Going in Circles
Both in The Form of the Sword and The Garden of Forking Paths, once we finish both stories in their entirety, we return to the same split in the road. Was Vincent Moon justified? Which timeline is Yu Tsun walking in now? The longer you think, the more loops you walk around the same central thought.
Having accidentally read a bit of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (I owe you one, Joshua), there were two things that particularly stuck out to me in my brief, misguided stint.
This quote makes me immediately suspicious of this story (as it's in the first few paragraphs), and it makes me suspicious of any other story in this particular collection. Perhaps it's given me a "conspiracy theory" lens to look through, but I also get the feeling that Borges is playing with us in all the pieces that he writes.
This and the constant, repetitive, and cyclical search through countless books, volumes, and encyclopedias for information about the mysterious Tlon. This cyclical writing seems to be a theme across the pieces that we've read thus far, and I'm curious as to whether this trend will continue. Considering that he writes about Babel (a tower that aimed to be of infinite height ... before it was destroyed), I'm sure that this talk of infinity and circles will continue.
Having accidentally read a bit of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius (I owe you one, Joshua), there were two things that particularly stuck out to me in my brief, misguided stint.
"Bloy Casares had dined with me that night and talked to us at length about a great scheme for writing a novel in the first person, using a narrator who omitted or corrupted what happened and who ran into various contradictions, so that only a handful of readers, a very small handful, would be able to decipher the horrible or banal reality behind the novel."
Page 17, "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"
This quote makes me immediately suspicious of this story (as it's in the first few paragraphs), and it makes me suspicious of any other story in this particular collection. Perhaps it's given me a "conspiracy theory" lens to look through, but I also get the feeling that Borges is playing with us in all the pieces that he writes.
This and the constant, repetitive, and cyclical search through countless books, volumes, and encyclopedias for information about the mysterious Tlon. This cyclical writing seems to be a theme across the pieces that we've read thus far, and I'm curious as to whether this trend will continue. Considering that he writes about Babel (a tower that aimed to be of infinite height ... before it was destroyed), I'm sure that this talk of infinity and circles will continue.
This circular reasoning concept is interesting in that it can also be easily overlooked. Reading through The Form of the Sword for the first time, I did not pick up any clues as to the true identity of the narrator of the story. Only after the narrator revealed his identity with the acceptance of the reader's despise did I notice that he was hinting at this plot twist throughout the story.
ReplyDeletePerhaps Borges creates this circular reasoning to demonstrate that even the most horrid of actions can be justified by the information and perspective provided by the murderer.