If we ignore the infinite aspect of the Book of Sand, Borges' short story "El Libro de Arena" is about two bibliophiles and book collecting.
In “El Libro de Arena” a blind and aged narrator, who is probably
Borges, meets a Bible salesman who connives him into buying the Book of Sand, a
very material and physical tome of a book that is nonetheless infinite. Being a book collector and bibliophile, the narrator describes the aspects and
dimensions of the infinite book: it is a clothbound volume in octavo printed in double columns (like the Bible), and it is unusually heavy and worn through much handling. Also like the Bible, it is composed in versicles and carries the imprint of Holy Writ. He notes that Bombay, India is the place of publication, which is Borges' nod to the Orient that produced The Thousand and One Nights. And finally, the narrator, attempting to create a catalogue of the illustrations, notes that the illustrations are “spaced at two-thousand page
intervals,” two of which we know about, an anchor and a mask.
The Bible salesman, who I guess is not really a Bible salesman, trades his Book of Sand for the narrator's "blackletter Wyclif" and "with a bibliophile's zeal he turned the pages and studied the binding," examining his new acquisition. John Wycliffe translated the Bible from the Latin into English in the year 1382, which is before the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 1440. A Bible with blackletter font (which is also known as Old English font or Gothic Script) means that this copy of the Bible was copied by hand, is one of the first Bibles in the English language, and is therefore an extremely rare and valuable item for book collectors and museums.
Any story about property includes a narrative about the method of acquisition, and so the Bible salesman tells us that he obtained the Book of Sand from a native in the outskirts of Bikaner, India for some rupees and a Bible. This information about the previous owners and history of the books transmission is important for any book collector because as Walter Benjamin, a true bibliophile, tells us in "Unpacking My Library": "The period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership—for a true collector the whole background of an item adds up to a magic encyclopedia whose quintessence is the fate of his object."
Benjamin's "talk about book collecting" is about "the relationship of a book collector to his possessions" and he focuses on the act of collecting books rather than on the book collection itself. According to Benjamin, a bibliophile through the act of acquisition "renew[s] the old world" and becomes a guardian of a piece of history. For Benjamin, the private collector is a dying breed being replaced by museum and other public collectors, and he mourns the loss of the private collector who alone maintained "the most intimate relationship that one can have to objects"—ownership.
Indeed, the narrator of "El Libro de Arena" tells us of his object fetishism: "I showed no one my treasure. To the joy of possession was added the fear that it would be stolen from me, and to that, the suspicion that it might not be truly infinite." Here ownership results in wildly varying emotional states—jealousy, joy, fear, paranoia, suspicion—all exacerbated by the peculiarity and singularity of the object, an infinite book. The excessive attachment to the object results in an interchangeability between owner and owned, or as Benjamin phrases it, "Not that the [objects] come alive in [the owner]; it is he who lives in them." The terrifying and disturbing essence of the Book of Sand merges with each and every owner, each of whom in the end seek to dispossess themselves of the accursed book.
Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. Let me offer a purposeful mistranslation: Owners and books share a destiny. If we apply this formula to "El Libro de Arena," the short story becomes a tale of owners dispossessing themselves of a cursed object that "defiled and corrupted reality." And in terms of plot, then, "El Libro de Arena" is a history of the acquisition and voluntary loss of a singular and peculiar book, the Book of Sand. Of course, there is more going on in "El Libro de Arena" than bibliophilia turned bibliophobia, but I will deal with that next time.
This is all I can give for now. (receding into silence)
Indeed, the narrator of "El Libro de Arena" tells us of his object fetishism: "I showed no one my treasure. To the joy of possession was added the fear that it would be stolen from me, and to that, the suspicion that it might not be truly infinite." Here ownership results in wildly varying emotional states—jealousy, joy, fear, paranoia, suspicion—all exacerbated by the peculiarity and singularity of the object, an infinite book. The excessive attachment to the object results in an interchangeability between owner and owned, or as Benjamin phrases it, "Not that the [objects] come alive in [the owner]; it is he who lives in them." The terrifying and disturbing essence of the Book of Sand merges with each and every owner, each of whom in the end seek to dispossess themselves of the accursed book.
Pro captu lectoris habent sua fata libelli. Let me offer a purposeful mistranslation: Owners and books share a destiny. If we apply this formula to "El Libro de Arena," the short story becomes a tale of owners dispossessing themselves of a cursed object that "defiled and corrupted reality." And in terms of plot, then, "El Libro de Arena" is a history of the acquisition and voluntary loss of a singular and peculiar book, the Book of Sand. Of course, there is more going on in "El Libro de Arena" than bibliophilia turned bibliophobia, but I will deal with that next time.
This is all I can give for now. (receding into silence)
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