dead. The work begins by describing his early life
in ancient Greece, before he set out to find the
City of the Immortals. Inspired by a story he first
heard from a dying soldier, he leads a band of 200
soldiers and assorted mercenaries through a series
of bizarre lands, losing some of his followers to de-
sertion and eventually having to escape from them
after it becomes apparent that he will not be able
to quell the latest mutiny. He is overwhelmed by
delirium in the desert, and when he regains con-
sciousnes, he finds himself bound and at the mercy
of a race of subhuman troglodytes, although in the
distance he can see the outer wall of the city he
has sought.
Although the city’s walls are impregnable, the
protagonist finds an entrance to an underground
maze through which he struggles for so long that
he loses all sense of time. Most of the passageways
turn back upon themselves, but finally he finds an
exit into the city, which appears to be long aban-
doned. The city is almost as perplexing as the
maze, filled with senseless architecture, dead ends,
and distorted buildings. The lone visitor begins to
feel a sense of growing uneasiness and revulsion,
considering the city a blight upon the face of the
world despite its impressive size and complexity.
One of the troglodytes followed him through
the maze, and the weary and disillusioned traveler
tries to open a conversation with him. In due
course he discovers that his companion is actually
Homer, the Greek poet, and that the troglodytes
are the immortals who built the city but who have
now abandoned it. They have lived so long that
they have experienced everything possible and no
longer have any real interest in their own exis-
tence. Realizing the horror of his situation, he
leaves, determined to rid himself of the immortal-
ity imposed upon him by the magical waters
through which he passed by finding another river
that has the opposite power and can relieve him of
the burden of life.
The conclusion that immortality is a curse
rather than a blessing recurs occasionally in both
fantasy and science fiction, notably in Natalie Bab-
bitt’s TUCK EVERLASTING(1975), which empha-
sizes the alienation that results when a small group
of individuals remain alive while everyone they
know is dying. Robert A. Heinlein’s science fiction
work Methuselah’s Children(1958) solves the prob-
lem by having human immortals emigrate to their
own world, but other science fiction writers have
been less optimistic. Whereas other authors have
employed an entire novel to make their point,
Borges compresses the same concept into a short
but no less effective story.The Incomplete EnchanterL. Sprague
de Camp and Fletcher Pratt(1941)
L. Sprague DE CAMPand his frequent collaborator,
Fletcher Pratt, wrote among other things a series of
novellas that fastened on the expression “im-
mersed in a book” and made it literal. The first two
of these, “The Roaring Trumpet” and “The Mathe-
matics of Magic,” both of which appeared in
slightly different form in 1940, were combined
under the title The Incomplete Enchanter. The
premise of the series is that there are an infinite
number of possible worlds and that we determine
which one we occupy by the way in which we per-
ceive reality. Reed Chalmers and Professor Harold
Shea work out a method of influencing that per-
ception that is described scientifically but that is
essentially magic. Using this technique they can
transport themselves into these alternate realities,
specifically ones that mirror the worlds described
in myths or in classic works of fiction.
In the opening section they attempt to travel
to the world of Celtic legend but inadvertently find
themselves in a Norse fantasy world instead. Shea
hobnobs with the Norse gods, retrieves Thor’s miss-
ing hammer, is captured by giants, and becomes a
powerful wizard before returning to our world just
before the fall of Ragnarok. In the second adven-
ture they both visit the world of The Faerie Queene
as written by Sir Edmund Spenser. They are caught
up in the local political struggle, which eventually
becomes physical, and engage in more magic. Shea
marries before he and his wife are returned to our
reality, leaving Chalmers behind.
Although the two initial adventures are the
best in the series, the sequels are also of interest. In
The Castle of Iron(1950, revised from the 1941 se-
rial version) Chalmers moves from Spenser’s world
to that of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.Shea and his
wife join him there, undergo some transformations,The Incomplete Enchanter 175