The garden of forking paths
The thing I loved most about Borjes’ story is the way he frames it. The true revelation of the story has nothing to do with the actual narrative. The branching book only gives the characters’ actions context. We are forced into branching the spy’s narrative with our own imaginations. Albert mentions this possibility in saying that there are many different timelines where they are not friends, unwittingly foreshadowing his own death. As a narrative where every decision is crucial and changes outcomes dramatically, the spy story serves as a much better example of the possibility of branching narratives than the short excerpt we are given of the philosopher’s labyrinth. Borjes turns what could have been a dry explanation of the concept into a fascinating case-in-point.
COYA
I thought this essay mostly consisted of an uniteresting data visualization. I think it either should have been more impersonal and really delved into visualizing COYA books on a massive scale or focused on his own personal experience. The only part that was new to me or really very interesting was the last parragraph about UFO 54-40. I wish he had dissected the tropes and the books that break them in more detail.
