Trial and error: Luis Benedit's Laberinto Invisible ,

摘要

"I see that man will resign himself each day to more atrocious undertakings; soon there will be no one but warriors and brigands; I give them this counsel: The author of an atrocious undertaking ought to imagine that he has already accomplished it, ought to impose upon himself a future as irrevocable as the past." 1 Less than a page long, Jorge Luis Borges' story "Los dos reyes y los dos laberintos" provides a clear distinction between two types of labyrinths: visible and invisible. In the "first days of Islam," a Babylonian king humiliates his Arab counterpart by trapping him in a labyrinth built in his palace. The Arab king gets his revenge by abandoning his rival in the desert to die of exposure, boasting, "In Babylonia didst thou attempt to make me lose my way in a labyrinth of brass with many stairways, doors, and walls; now the Powerful One has seen fit to allow me to show thee mine, which has no stairways to climb, nor walls to impede thy passage."