SurrealDialogue
05-18-2006, 09:23 PM
Don't know exactly where this thread should go, but it's a safe bet that here it should be. ;)
"The Garden of Forking Paths" was written by Jorge Luis Borges, who I am confident everyone is familiar with...I hope. The translation I've read was done by Andrew Hurley.
To begin with, "The Garden of Forking Paths" is about a chinese spy for the axis power, Yu Tsun, who tries to send information of where the English will attack a particular city while in England before being captured by Capt. Richard Madden and followed by execution. He visits Stephen Albert, a Sinologists, who reveals to him a new and profound finding over Tsun's renowned Ancestor, Ts'ui Pen: Poet, Governor of his native province, calligrapher, chess player, and infamous for relinquishing all to create a novel and labyrinth, which nobody knows where it is; but Albert has discovered a secret about the labyrinth and the novel as well.
I have read the story many years ago and I remembered my impression of it as being out of this world. It begins with the excitement of espionage during WWI, but then leads you to where you least expected: to an outerworldly discussion of metaphysics and of ancient times. It was a story like no other that I have encountered. Now reading it, that impression has dulled somewhat, but it still captivates me. It certainly exposed me to a metaphysical idea of time, space, and the universe that I wasn't aware before.
"The Garden of Forking Paths" was written by Jorge Luis Borges, who I am confident everyone is familiar with...I hope. The translation I've read was done by Andrew Hurley.
To begin with, "The Garden of Forking Paths" is about a chinese spy for the axis power, Yu Tsun, who tries to send information of where the English will attack a particular city while in England before being captured by Capt. Richard Madden and followed by execution. He visits Stephen Albert, a Sinologists, who reveals to him a new and profound finding over Tsun's renowned Ancestor, Ts'ui Pen: Poet, Governor of his native province, calligrapher, chess player, and infamous for relinquishing all to create a novel and labyrinth, which nobody knows where it is; but Albert has discovered a secret about the labyrinth and the novel as well.
I have read the story many years ago and I remembered my impression of it as being out of this world. It begins with the excitement of espionage during WWI, but then leads you to where you least expected: to an outerworldly discussion of metaphysics and of ancient times. It was a story like no other that I have encountered. Now reading it, that impression has dulled somewhat, but it still captivates me. It certainly exposed me to a metaphysical idea of time, space, and the universe that I wasn't aware before.