Nian Liu

The Garden of Forking Paths

This story reminded me of the house of leaves when Borges started talking about mazes of mazes and with Dr. Tsun’s perspective on life and how time is infinite. With Tsun’s analogy to the maze (“I thought of a maze of mazes, of a sinuous, ever growing maze which would take in both past and future and would somehow involve the stars pg. 94), I got the message that he may be relating the infinite growth of a maze to the infinite paths of life. And these infinite paths are the paths that Dr. Tsun takes as he escapes from his arch nemesis. As we move further into the book, I discover that the book that Albert gives to Dr. Tsun reminded me of the house of leaves again because the book of Pen is a book of confusion where the story structure was extremely disjointed, but written in a way where the reader may still maintain flow. From Pen’s perspective it was meant to discover how all of humanities decisions lead to even more decision, and how each choice leaders a person down a single very specific path. In the house of leaves there were many possibilities and paths where Navidson may go and the single path Dr. Tsun took and Navidson took ended with him being in a path of may other possible paths. Confusing but understandable.