Robert Stevens

Today in class we had two presentations. The first was by Natalya and Victoria Gornopolskaya and it focused on the short story “The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges. This story was about a German spy in England (during WWI?) named Yu Tsun. He was not really a truly committed and dedicated spy for Germany, he was just using his occupation as a means to prove himself. All throughout his mission he is pursued by a British officer named Captain Madden. A story is mentioned that was written by his ancestors that was called the “Garden of Forking Paths” so basically the story turned out to be a story within a story. A labyrinth is also hinted at, and Borges eventually makes it clear that the labyrinth in this story is time, and that it consumes everyone, including Tsun, who is captured at the conclusion of the story and sentenced to death. Natalya and Victoria even managed to made it interesting by including alternate endings to the story, and incorporating the class into each reality.

Next came my presentation. How did that happen, right? Get the summary assignment the same day I’m supposed to present. Anyway, I did my presentation on “Death and the Compass” another short story by Borges. This story was about a detective named Erik Lonnrot. It took place in an unnamed city that carries a distinct mix of French and Spanish influence. The outline of the plot is that three crimes take places that appear to follow both a religious and geographic set of patterns. Lonnrot eventually concludes that a fourth crime will take place at a certain location in the city. He then proceeds to the site to catch the criminals only to find out that he has been set up by a local gangster who had sworn an oath to kill him. Everything was done with the sole purpose to lure Lonnrot to the site so he could be shot dead for sending the gangster’s brother to prison and shooting him in the stomach.

The remainder of the class was spent discussing the next and final paper. Diviani was gracious and expanded the realm that the paper could cover. Instead of a simple research paper we can now write a short story that emphasizes the spirit of Borges, or an alternate conclusion or plot twist in one of his existing stories. We could also write a fresh short story of our own. After the discussion we only had about 5 minutes in our broken up groups to brainstorm about what we would write about. While the time was short, I think most got the general idea about what they will write.