11/4

Jorge Luis Borges’s “Garden of Forking Paths” sets the jumpy tone of the article with the narrator’s paranoia. The narrator is paranoid about “Capt. Richard Madden” catching up with him and what the consequences could entail. As the story continues, it was hard for me to discern what the “point” was. He was on the run from this guy and then all of a sudden he’s on a gazebo discussing literature and life and how they are interconnected. He explains the endless novel and he sees it – like a labyrinth with numerous complex, winding paths that the reader could take. Trying to understand the path the author was on was truly a labyrinth for me. People are raised reading books and novels and expecting everything to be sequential and have a distinct path – these past reading could be called the antithesis to these traditional ideas. The author jumps around with his thought process, therefore placing the character in different situations with the blink of an eye. The chance that is involved in where the character will go next is part of the anticipation that builds within the reader.