Victoria Gornopolskaya

After reading “Death and the Compass,” by Gorge Luis Borges, I realized I finally understood the meaning of the title as soon as I got to the end. This story involves a series of organized crimes designated in the shape of an equilateral triangle, which are actually meant to shape the form of a rhombus. The character Erik Lonnrot met his end at the endpoint of that rhombus, and since a rhombus is the traditional shape of a compass, the title of this story is logical, which is typical of Borges. This story was similar to “The Garden of Forking Paths”, in that it was twisted, sinister and shocking to read. I enjoyed this story very much, especially the last part. The villain goes into this monologue revealing his intentions, while leading up to the climactic moment that we all anticipated.
I appreciate the way Borges is able to capture this lingering feeling of fear and suspense within the story.

“The Detective Story” lecture seemed to be a tribute that Borges wrote to Edgar Allen Poe, the founder of the detective genre. In this speech Borges compares the detective story elements used by Poe to the nuances used by more recent authors. Despite the fact that Poe was the first to pioneer this brand of genre, Borges feels that his stories are somewhat lacking in terms of creativity and logic. He uses an intellectual figure named Charles Auguste Dupin, who solves crimes simply by using the cleverness of his mind.
Borges feels that even though Edgar Allen Poe created this genre, there exist many books by authors who surpass Poe’s version of the detective story. The plot which he described at with the mailman as the killer seemed very simplistic and uneventful from what I read. Borges acknowledges his own attempts at writing a detective story and closes his argument with an optimistic view towards the detective genre.