Death and the Compass, written by Jorge Luis Borges in 1942, is a detective story loaded with symbolism. Detective Erik Lönnrot investigates a series of murders connected by a cabalistic pattern. His obsession with logic leads him to interpret a series of clues in search of a solution to the mystery. As he deciphers the deaths, the reader is plunged into a labyrinth of mystical and mysterious concepts. With wit and a unique structure, Borges reflects on logic, chance, and the limits of human knowledge.
Warning
The following summary and analysis is only a semblance and one of the many possible readings of the text. It is not intended to replace the experience of reading the story.
Summary of Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges
Detective Erik Lönnrot, renowned for his deductive skills, is confronted with a series of murders that seem to follow an enigmatic pattern. The first occurs on December 3, when Marcelo Yarmolinsky, a Jewish scholar, is found murdered in his room at the Hôtel du Nord. On his typewriter is a mysterious phrase: “The first letter of the Name has been articulated.” While Commissioner Treviranus believes it to be a simple theft, Lönnrot suspects that the crime is linked to the Cabala and the secret Name of God, known for its mystical power.
On January 3, a second murder is committed. In a desolate suburb, Daniel Azevedo, a traitor with a criminal record, is found dead in front of an old paint shop. On the wall is written: “The second letter of the Name has been articulated.” Lönnrot begins to identify a pattern in the crimes’ dates and locations, reinforcing his theory that there is a symbolic connection.
On February 3, the third crime is committed. A man named Ginzberg disappears after meeting two disguised harlequins in a tavern. Another inscription appears at the crime scene: “The last of the letters of the Name has been articulated.” However, this murder turns out to be a decoy designed to deceive the police and, in particular, Lönnrot.
Days later, Lönnrot receives a map of the city showing how the crime scenes form an equilateral triangle. Following his intuition, he deduces that the killers plan to commit a fourth crime to create a perfect figure: a rhombus. He identifies the probable location as the desolate Triste-le-Roy villa to the south.
Convinced that he has solved the mystery, Lönnrot decides to go to the farm alone. There, he finds a labyrinthine and symmetrical house full of echoes and shadows. While exploring the place, he is ambushed by Red Scharlach, a criminal seeking revenge on Lönnrot for having arrested his brother years before. Scharlach confesses that the entire series of crimes was an elaborate plan to lure Lönnrot to the location.
Scharlach explains how, starting with a failed robbery (as Treviranus had initially assumed), he manipulated the rest of the murders so that Lönnrot would believe it was a cabalistic scheme, for which he used Yarmolinsky’s erudition, Azevedo’s death, and Ginsberg’s pretense. Finally, he closes his trap in Triste-le-Roy, the predestined place where he executes revenge.
In his last moments, Lönnrot reflects on the symbolic labyrinth that led him to his destiny and, with a certain irony, proposes to Scharlach a “simpler labyrinth” for a next confrontation at another time. Scharlach, unperturbed, shoots and ends the detective’s life.
The story concludes as an intricate puzzle in which Lönnrot’s obsession with order and symmetry becomes his undoing. He becomes trapped in a game of logic that ultimately proves to be his deadly labyrinth.
Characters from Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges
The story’s protagonist is Erik Lönnrot, a detective obsessed with logic and symmetry. His personality is marked by his belief that the universe follows a rational order that can be deciphered even in its apparent chaos. This perspective leads him to approach crimes with an intellectualistic and detached attitude, seeking complex explanations beyond the obvious. Although his reasoning is brilliant, Lönnrot lacks pragmatism and underestimates human motivations and chance, which causes his enemy to use him to his advantage. His intellectual arrogance, reflected in his preference for “interesting” explanations, causes him to ignore Treviranus’ warnings, contributing to his tragic fate. Ultimately, his confidence in the power of reason traps him in Red Scharlach’s labyrinth, evidence that his drive for order leads to his undoing.
Red Scharlach, is the antagonist and architect of the intricate plot that culminates in Lönnrot’s death. He is a cunning and meticulous criminal, driven by a deep hatred for the detective, as he caused his brother’s capture. Scharlach personifies revenge and manipulation and uses Lönnrot’s intellect against him by designing a “labyrinth” of crimes and false clues that play on the detective’s obsession with symmetry. In his final monologue, not only is his wit revealed, but also an underlying melancholy; his revenge is both a triumph and an act of desperation. Scharlach is the opposite of Lönnrot: while the latter seeks order, the former finds pleasure in controlled chaos.
