Chapter 57 Reading Notes The Garden of Forking Paths

"The Garden of Forking and Winding Paths"--Reading Borges' Novels The Garden of Forking Paths is a story about a labyrinth narrated in the first person. "I" - the artist who deciphers the mystery of the mystery, the continuation of Abbott. Abbott - the realized "I", a part of me. Enemy country - Reaper. Boss - Destiny. Cui Peng-an advanced artist, history. How "I" enter the center of the maze At the beginning of the story, my situation is like this: I am a spy, under double pressure from my boss and the enemy country (the status of a person is indeed similar to that of a spy, if a person wants to survive in this dirty world, he can only continue to betray his ideals) .But I am not a spy for the sake of being a spy, I am forced to, and I have a scary idea in my heart-to experience the ultimate mystery in spy work.My luck finally came. I was pursued by Death (Captain Richard Madden), and all the signs showed me: this time, I must die.In such a hopeless situation I was suddenly transformed.I, the child who grew up in a symmetrical Chinese garden, no longer afraid of death, but began to long for the experience of the gallows, and this longing contained another longing, which was to master me. To declare the secret (the secret of life) to my superior (that Mr. Destiny who appeared from afar and appeared in a hideous form), this may be an extremely heroic declaration, a challenge like conversion.In this way, I embarked on a journey to the maze out of free will.At that time, I said loudly and thoughtfully my wise decision: I want to run away.Of course, I am not running away passively, but in order to realize the great plan, which is to enter the center of the maze in the last remaining time and decipher the mystery of the mystery.

I am a coward (no one is not afraid of death), but the combination of the humiliation I suffered in my life, the heroism of the plan in front of me, and the urgency of time allowed me to overcome my fear and follow a careful plan. Plan to board the train and escape the pursuit of death again.I'm going to find my stand-in, to perform one last maneuver before the real death, to show my fate that I'm not just waiting to die.The moment I escaped from Captain Madden, I was filled with a sense of base bliss.I've always been a scumbag, but what matters is that I won, and even if the victory was short-lived, it heralds total victory - and I will resist until the last moment.In addition, my meanness also shows that I have living skills and a bright future.The face of the god of death has become more and more ferocious in the long river of history, and human exercises have also taken more and more brutal forms, but as long as people dare to confirm the premise of certain death, they can continue to play the maze game.During the journey, my eyes gradually became the eyes of the dead, and I used these eyes to record the flow of that day, maybe the last day, and the fall of that night.

I am about to walk into the center of the maze in my life, and a child in the dark tells me that as long as I have faith, I will reach the goal far away.I walked on that deserted path and started thinking about the maze again.My great-grandfather was the governor of Yunnan, China, and he was also a real artist. He once resigned from office to write a book, and said he was going to build a maze and let everyone get lost in it.Later people found that no one could find the maze, and no one could understand the novel he wrote, and he himself seemed to be killed by a stranger.I am walking in my own maze, trying to solve the riddle of Grandpa Zeng.Grandpa Zeng’s maze is a maze that has disappeared, and I want to recreate it in my imagination:

I imagine it intact, sitting on top of a secret mountain; I imagine it disappearing into rice fields, or submerged under water; I imagine it infinitely large, not made up of octagonal pavilions and winding paths, but by rivers, Provinces, kingdoms... I thought of a labyrinth within a labyrinth, of an ever-expanding, winding labyrinth that could include the past and the future, and somehow the celestial bodies. "Borges Anthology & #8226; Fiction Volume", 132~133, Hainan International Press and Publishing Center, 1996. Thinking about this, the world unconsciously becomes me, my abstract perception.I understand that people cannot finally defeat the god of death, but people can keep practicing for a period of time, the kind of exercises for winning battles, in order to experience countless deaths or countless lives.I also understand why people cannot see the maze, because the maze is a concept of transparency, it is a beautiful and symmetrical building built by man to fight against death, it has no exit, and man can only open an exit by destroying his own body.

