The Book of Sand

The salesman is a traveling Bible salesman originally from Scotland, though it is implied that he has traveled across the world. The salesman acquired the book from a man of the lowest caste in India. His presence in Argentina further suggests that he regularly travels internationally and shows that he has visited at least three continents.

In addition to selling Bibles, the salesman also declares himself a Presbyterian, a member of a Christian Protestant denomination. He does not seem so spiritually inclined as the narrator, as evidenced by his willingness to sell the book for “a large sum of money” (482). By valuing money over spirituality, the salesman reveals his pragmatic motivations. His willingness to pass the book and the suffering it brings on to the narrator further demonstrates his self-serving tendencies; the narrator reveals this tendency later in his own decision to leave it in the library, where someone else may discover it and be tormented by it.

Though the narrator identifies the salesman as impoverished, he also notes that his nearsightedness may have affected his ability to discern aspects of the salesman’s appearance. The narrator first believes the salesman is old, but this is simply due to thinking the salesman has sparse hair, when his hair is actually just very light in color. The narrator’s poor vision prevents him from providing a reliable physical description of the narrator. This may also suggest that the salesman’s drab clothing does not necessarily indicate his poverty, as his travels and seeming success in sales suggest that he has sufficient funds.

In some ways, the salesman seems to operate as a doppelganger in the text, as he shares an interest in sacred texts, obsession with the idea of infinity, and general misanthropic melancholy with the narrator. It seems that the salesman is another version of the narrator, but he is already at the end of a journey on which the other is only embarking.