Commissar Treviranus represents the pragmatic and direct approach to solving crimes, in contrast to Lönnrot’s intricate erudition. Treviranus is practical, interested only in catching the killer, without concern for theoretical or symbolic details. Although his hypotheses are often simplistic, his down-to-earth attitude keeps him out of the dangers into which Lönnrot willingly plunges. At the end of the story, Treviranus’s approach is vindicated when Scharlach reveals that, as the commissar predicted, the first murder had been the fruit of a botched robbery.
Marcelo Yarmolinsky, the first victim, is a Jewish scholar whose death triggers a series of events in the story. Although he appears briefly, his work and his studies on the Kabbalah and the Secret Name of God serve as the starting point for Lönnrot’s conjectures. Yarmolinsky symbolizes the occult knowledge and mystical traditions that capture the detective’s imagination, but he also becomes a piece Scharlach manipulates to construct his deception.
Daniel Azevedo is the second victim, a man with a criminal past who serves Scharlach’s purposes. Azevedo is presented as a traitor and an opportunist whose death not only eliminates potential threats to Scharlach but also helps create the appearance of a ritualistic pattern to the crimes. His life and death highlight the violent undercurrents of the underworld that Lönnrot ignores in his intellectual quest.
Ginzberg-Gryphius, the supposed third murderer, is a creation of Scharlach’s to deceive the police. His false disappearance and the mock crime reinforce the mystery and cement the idea of a ritual pattern, diverting attention from the true intent behind the murders. This fictional character reflects Scharlach’s ability to create compelling narratives that even manipulate a detective as perceptive as Lönnrot.
Analysis of Death and the Compass by Jorge Luis Borges
Death and the Compass appears to be a detective story, but under its surface, it hides a profound reflection on the obsession with knowledge, the power of chance, and the fragility of our beliefs in an ordered world. Its protagonist, Erik Lönnrot, is a detective who blindly trusts logic to solve the mysteries he faces, but this same trust leads him to a tragic outcome.
Lönnrot is convinced that everything in the universe responds to perfect patterns and that, with enough intellect, any enigma can be solved. Faced with a series of murders that seem to follow a cabalistic scheme, Lönnrot applies his deductive reasoning to decipher the mystery. But he does not understand that he is trapped in a game designed to exploit him: every clue, every crime, and every element of the plot has been calculated by his enemy, Red Scharlach, to lead him to his doom.
The story plays with the labyrinth concept, a recurring metaphor in Borges’ work. However, this is not a physical labyrinth full of walls and corridors but a conceptual labyrinth built with symbols, dates, and geometries. Lönnrot thinks he is unraveling this labyrinth with his impeccable logic, but he is being deliberately led into a trap. The labyrinth represents the inescapable destiny and the trap of excessive rationality. As much as the detective believes he is in control, his confidence in his intellectual capacity makes him a pawn in Scharlach’s game.
The figure of Red Scharlach, the story’s villain, is as fascinating as that of Lönnrot. Scharlach seeks to avenge his brother’s imprisonment and humiliate the detective by using his own method of thinking against him. In his final monologue, Scharlach describes his plan in detail, making it clear that every murder and every clue was part of a trap to lure Lönnrot to the exact place and time where he would be killed. But Scharlach is more than an antagonist: he reflects Lönnrot, two figures obsessed, one with revenge and the other with knowledge. This symmetry between the characters is reminiscent of other classic pairs in mystery literature, such as Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis, Professor Moriarty.
The tale’s use of cabala and mystical elements adds an extra layer of complexity to the story. The murders seem to be related to the Name of God and its four-letter representation (JHVH), leading Lönnrot to abstract and esoteric interpretations. However, this mystical connection is nothing more than a façade created by Scharlach to manipulate him. Here, Borges challenges the human tendency to seek deep meanings even in what might seem simple. Lönnrot’s obsession with patterns and cabalistic explanations reflects how our beliefs can make us vulnerable to the manipulations of others.
The denouement of the story is devastatingly simple. Lönnrot, who thought he had solved the mystery, discovers that all the interpretations he made as signs of a conspiratorial scheme were tools of his enemy to control him. In his final moments, he accepts his fate with an almost philosophical resignation, recognizing that his reasoning, though brilliant, led directly to his death. This conclusion highlights a fundamental lesson: even the most sophisticated thinking can fail when confronted with the complexity and randomness of the world.
