The Aleph: Part III Summary

Averroes' Search

Averroes cannot figure out what the worlds "tragedy" and "comedy" really mean, as theater plays. Abu-al Hasan tells the story of a huge house in Canton, China, where people are conducting a performance of a play. Averroes insists that the old poetry of the Koran is still the greatest ever, and no innovations need to be made. Averroes goes home, and looks in the mirror. Suddenly, he disappears.

The Zahir

A woman the narrator is in love with dies. Afterward, the narrator becomes obsessed with the coin, the Zahir. He spends the coin, but still remembers it. Finally, he picks up a book in German about the "superstition of the Zahir." Then the narrator hears that that the sister of the dead woman is in a mental hospital. She has an overwhelming obsession with a...