I received this book for free from the Internet in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Source: the Internet
"The Garden of Forking Paths"
by
Jorge Luis Borges
philosophy, short stories in eBook edition that was published by Penguin on February 22, 2018 and has 13 pages.
Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon
One of seventeen short stories in Ficciones, “The Garden of Forking Paths” revolving around a compromised spy can be found on page 89. There is a free version of this short story at the now offline Old Site at UC Santa Barbara. (The site still has old file uploads.)
Ficciones was first published in 1944 and later translated by Helen Temple and Ruthven Todd.
My Take
“The Garden of Forking Paths” is a blend of stories. Of Hsi ‘Peng’s thoughts and fears and the story of his great-grandfather Ts’ui Pên and his retirement to write his novel about labyrinths and the future of many possibilities.
”Time is forever dividing itself toward innumerable futures . . .”
Borges uses first person point-of-view from Hsi ‘Peng’s perspective on his journey to postpone his own arrest and pass on the Secret name.
It’s a much more interesting story than I expected. I’d thought it would be a straight philosophical work, but Borges wraps it up in a tale of spies, war, and fear of capture.
The pace is swift with a combination of action and thought. It’s the ending that’s so weird. Why would Hsi ‘Peng do as he did? I guess it’s just one of those forking paths . . . and Hsi ‘Peng’s way of protecting the country for which he spies.
The Story
Runeberg has been discovered and Hsi ‘Peng knows it’s but a matter of time before he’s caught, but he must pass on what he has learned.
The Characters
Hsi ‘Peng, a Chinese man and the great-grandson of Ts’ui Pên, the governor of Yunnan, was forced to become a spy for Germany. The Chief was his supervisor.
Hans Rabener, a.k.a. Viktor Runeberg, is a Prussian spy. Dr Steven Albert lives in Ashgrove.
Captain Richard Madden is an Irishman in the English army.
Dr Yu Sun is a former teacher of English at the Tsingtao Hochschule. The Secret is the name of the new British artillery park on the Ancre.
The Title
The title, “The Garden of Forking Paths”, is Ts’ui Pên’s philosophical novel involving the different paths the future can take.
