"The Aleph" (original Spanish title: "El Aleph") is a

short story A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest ...

by the

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

writer and poet

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

. First published in September 1945, it was reprinted in the short story collection, '' The Aleph and Other Stories'', in

1949 Events January * January 1 – A United Nations-sponsored ceasefire brings an end to the Indo-Pakistani War of 1947. The war results in a stalemate and the division of Kashmir, which still continues as of 2022. * January 2 – Luis ...

, and revised by the author in

1974 Major events in 1974 include the aftermath of the 1973 oil crisis and the resignation of United States President Richard Nixon following the Watergate scandal. In the Middle East, the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War determined politics; ...

Plot summary

In Borges' story, the Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the

universe The universe is all of space and time and their contents, including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological description of the development of the univers ...

from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping, or confusion. The story traces the theme of

infinity Infinity is that which is boundless, endless, or larger than any natural number. It is often denoted by the infinity symbol . Since the time of the ancient Greeks, the philosophical nature of infinity was the subject of many discussions am ...

found in several of Borges' other works, such as "

The Book of Sand "The Book of Sand" ( es, El libro de arena, links=no) is a 1975 short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges about the discovery of a book with infinite pages. It has parallels to the same author's 1949 story "The Zahir" (revised in 1974 ...

". Borges has stated that the inspiration for this story came from H.G. Wells's short story

The Door in the Wall * '' The Door in the Wall'' is a short story by H. G. Wells * '' The Door in the Wall and Other Stories'' is a 1911 short story collection by H. G. Wells * ''The Door in the Wall'' (novel) is a 1949 children's novel by Marguerite de Angeli * ''The ...

. As in many of Borges' short stories, the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

is a fictionalized version of the author. At the beginning of the story, he is mourning the recent death of Beatriz Viterbo, a woman he loved, and he resolves to stop by the house of her family to pay his respects. Over time, he comes to know her first cousin, Carlos Argentino Daneri, a mediocre

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or w ...

with a vastly exaggerated view of his own talent who has made it his lifelong quest to write an

epic poem An epic poem, or simply an epic, is a lengthy narrative poem typically about the extraordinary deeds of extraordinary characters who, in dealings with gods or other superhuman forces, gave shape to the mortal universe for their descendants. ...

that describes every single location on the planet in excruciatingly fine detail. Later in the story, a business attempts to tear down Daneri's house in the course of its expansion. Daneri becomes enraged, explaining to the narrator that he must keep the house in order to finish his poem, because the cellar contains an Aleph which he is using to write the poem. Though by now he believes Daneri to be insane, the narrator proposes without waiting for an answer to come to the house and see the Aleph for himself. Left alone in the darkness of the cellar, the narrator begins to fear that Daneri is conspiring to kill him, and then he sees the Aleph for himself: Though staggered by the experience of seeing the Aleph, the narrator pretends to have seen nothing in order to get revenge on Daneri, whom he dislikes, by giving Daneri a reason to doubt his own sanity. The narrator tells Daneri that Daneri has lived too long amongst the noise and bustle of the city and spent too much time in the dark and enclosed space of his cellar, and the narrator assures him that what he truly needs are the wide open spaces and fresh air of the countryside, and these will provide him with the true peace of mind that he needs to complete his poem. He then takes his leave of Daneri and exits the house. In a

postscript PostScript (PS) is a page description language in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm. It is a dynamically typed, concatenative programming language. It was created at Adobe Systems by John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Do ...

to the story, Borges explains that Daneri's house was ultimately demolished, but that Daneri himself won second place for the

National Prize for Literature A National Prize for Literature ( es, Premio Nacional de Literatura) is a kind of award offered by various countries. Examples include: * National Prize for Literature (Argentina) * National Literary Awards, Burma * National Prize for Literature ( ...

. He also states his belief that the Aleph in Daneri's house was "a false Aleph". Borges then defends this claim by citing many similar instances where objects were inaccurately perceived to be Alephs. For

Cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

's '' Mengenlehre'' Aleph is the symbol of

transfinite number In mathematics, transfinite numbers are numbers that are " infinite" in the sense that they are larger than all finite numbers, yet not necessarily absolutely infinite. These include the transfinite cardinals, which are cardinal numbers used to q ...

s, of which any part is as great as the whole as, for example, in the mathematical paradoxes of infinity: in a segment there are as many points as in the straight line that contains it, or even numbers are infinite like all numbers. Another example is a report written by "Captain Burton" (

Richard Francis Burton Sir Richard Francis Burton (; 19 March 1821 – 20 October 1890) was a British explorer, writer, orientalist scholar,and soldier. He was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary kn ...

) when he was British consul in

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, describing the Mosque of Amr in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metr ...

, within which there is said to be a stone pillar that contains the entire universe; although this Aleph cannot be seen, it is said that those who put their ear to the pillar can hear a continuous hum that symbolizes all the concurrent noises of the universe heard at any given time. Ultimately, Borges claims that all the instances described were "merely optical instruments" rather than true Alephs.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Aleph, The 1945 short stories Short stories by Jorge Luis Borges Fantasy short stories Short stories about writers Works originally published in Sur (magazine) Mathematics and culture Buenos Aires in fiction Fray Bentos in fiction Novels set in Buenos Aires Argentine speculative fiction works