The aleph THE ALEPH SUMMARY

The Aleph narrates the discovery of the character Borges of an object of objects in the house of his former lover Beatriz Viterbo. This sphere of two to three centimeters in diameter in the basement of an old house on Garay street, Buenos Aires, is the mirror and center of all things, in which everything converges and is reflected, at the same time and without overlapping.

The number of allusions is innumerable; It could well be the universe itself, as the narrator says, but it also alludes to the library, and, it is said, ironically to Neruda's Canto general He also recalls, both in Carlos Argentino Daneri and in Beatriz Viterbo as in the descent into the basement, Dante's Divine Comedy.

WHAT IS THE ALEPH ?

The Aleph is one of the most representative storybooks of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges Published in 1949, it was republished by the author in 1974 His texts refer to an infinite number of sources and bibliographies around which myths and metaphors of the universal literary tradition are articulated This work marks a turning point with respect to the style exuded by his previous collection of short stories, Ficciones; Still maintaining his sober and perfectionist style, the writer addresses here another series of implausible events or objects framed in a realistic environment, which helps to highlight its fantastic character

Awards

October 23, 1957, El Aleph was awarded the first prize in the category "Imagination Works in Prose", within the framework of the National Awards of the Ministry of Culture of the Nation

WHAT DOES THE ALEPH MEAN?

Borges describes the Aleph as “ a small iridescent sphere, of almost intolerable brilliance”, whose diameter would be “two or three centimeters, but the cosmic space was there, without diminishing its size”. It is the mythical point of the universe where all acts, all times (present, past and future), occupy "the same point, without overlap and without transparency"

The Aleph," א " is the first consonant of the Hebrew alphabet, it has various meanings, it symbolizes transformative power, cultural power, creative or universal energy, power of life, channel of creation, also the beginning and the end given its condition of timelessness.