Borges's story "The Garden of Forking Paths" (1941) does with time what "The Aleph" does with space. In it, a German spy during World War I learns about the multitudinous dimensions of time and the nature of eternity.

Borges's essay "The Fearful Sphere of Pascal" (1951) explores the issue of infinity by addressing the philosopher Blaise Pascal's notion of God as a sphere whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

Italo Calvino's 1965 collection Cosmicomics traces (through a series of humorous short stories) the evolution of the universe. Like Borges, Calvino enjoys meeting thorny matters such as the nature of space and time head-on and with subtle humor.

James Joyce's 1916 novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man features a long chapter in which a Jesuit priest attempts to explain (with horrifying results) the nature of infinity to a...