Written by Jorge Luis Borges

Published in 1941

The plot of this story follows Yu Tsun, a German spy in England during World War 2. The story begins in medias res,and we are told by a narrorator that the first two pages of the manuscript this story comes from are missing. As such, the story begins with Tsun hanging up the phone after calling a fellow spy, and hearing an English captain on the other end, Captain Richard Madden. He knows that if Madden was at his colleagues apartment, that his colleague was either dead or captured. Tsun then decides to escape, and formulates a plan to both escape and let his superiors in Germany know the target city they must attack. He takes a taxi to a train station then rides a train to visit a man named Stephen Albert. Tsun discovers that Albert has been keeping watch over his ancestor's "labyrinth and manuscript". They talk at length about the labyrinth Tsun's ancestor left behind as a book, then Tsun notices Madden heading towards the house. Knowing his time is almost up, Tsun shoots Albert with a pistol, and is then captured by Madden. However, the news of this reached his superiors, causing the German army to next attack the city named Albert.

The plot in this story is mostly a device meant to convey the author's larger points about nonlinerarity, time, and the ability to tell a supposedly infinite story via a book.

The full text can be found here: http://courses.essex.ac.uk/lt/lt204/forking_paths.htm

External Links:

The Garden of Forking Paths on Wikipedia

Themes

•     Time
  • Newtonian storytelling - Time flows linearly
  • Einstein storytelling - There is no absolute time. Narrative is a network.
•     Paths
•     Decisions
•     Motivations
•     Multiple Meanings
•     Riddle/Communication
•     Labyrinths
•     Network of stories