Janie Cherestal

While reading Borges short stories, I often feel confused and left wondering, “What is the point of this?” I definitely felt that way again while reading “The Zahir.” What I got from the story was that the narrator becomes obsessed with a coin, which he calls a zahir, and he finds out that he is not the only person to become mad over an object. He talks about an artist who becomes fascinated with tigers, and a woman named Julia who becomes crazy over a coin, as well. At the end of the story, the narrator speculates whether or not the coin is really God, which I did not understand, either. Why would the coin be God? And who exactly was Teodelina Villar and what was her role in the story?