot of beasts, it lacks things from Japan. Not sure if he knew about yokai or not, but they would fit perfectly in this book. ( )

Producto de la vasta cultura y la asombrosa erudición de Jorge Luis Borges, este libro atractivo y peculiar es una especie de bestiario moderno en el que se recoge gran parte de «los extraños seres que ha engendrado, a lo largo del tiempo y del espacio, la fantasía de los hombres». Por las páginas de EL LIBRO DE LOS SERES IMAGINARIOS desfilan -provenientes de muy diversas fuentes, cuyo lenguaje transmuta y enriquece el inimitable estilo del maestro argentino- desde las criaturas alumbradas por las numerosas mitologías y doctrinas que han dado forma, durante siglos, a los sueños, deseos y miedos de los hombres (el basilisco, el centauro, el Uroboros, las valquirias...), hasta las engendradas por autores como Lewis Carroll, Kafka, Wells o Flaubert.

My own fault for not getting the illustrated version, but it was fun looking up the various beings ( )

The Book of Imaginary Beings is a slightly disappointing compendium of various mythological, folkloric and fictional creatures, of "sphinxes and griffons and centaurs" and the like (pg. 14), arranged alphabetically. Part of the disappointment comes from the fact that it lacks as a reading experience. It's very dry and academic; a reference book that its primary author, Jorge Luis Borges, says should be dipped into at random, "just as one plays with the shifting patterns of a kaleidoscope" (pg. 12). Coming from the pen of the esteemed Borges, you expect something literary, but the book has little in the way of flair and, despite the kaleidoscope analogy, the text does not shapeshift playfully as Borges could do with such nuance in his short stories.

Realising and accepting, with some disappointment, that this book is a dry mythological bestiary, and not another string to Borges' literary bow, the willing reader still finds that the book is lacking as a reference book. It's far from comprehensive (off the top of my head, there are no yetis or chupacabras, and no doubt I could think of more) and though it benefits from Borges' erudition (he writes of delving into "the mazelike vaults of the Biblioteca Nacional in search of old authors and abstruse references" (pg. 11)), The Book of Imaginary Beings is more a primer than an encyclopaedia.

It is further weakened by its breadth; it does commendably well to embrace Anglo-Saxon, Greek, Norse, Latin American and Chinese mythology, but fictional contributions (there are entries entitled 'An Animal Imagined by Kafka' and 'A Creature Imagined by C. S. Lewis') muddy the waters a bit as to what the book is trying to achieve. Ultimately, the book survives in print because of the continued literary credit of its author, which it struggles to match, and as a reference book it has long since been superseded by the 0.0001 seconds of a Google search. The internet, in its ugliest facets, could well have found its place in this bestiary, but then again, it's a monstrous, sentient labyrinth that would have been inconceivable even to Borges' imagination. ( )