FICCIONES- by jorge luis borges

I'd anticipated great things for this novel based on the reviews of amazon customers. Five stars! By 67 of the 71 reviewers! Of the other four, three gave it four stars, and one gave it three. On paper it looked great, but I soon came to realize that these reviewers must all be the brilliantly smart, literary type. I had no clue what I was reading about. If I'd accidentally purchased the Spanish version, I might not have felt so bad, but it was all in English, and I was still lost. Part of it was that my mind wandered, and I'd have to back up and read the page again, but even when I focused, I was confused. Luckily, it's a bookclub book, and the host this month decided to pick one of the stories (I didn't mention, but it's a collection of short stories) to focus on. So I gave up at page 34, and skipped ahead to read the chapter entitled "The Garden of Forking Paths." This was much easier to handle, and the only part I understood, so this review will be on just that chapter.
Dr. Yu Tsun is a spy for the German government during WW1. He's figured out the location of a British ammunition area, and by the seemingly random events that occur, conveys this information to the Germans. He's being pursued by a British soldier, and knows he will soon be caught, so takes a train to see Dr. Stephan Albert. Once there, Albert shares some information he'd uncovered about Tsun's old relative, and the confusing book and labyrinth he'd written/constructed. Though excited about this discovery, Tsun shoots Albert in the back right before the British soldier arrests him.
I had to read this chapter out loud to make sure that my mind didn't wander, and then read it again to make sure that I understood what was going on. Once I followed the story, I found it quite interesting, and liked how the random aspects all tied together to be explained in the end. While I couldn't put this much effort into every book I read, it was a nice challenge to do so this time.
Netflix rating? 3/5 for this story. 1/5 for the book (the part that I "read" that is).