Borges' narratives are short, succinct, and to the point. In Dr. Brodie's Report most of the stories are told following a clear chronological order. Several contain dialogue, while others depend on a first or third person narrator to inform the reader.

In the title story, the present-day narrator recounts the details of an incomplete manuscript found among the pages of the first volume of the Arabian Nights. It turns out to be Dr.

Brodie's report, which the narrator proceeds to transcribe without further comment. In "The Meeting," another first person narrator remembers a puzzling episode of his youth, a knife fight between two inexperienced men whose weapons perform marvelous feats of skill. He learns that the knives had belonged to two notorious individuals, potential rivals who had never managed to meet face to face.

Absent from this collection are obvious signs of Borges' erudition and esoteric knowledge, elaborate...