How a Text, a Work of fiction, can be a Labyrinth...!!!

Labyrinthine literature, today, has become a hot favourite amongst litterateurs the world over. The reasons are not far to seek, though!

It’s been the mighty muse of a host of writers, especially to J. L. Borges, who is also called the King of the Labyrinth! Other lovely writers of the labyrinth would include the mighty likes of Umberto Eco, Michael Ayrton, Amelia Gray, Carol Shields, etc, to name a few!

According to Emily Temple, the labyrinth is one of Borges’s signature themes! aka the Borgesian labyrinth!

A few of his other themes include doubling, mirrors, infinite spaces, imaginary texts, etc.

Many of his works engage with the maze as structure, form, or topic.

Emily Temple also connects the labyrinth with its origins in Greek mythology, where the labyrinth was an enormous maze built by Daedalus for King Minos of Crete in order to contain the Minotaur, who lived at the center. At the demand of Minos, fourteen Athenian youths would periodically be sacrificed into the labyrinth—forced to wander until caught and eaten by the Minotaur—until the creature was finally killed by Theseus.

So here’s giving you Borges’ quintessential short story titled, “The Garden of Forking Paths” that explores the labyrinthine theme in much detail.

A LABYRINTH OF SYMBOLS

Exploring  J. L. Borges’  “The Garden Of Forking Paths”

Excerpts from Ethan Weed

1. J. L. Borges’ short story “The Garden of Forking Paths,” gives us the suggestion that a text, a work of fiction, can be a labyrinth.

2. A physical labyrinth has a plan, although the victim of the labyrinth has no access to it. But if a text can be labyrinth, then it must be a labyrinth of symbols and ideas, such that it may be difficult, if not impossible, to guess the plan of the labyrinth.

3. A physical labyrinth has walls, hedges, or some other form of boundary that impedes or guides the movement of the subject. But in a textual labyrinth, it’s not so clear where the walls are, or when one has reached the center.

4. When we speak of labyrinthine texts we are dealing with labyrinths of concepts; but haven’t labyrinths in fact always been first and foremost conceptual?

5. Building a physical labyrinth is a symbolic act: if the purpose is to restrain a prisoner, as Minos did with the minotaur, it would be much easier to build one chamber, a cell, with a locked door.

6. But the image of a prison which is a labyrinth is much more symbolically charged, probably because the experience of being lost, of moving without a clear direction, is one which we all recognize, and which is a powerful metaphor for our experience of our mortal lives.

7. We all have, then, an intuition of the labyrinthine!

8. To move through a labyrinth is to explore an unknown space. In this sense, reading any narrative text could be thought of as the exploration of a labyrinth. When we sit with a new book in our hands, we stand before an unknown universe.

9. As we open the book, and read the first sentences, we are taking the first steps in the exploration of this new world. And yet, there are few stories, or novels, that we would call “labyrinthine”. In general, a narrative text acts as a guide to itself.

10. It helps the reader move along its paths, discover its secrets. There are, of course, very complicated literary spaces, worlds populated with many characters, stories that stretch over centuries, and tangled plots which can only with difficulty be disentangled.

11. Are these labyrinthine works? Maybe. But it seems to me that if everything is resolved by the final page, then we are not dealing with a truly labyrinthine text.

12. Perhaps one important characteristic of a labyrinthine story would be that it invites, or demands, a second reading. But I’m getting ahead of myself. That’s exactly the right time to enter Borges’ garden.

Thanks to Ethan Weed and Emily Temple for the lovely inputs on the Borgesian Labyrinth!

Labyrinthine Literature is here to stay! And how!!!