Katherine Tesi

In Borges’ “The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim”, I found the use of mirrors interesting. Although known for using mirrors throughout his writing, I found the references to mirrors within this story not only a bit confusing but also seemingly misplaced. Another aspect of this story that jumped out at me was how film-like it seemed. I’m not sure if this was Borges’ intent, however I found that the story seemed to read as if it were a narration of a movie plot. In the second story, “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote”, the contrast of the two authors was obvious and well developed. In this story, like most of Borges’ stories that I’ve read, I found it difficult to remember that what he has written is fiction and not fact. Finally, I found it odd that Borges tries to explain the difference in the two quotes from the authors’ stories, when the quotes he cites are identical. It is likely that I’m missing the real meaning, however I took this piece of the writing as a kind of joke.