An experienced wizard retreats from the world to a location that possesses strong mystical powers: the circular ruins. There, the wizard has but one goal: to make another human beings from his own dreams. Sleeping and dreaming longer and longer each day, the magician dreams of his young man becoming educated, and becoming wiser. After time, though, the wizard can no longer find sleep, and he deems his first attempt an inevitable failure. After many sleepless nights, the wizard dreams of a heart; vaguely at first, but more and more clearly each night. Years pass and the wizard creates the boy piece by piece, in agonizing detail. The wizard calls upon the god Fire to bring his creation to life. Fire agrees, as long as the wizard accustoms his creation to the real world, and that only Fire and the wizard will be able to tell the creation from a real human. Before deciding to bring the young man into the world, the magician decides to abandon his hopes, and to sacrifice his life. As he ultimately walks into the flaming house of Fire, the wizards notices that his skin does not burn. "With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he too was a mere appearance, dreamt by another."
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The Circular Ruins (Full
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The Waiting (Summary)
The Zahir (Summary)
Other Stories With Theme of Undefined Reality
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The Immortal (Summary)
The Library of Babel (Full Text)
The Library of Babel (Summary)
The Lottery of Babylon (Summary)
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Criticism With Reference to this Story
Ana Maria Barrenechea Borges
the Labyrinth Maker
Carter Wheelock
Borges’ New
Prose
Emir Rodriguez-Monegal Symbols
in Borges’ Work