Book Of Sand Literary Analysis

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Magical Realism in “The Book of Sand”

The concept of infinity is magical, however throw a book in there and it turns almost impossible. In the story The Book of Sand, an average man becomes the new owner of a very strange novel. Magic Realism refers to the occurrence of supernatural, or anything that is contrary to our conventional view of reality [it is] not divorced from reality either. The setting and life of the main character is very normal and can relate to many lives. Although, when a man appears on his door step, the plot of this story takes a magical twist. The novel the man gained was called The Book of Sand, “because neither sand nor this book has a beginning or an end”(45). The book proved there was a supernatural science behind the pages being everlasting. The main character lives “..alone, in a fifth-floor apartment on Calle Belgrano”(44). He is a common man with a common life. Its pretty easy to differentiate real from fake. However, when the man is introduced to this materialized infinity, the mind can only contain so much. As we learn from a young age; a book has a beginning, middle, and end. The bibler peddler said, “The number of pages in this book is literally infinite. No page is the first page; no page is the last. I don't know why they’re numbered in this arbitrary way,
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Infinity can be defined as real or mythical, like the book the man hoarded. In this story the author did a great job conveying the mystery and magical uniqueness to the infinite pages of the book. Which metaphorically stands for the actual infinity of our world, the never ending pages to our lives. The confusion and questions will never go away the more we ponder about it, in comparison how the man hoarding the book made him unhappy. The book of sand contrasts the two ideas of real and magical through the settings and plot of the