Dec 29, 2009

The Aleph | What Do I Read Next?

Borges’s story ‘‘The Garden of Forking Paths’’ (1941) does with time what ‘‘The Aleph’’ does with space. In it, a German spy during World War I learns about the multitudinous dimensions of time and the nature of eternity.

Borges’s essay ‘‘The Fearful Sphere of Pascal’’ (1951) explores the issue of infinity by addressing the philosopher Blaise Pascal’s notion of God as a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Italo Calvino’s 1965 collection Cosmicomics traces (through a series of humorous short stories)...