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The Garden of Forking Paths

In The Garden of Forking Paths Jorge Luis Borges accounts the desperate act of a German spy near the close of World War I. The protagonist, Dr. Yu Tsun, is a noted expert in labyrinths, and at the end of Borges short story, he discovers the secret of his great grandfathers work The Garden of Forking Paths. In this sprawling web of symbols, which exists as both a book and a labyrinth, a maze of possible pasts, presents, amd futures coexist in an infinitely chaotic and complex manuscript. Borges constructs an elaborate discussion of time using the philosophy of labyrinths and gardens to demonstrate the essentially ficticious, yet inescapable nature of time. In The Garden of Forking Paths, time is not uniform and Yu Tsun experiences time as depicted in Tsui Pens novel, in which the world is neither uniform nor absolute, but a web that allows for an infinite amount of paths to be taken. Yu Tsun himself is navigating through this labyrinth, choosing his possible futures. Tsui Pens novel reflects that Yu Tsuns life is merely the result of the paths he has taken.

In an attempt to discern the complex relationship between Yu Tsun and Tsui Pen, it is neccessry to discuss the details of Tsui Pens novel The Garden of Forking Paths. Tsui Pen retired from rulership to write a book and construct a labyrinth. Upon his death, all his relatives found were the haphazard pages to an almost incomprehensible manuscript. They found no real book, and certainly no physical labyrinth. Much to the shame of Tsui Pens family, the pages were saved and eventually published. Virtually ignored in China, the work was finally revised, corrected, and restored to its intended form by the English Sinologist Stephen Albert. To him goes the credit for the discovery of the books strange form the book is the labyrinth. As Albert notes,A symbolic labyrinth...An invisible labyrinth of time... At one time time Tsui Pen must have said, I a going into seclusion to write a book, and at another, I am retiring to construct a maze. Everyone assumed these were separate activities. No one realized that he book and the labyrinth were one in the same (Borges, p. 8). It is a non-linear work in which anything that can happens does; each possible outcome is pursued, multiplying into a seemingly infinite chaos. In all fiction, when a man is faced with alternatives, he chooses one at the expense of the others. In th e almost unfathomable Tsui Pen he chooses- simultaneously- all of them. He thus creates various futures, various times which start others that will in their turn branch out and bifurcate in other times (Borges, p.6). In this way the book represents Tsui Pens view of time an endless series of possibilities that spread their web through all eternity.

How then does Tsui Pens novel relate to Yu Tsuns journey accounted for in the narrative? Characteristic of what may be deemed metafiction, The Garden of Forking Paths function at several levels. In other words, there are stories within stories. Borges use the idea of labyrinths, both literally and symbolically to illustrate the interconectedness that is the universe. The labyrinth of the narrative itself, that of Tsui Pen and the labyrinth of time and reality are all intimately connected. At the firts level, there is the unamed narrator who instructs the reader to connect to YuTsuns statement with a passage form a history text. The folowing deposition, dictated by, read over and then signed by Dr.Yu Tsun, former teacher of English at the Tsingtao Hochshule, casts unsuspected light on this event (Borges, p. 8). By naming the novel at the innermost narrative level The Garden of Forking Paths, Borges calls attention to the fact that there is yet another narrative level above the unamed narrator. That is the story itself The Garden of Forking Paths contains the first narrator and all the narrative levels below it. This structure allows for the text to become a sort of labyrinth through which the reader navigates.

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On a more intimate level, Borges depicts Yu Tsuns journey as a labyrinth reminisscent of Tsui Pens attempt to define the universe in its entirety. During his journey to Stephen Alberts house, Yu Tsun begins to ponder over his great grandfathers lost labyrinth. Under the trees of England I meditated on this lost and perhaps mythical labyrinth (Borges, pp.-4). In a moment of introspection, Yu Tsun entertains the notion of an infinite labyrinth.I thought of a maze of mazes, of a sinous, ever growing maze which would take in both past and future and would somehow involve the stars (Borges, p. 4). As Tsun reflects on the concept of unending paths, he finds himself deeply immersed in the labyrinth of thought he has created, while simultaneously making his way through the labyrinth that is the countryside. The road kept descending and branching off through meadows misty in the twilight (Borges, p. 4). Through his musings, Tsun inadvertently chooses a path that links him to the past, and he himself becomes a part of the web of time concieved by his ancestor. The absolutness of the present becomes irrelevent as Tsun observes Lost in these imaginat=ry illusions I forgot my destiny... I felt myself cut off form the world, an absract spectator (Borges, p. 4). According to the logic put forth in The Garden of Forking Paths , this sense of splitting reality is the nature of time itself. Thus Yu Tsuns journey is composed of countless points of bifurcation, each one spawning the intricate labyrinth in which Tsuns existence dwells.

The ultimate connection between the created labyrinths is not fully realized unitl Yu Tsun encounters Dr. Albert for the first time. Through a series of seemingly coincidental happenings, Tsun find himself at the mercy of a universe in which change does not occur. Possibilities are not realized because of a self-imposed necestity. The fact that Tsun has to murder the one man who has revered and undertsood his ancestor more than any other person on earth, suggests that Alberts existence is intimately connected to Yu Tsuns past, present and future. Tsun becomes ncreasingly aware of the significance of Alberts existence in relation to his own destiny. With proper vneration I listened to these old tales, although perhaps kess asmiration for them in themselves than for the fact that they had been thought out by one of my blood, and that a distant man of a distant empire had given them back to me (Borges, pp.8-). The fact that Tsui Pen was also killed by a foriegner suggests that Dr. Albert and Tsui Pen are somewhat analogous entities coexisting in time parallel to the other. The seemingly predetermined path of Yu Tsun is the link between the two. This is a glaring example of Tsui Pens philosophy of bifurcating time. Albert tells his future mureder that they are living ina world of similaritl bifurcating times, full of many alternate realities

This web of time- the strands which approach one another, bifurcate, intersect or ignore each other through the centuries-embraces every possibility.. we do not exist in most of them. In some you exist and not I, while in others I do anf you do not, and yet in others both of us exist.( Borges, p.100). The pivotal moment is that in which Albert states Time is forever dividing itself toward innumervle futures and in one of them i am your enemy (Borges, p.100). As Yu Tsun gets closer to committitng the nmurder, he is aware of a puulation, a splitting of reality. It seemed to methat the dew-damp garden syrrounding the house was infintely saturated with invisible people. All were Albert and myself, secretive, busy and multiform in other dimensions of time.( Borges, pp.100-101). Like the characters in Tsui Pens story Yu Tsun is chossing multiple alternatives, creating various futures sinultaneouly.

The notion of multiple worlds seems at first to absolve tsun of moral responsibility and make the act of murde much easier. Tsun justifies his action by simply stating, The future is now. He murders The unsuspecting Albert whie his back is turned, choosing his mooment in order to be as merciful as possible. Yet the story ends with Yu Tsun full of infinite penitience and sickness of heart. The fact that Yu Tsus experience of life is only a slender thread in the infinite web of his possible lives, does not change the fact that he is frimly embedded in his single lived reality.

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