The scenery in the center of the maze Night, woods, pavilions, Chinese music, lanterns, this is where the center of the maze lies.Albert, my host, obviously lived in his own maze, of which he was the master.Just like I want to use him as a substitute, he also needs to use my hand to find the exit of his own maze. He and I are both insiders.So when he uttered the words "garden of forking paths," I immediately remembered my history.I grew up in the symmetrical garden of Grandpa Zeng, and now Albert has moved the garden here, and Albert and I are both related to Grandpa Cui Peng by blood.Abbott gave me the feeling of a mixture of the two temperaments of a priest and a sailor, and such people tend to build mazes.I calculated in my mind that Captain Madden would not arrive here within an hour, so I sat down calmly and listened to Abbott talk about Grandpa Zeng's career.My great-grandfather, Cui Peng, was a man who loved life. He was not only the governor, but also a famous poet and calligrapher.But one day, he suddenly had a premonition that he was going to die, and this feeling became more and more intense, so he began to think about death in anxiety.The idea of ​​building a maze was born out of this emotion.Grandpa Zeng tried to exhaust every possible death experience.After the maze was built, he discovered that experience itself is an infinite branch of infinite time. Time is inexhaustible, so the maze must also be infinite.This desperate truth made Cui Peng write the novel full of contradictions and confusion.In the third chapter of the book, a hero dies, and in the fourth chapter, he is alive again.Abbott was inspired by this: the novel itself is a maze.The senior artist also left such a sentence in the letter: "I leave my garden of forking paths for multiple (not all) futures." "Borges Anthology• Novels Volume" , 136 pages.This sentence emphasizes the infinity of time, and to emphasize the infinity of time is to emphasize that fantasy is above all else, and fantasy itself has the ability to form an infinite labyrinth.In this way, Grandpa Cui Peng discovered the way to infinity and eternity in the process of writing.His imaginary book can never be finished, in which he created multiple futures, multiple times, and those times spread and bifurcated, every ending happened, all options were chosen, The layers are infinitely rich, the intersections are dizzying, one metaphor implies countless others, one cause leads to countless effects, and those effects become the cause of countless other things...

Abbott's narration made my imagination coherent at once: My maze and Albert's maze, Grandpa Zeng's maze, and Grandpa Zeng's fantasy book turned out to be one thing, or the division of time. Cha let us three artists cross at this point, so the lost labyrinth was restored here.The essence of the maze may lie in the series of fantasies, whoever has this ability can enter. This is a fantasy created by people in the face of death, and it is also a permanent game of solving puzzles with riddles.In this kind of construction or game, one person communicates with another person through the secret channel of time, and today's people stand on the shoulders of the ancients through the intersection of time. All dreams lead to one dream, and one dream is broken down into countless dreams.What is the underlying driving force behind all this?Who can have this power?The adventurous impulse in despair, the dog jumping over the wall, this is the answer.

"This is how heroes fight, with admirably calm hearts, fierce swords, and willing to die." "Borges Collected Works - Novels Volume", p. 137.The resonance aroused by Abbott's narration in me manifested as a deepest and original turmoil, and I became more determined to "die", for my lifelong ideal and for my final loyalty. I can only use my maze to revive the maze of my predecessors, and I can only use my maze to complete Abbott's maze, but it can also be seen from here that the maze is not limited, it is open to everyone, the problem is only It depends on whether there is the power to break in desperately.Albert's narration revived the garden of my grandfather, and my experience revived the gardens of both of them. I conveyed my garden of various times to someone with the same blood, and the experience of that person will revive mine. The garden, if it goes on like this, endlessly, what a scene it will be!so--

The dank gardens surrounding the house were thronged with innumerable, invisible crowds.In another time realm, these people are me and Abbott, secretive, busy, polymorphic. "Borges Anthology & #8226; Fiction Volume", p. 139. But the images of life are limited to fantasies, and as soon as the fantasies stop, people will see Captain Madden, the god of death.At this time, he was the only person who appeared in the psychedelic garden, as strong as a statue, forever invincible.The turmoil in my heart became clearer, because the "future" was already visible, and that person was coming towards us - the future that I shared with Abbott.I raised the gun at Albert, and the thrilling death experience happened again.My friend Albert and I defended the ideal together, and now life is no longer meaningful to me, because everything that needs to be done has been done, the exit of the maze is ahead, and the next thing is to just take a step.How should the distant boss feel?How should Captain Madden, who is always a beat behind, feel?However, I am still regretful and tired, not because of the ideal of the labyrinth, but because of my humiliating and despicable life, because I always face the helpless fate of life and death.I, a disgraceful spy, a guy who eats the dead for a living, but cherishes the grand plan of building the Babel Tower in my heart, isn't it too inappropriate?How can I not regret it?

Why do people build mazes Now this question can be answered.The reason why people build mazes is because the pursuit of the god of death makes him gradually understand that there is no way to escape the law. Later, out of desperation, people come up with a way to play games with death to enrich the time of the long dark night.The closer the real grim reaper gets, the more exciting the game becomes.With his fearless spirit and his body, man heroically displays the mystery of life.