Haunted Boardinghouse

Now there is a story that left me confused! It reminded me of an episode of the Simpsons, starting at one place, moving a lot of other places, and winding up a different story altogether. I've got to reread it and see if I can pick up thematic continuity. Anybody want to share an analysis with us? Any connection with the boardinghouse in Free Life Free? Both are "America." Are there Wizard of Oz allusions in "Haunted B."? Nutria

Maybe someone made this point already, but I'm pretty slow these days. At any rate, in this story we have a labyrinthine building, a library, a murder mystery, and lots of latin phrases. Sound a famous novel by another Roman Catholic writer? Anybody find any roses in "The Haunted Boardinghouse"? Nutria

Hi. I'm new here, and I haven't yet read the story in question, so this is an impertinent response from the get-go--but those elements (labyrinth, library, murder mystery) are bits that Eco borrowed (intertextualized?) from Borges for The Name of the Rose. The labyrinthine building/library thing is a very big deal for Borges-- see "The Library of Babel," "The Garden of Forking Paths," "Death and the Compass," all in Labyrinths. (Also, the librarian in Rose is George de Burgos, or something like that -- an alter ego for Borges. Blind, too.) I've been thinking about Borges and Wolfe a bit recently -- it's actually one of the reasons I subscribed to this list. I just got hold of the Lexicon Urthus and was kind of surprised to see no mention of "The Circular Ruins" in the discussion of the Theseus story from the brown book. The first few pages seem like a very clear allusion to that Borges story, to me. Plus there's Baldanders, and the Book of the New Sun is set mostly in Argentina, Borges' homeland. Can anyone point me toward a more thorough treatment of Borges and Wolfe, esp. in the Book? Thanks for listening. Jack Holcomb jackandmel at socket.net