Janie Cherestal

I found Borges’ “Book of Sand” to be one of his better short stories due to the fact that it was concise and to the point without any confusing symbolism. In the story, the narrator purchases a fascinating book with infinite pages from a peddler, but soon becomes horrified by the object and terribly paranoid that someone will steal it from him. Eventually, he decides that he must get rid of the book and decides that the safest place to lose it is in a giant library among countless volumes. I felt that the feature of an eerie book that drives its owner mad was pretty interesting and it was fun to read how strongly it effected the narrator. I was surprised that Borges did not end up killing off the narrator as he usually does to one of the characters in his stories, and wondered what Borges was trying to say about religion by having a Bible seller give the terrible book to the narrator.