Janie Cherestal

I actually found “The House of Asterion” to be one of the more enjoyable short stories of Borges’ collection. Not only was it delightfully short, it had a clear storyline about a man named Asterion who is of royalty and lives alone in an infinite house. It also appears that he has a few marbles loose, for he has hilarious conversations with himself, runs like a charging ram, and pretends that he is being hunted. Asterion describes how once a year he executes nine men, and one year one of the men stated that Asterion will meet his redeemer, which he is very excited to hear. I felt a little confused as to why Asterion was executing men and who exactly he was in the community. Was Asterion the Minotaur that was mentioned at the end of the story?