Borges Stories
The Form of the Sword worked well because Borges did a good job of misleading the reader.
There is a part where the narrator realizes that Moon was hopeless and a coward, so he leaves him by himself. When I read that I felt bad for Moon because the dude just got shot and this guy is calling him a coward. By the time the narrator finishes telling the story, I had turned on Moon and had thought of him as a backstabbing snitch. Then, when I read the final lines of the story, I began to feel pity for Moon again (albeit for different reasons). I felt like he kind of deserved to get slashed in the face, but it's still pretty sad that he's so displeased with what he did that he has to tell the story from the other guy's perspective. I suppose that if he did tell it from his perspective the reader would just feel irritated with what he did, whereas this way he seems to show some remorse, so when he tells the reader to despise him in the last line it's hard not to feel at least a little bad for him.
The Garden of Forking Paths seemed a bit more clever than the other story because the ending felt a bit more significant. The Form of the Sword's twist was simple but effective: The narrator tells the story of a guy who backstabbed him, when in reality the narrator is the backstabber. In The Garden of Forking Paths there's a lot of trippy talk about labyrinths and different possibilities which kind of muddied the water for me. I wasn't too certain what exactly what was going to happen by the end of the story. I was pretty sure that either the main dude or the doctor were going to die (but I was leaning more towards the main dude dying) since the doctor mentioned numerous times that in some timelines they were enemies. When I finished the story, I didn't instantly recognize his reasoning for killing the doctor since he seemed to have helped him out. I didn't put it together that by killing Dr. Albert and then being sentenced to a hanging he was getting a message out.
There is a part where the narrator realizes that Moon was hopeless and a coward, so he leaves him by himself. When I read that I felt bad for Moon because the dude just got shot and this guy is calling him a coward. By the time the narrator finishes telling the story, I had turned on Moon and had thought of him as a backstabbing snitch. Then, when I read the final lines of the story, I began to feel pity for Moon again (albeit for different reasons). I felt like he kind of deserved to get slashed in the face, but it's still pretty sad that he's so displeased with what he did that he has to tell the story from the other guy's perspective. I suppose that if he did tell it from his perspective the reader would just feel irritated with what he did, whereas this way he seems to show some remorse, so when he tells the reader to despise him in the last line it's hard not to feel at least a little bad for him.
The Garden of Forking Paths seemed a bit more clever than the other story because the ending felt a bit more significant. The Form of the Sword's twist was simple but effective: The narrator tells the story of a guy who backstabbed him, when in reality the narrator is the backstabber. In The Garden of Forking Paths there's a lot of trippy talk about labyrinths and different possibilities which kind of muddied the water for me. I wasn't too certain what exactly what was going to happen by the end of the story. I was pretty sure that either the main dude or the doctor were going to die (but I was leaning more towards the main dude dying) since the doctor mentioned numerous times that in some timelines they were enemies. When I finished the story, I didn't instantly recognize his reasoning for killing the doctor since he seemed to have helped him out. I didn't put it together that by killing Dr. Albert and then being sentenced to a hanging he was getting a message out.
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