Nian Liu

The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim

Once again, Borges mentions things I am not really clear about. He starts off naming Philip Guedalla, then Mir Bahadur Ali, and these additional characters that I have no idea about. Maybe its just the style Borges writes with, but what I feel it lacks is the hook that other stories have that he doesn’t. But once I begin to read on the story, I notice the plot all falls into place. Borges just introduced the whereabouts on the book first before he started to explain what the story was about and that it is written by this Mir Bahadur Ali guy. In general this Approach to Al-Mutasim is a detective story about a law student who has taken Muslim as a faith and he ventures himself around India to find a purpose so that he can find enlightenment in his religion.