Nadine Bornholt : Numbers in Jorge Luis Borges’ “Death and the Compass”

“Jorge
Luis Borges once
claimed about his detective story “Death and the Compass” that it
is the most kabbalistic narration he had ever written, and several
scholars
have pointed to the direct links to the Kabbalah in that fiction.(1) The
kabbalistic way of reading texts focuses on deciphering of every single
word
contained in a text, as every single aspect of the text potentially
bears an
important meaning. If, as Borges asserted, “Death and the Compass”
is indeed the most kabbalistic story he ever wrote, then it is worth
looking
into the often ignored but nevertheless meaningful details contained in
it,
namely the numbers. In this essay, I argue that numbers and the color
red point
towards an overall unity of “Death and the Compass”.

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