The Book of Sand

Both the narrator and the salesman become obsessed with the Book of Sand and the concept of infinity that it both proposes and proves. The book represents provides limitless pleasure that is both rewarding and torturous to its recipients. The narrator notes early in his meeting with the salesman that both men will ultimately share the same sense of melancholy, which is implicitly the result of consistent possession by and obsession with the book. This melancholy results from their fixation on a goal that is always just out of reach. This reflects the Greek myth of Tantalus, from which the word tantalizing derives. The god was punished for his misdeeds by being forced to stand in a pool of water, with fruit hanging just above his reach on low-hanging branches. Whenever he reached for the fruit, the branches raised it out of his grasp, and whenever he tried to bend down to drink, the water in the pool receded. The nourishment and sustenance for which he longed were permanently just out of reach, yet close enough to tempt and taunt him. The Book of Sand functions in this way in the story: While it promises to reveal life’s deepest mysteries, the answers that each character desperately seeks remain just near enough to sustain the obsession. However, they promise endless frustration by remaining forever indecipherable.

In Borges’s story, the pleasure of the book comes in the revelation of infinity, which haunts the narrator and the salesman alike. They each muse on what infinity can be and what the existence of infinity means for their own existence. While the narrator ponders the infinite points of a line, expanding into the infinite volumes of the book, the salesman muses that infinite space and infinite time render all physical placement in space irrelevant. In each case, the narrator’s decision that such musings are irritating or irrelevant holds true, as neither line of thought resolves in a practicable answer. Even as the salesman declares that infinite time renders location irrelevant, he is still located in the fixed space of the narrator’s apartment in Argentina selling Bibles, so these musings provide no solace or comfort.

For the salesman, a certain level of solitude can be assumed. He travels from Europe selling Bibles, is in Argentina to sell to the narrator, and has traveled at least as far as India. The narrator, though he is a confessed misanthrope, has a few friends and previously worked at the National Library, which implies at least some degree of consistent interaction with others. Upon acquiring the book, though, he notes that he “stopped seeing” those friends, becoming a “prisoner of the book” and no longer leaving his home (483). This hermetic behavior is a consequence of his obsession, as he is perpetually engaged in attempts to track and understand the book, even though he cannot read or interpret it.

The salesman’s obsession with the book led him to sell it—presumably for any price, as he does not count the money that the narrator gives him. Likewise, the narrator’s obsession leads him to thoughts of destruction and self-loathing. Recognizing his own addiction to the book, he begins to see himself as “monstrous,” developing a visceral self-loathing with his “ten flesh-and-bone fingers” (483). Because he cannot destroy the book, like the salesman, he relinquishes it to a place where it can live on to influence others in the future. In his case, this is the National Library, where the book’s future is unknown; it may blend in and become lost in the library’s vast collection, but there is also a daily possibility that a patron will discover the text on the shelves and become its next victim.