When I first bought my copy of “Labyrinths” ,written by Jorge Luis Borges, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Flipping through the first few pages of the book I was absolutely shocked to discover the complexity of this writing. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was sort of taken aback in the beginning of just how difficult the reading seemed to be, and my first instinct was to tell myself I was unable to do it. It was too confusing, there were too many names, the vocabulary was too extensive; all these factors contributed to my reasoning to completely condemn the book to the back of my drawer and pick up a copy of the Cliff Notes. I know it sounds brutally honest, but these sequences of events are vital when telling my story of how I grew as a reader and almost, as corny as it sounds, as a person through the work of Borges.
The first reading we did was “Tlon, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius”, even the name was frightening. I picked up my book and began to read the first few pages. I found my mind wandering as my eyes fluttered quickly over the words. These words did not register in my processing brain, and once the passage was completed I realized that I was entirely incapable of reciting a single aspect of this story. So I read it again, and again I turned the last page to discover my mind had not grasped a single concept or word. I thought to myself, “ I need to write a reflection about a story that is unfamiliar to me no matter how much effort I put in? How in the world am I going to do this?”. Hopelessly, I scribbled a few words onto a piece of paper talking about my utter confusion on the entire piece along with a few key points related to sentence structure. “Tlon, Uqbar, and Orbus Tertius”, I muttered under my breath in pure frustration, as I contemplated how I was going to finish this book with a passing grade . It’s overwhelming to come to the conclusion that you are incapable of completing a task. I have always been a very...