SOURCE: "Confused and Accused: Poe-etic Borges," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 5, 1981, p. 5.

Cheuse is an American novelist, short story writer, and critic. In the following mixed review, he maintains that Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi holds little interest for a general audience and is of greatest value to the Borges scholar.

For the self-selected few, here is vintage Borges from the cellars of E. P. Dutton, part of a plan to publish in English translation all of the major Borges. Nearly 40 years old, [Six Problems for Don Isidro Parodi] contains the first collaborative effort between Borges and his fellow Argentinian Adolfo Bioy-Casares, but only recently has Borges' official translator, Norman Thomas di Giovanni, worked the material into English.

The book consists of a mock-foreword by Gervasio Montenegro, a member of the fictional Argentine Academy of Letters whom Borges fans in the U.S. will recognize...