Humans find it difficult to understand and process the unknown. The Book of Sand by Jorge Borges manifests the human fear of the strange and unfamiliar. When the narrator first encounters the Book of Sand, its infinite number of pages entrances him, but like the stranger, he “realized the book was monstrous.” The narrator’s gradual transformation into “a prisoner of the book” causes him to stay at home to tirelessly watch over the book. This depicts the book’s firm grasp on the narrator as it controls his life and prevents him from diverting his attention away from the book. He fears how his affinity with the strangeness is turning his life inside out. Consequently, as the narrator begins to question the book’s purpose, he even “felt that the
