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The Library of Babel
Jorge Luis Borges's famous 1941 meditation on language, alphabets, and the library that contains all knowledge is an allegory of our Universe, and in this edition is complemented and enhanced by the etching of the French artist, Érik Desmazières.
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1941
219 people are currently reading
44280 people want to read
About the author
Jorge Luis Borges
1,927 books14k followersJorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known works, Ficciones (transl. Fictions) and El Aleph (transl. The Aleph), published in the 1940s, are collections of short stories exploring motifs such as dreams, labyrinths, chance, infinity, archives, mirrors, fictional writers and mythology. Borges's works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have had a major influence on the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
Born in Buenos Aires, Borges later moved with his family to Switzerland in 1914, where he studied at the Collège de Genève. The family travelled widely in Europe, including Spain. On his return to Argentina in 1921, Borges began publishing his poems and essays in surrealist literary journals. He also worked as a librarian and public lecturer. In 1955, he was appointed director of the National Public Library and professor of English Literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He became completely blind by the age of 55. Scholars have suggested that his progressive blindness helped him to create innovative literary symbols through imagination. By the 1960s, his work was translated and published widely in the United States and Europe. Borges himself was fluent in several languages.
In 1961, he came to international attention when he received the first Formentor Prize, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1971, he won the Jerusalem Prize. His international reputation was consolidated in the 1960s, aided by the growing number of English translations, the Latin American Boom, and by the success of Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. He dedicated his final work, The Conspirators, to the city of Geneva, Switzerland. Writer and essayist J.M. Coetzee said of him: "He, more than anyone, renovated the language of fiction and thus opened the way to a remarkable generation of Spanish-American novelists."
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August 26, 2020
In the brief prose piece The Four Cycles Jorge Luis Borges wrote that there are only four stories in the world: the story of war, the story of return, the story of search and the story of sacrifice (Troy, Ulysses, Jason, Prometheus).
“Four are the stories. During the time left to us we will continue telling them, transformed.”
And there is no other writer who can retell these four stories the way Jorge Luis Borges does, transforming them into intellectual labyrinths and scholarly conundrums.
He turns the universe into The Library of Babel, the probability theory into The Garden of Forking Paths and the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet into a locus of all the magic – Aleph.
“Four are the stories. During the time left to us we will continue telling them, transformed.”
And there is no other writer who can retell these four stories the way Jorge Luis Borges does, transforming them into intellectual labyrinths and scholarly conundrums.
Like all the men of the Library, in my younger days I traveled; I have journeyed in quest of a book, perhaps the catalog of catalogs. Now that my eyes can hardly make out what I myself have written, I am preparing to die, a few leagues from the hexagon where I was born. When I am dead, compassionate hands will throw me over the railing; my tomb will be the unfathomable air, my body will sink for ages, and will decay and dissolve in the wind engendered by my fall, which shall be infinite.
He turns the universe into The Library of Babel, the probability theory into The Garden of Forking Paths and the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet into a locus of all the magic – Aleph.
February 12, 2021
In Borges's short story, the world consists of a gigantic library which contains every possible book that can ever be written. So, somewhere, there must logically be the book, the one that reveals the Library's secret! Unfortunately, there is no filing system, and no one has any idea of how to find the elusive book. In fact, it's challenging even to locate one which contains a meaningful sentence: most of them are gibberish from beginning to end.
Well, our own world isn't quite as bad - but it's still harder than it should be to locate the books you really want to read, when they're mixed up with the ones you just think you might want to read. I am often appalled at the amount of time I waste on this site, but comfort myself with the thought that it has helped me find some amazing books I normally wouldn't even have considered.
But exactly how helpful has it been? The other day, it occurred to me to try and answer this question quantitatively. I calculate that, since I started hanging out here in late 2008, I have read 42 books just because someone here has recommended them. (I didn't count books recommended by people on Goodreads whom I also know in real life, otherwise the figure would be considerably higher). After some more thought, I've picked out a Top Ten, which I present here for your amusement:
10. I've never seen anyone outside Goodreads mention Everything Explained Through Flowcharts , recommended to me by David G, but it's the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I challenge you to read it without giggling helplessly at least a couple of times. Why it isn't more famous is more than I understand.
9. À rebours , a weird 19th century French novel recommended to me by Sabrina, is another book that deserves to be better known. Nothing happens, but it's somehow utterly compelling. I think it's also been very influential.
8. I love books written under strong formalist constraints, but I'd never heard of Eunoia , recommended by Gary. Five chapters, each using only one vowel, and, even though it sounds impossible, it works remarkably well as poetry. Really!
7. Eric W recommended The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History . If you're after inspiration and good old-fashioned heroism, look no further.
6. Choupette was so indignant about Plateforme that I had to check it out for myself. I liked it enough that I also read Les particules élémentaires . I won't promise that you'll enjoy them, but they're certainly going to make you think.
5. Everyone recommended The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains . Alas, all too true. The mere fact that I'm sitting here writing this proves his point.
4. Would you believe it, I hadn't even heard of Infinite Jest before I joined GR. Within a couple of months, I'd given in and bought a copy. Admittedly, I also bought a copy of Twilight at the same time...
3. Pavel told me I had to read Voices from Chernobyl , and he was right. Whatever your opinions on nuclear power, it's irresponsible not to. You can't take more than a chapter or so at a time; after that, you just sit there stunned, doing your best not to cry. Another book that people have unaccountably overlooked.
2. Was I really going to read a thousand page physics text full of scary math? I did a math degree in the late 70s, but this looked way over my level. However, Nick called me chicken enough times that I decided to tackle The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe . I've finally got to the end, and wow, was it a fascinating read! If you like math and physics, take Nick's advice: forget the pop science books and go for the big one. It's worth the effort.
1. I don't really know Norwegian, and how likely was it that I'd buy a three volume magical-realist Norwegian novel by an author I'd never heard of? But, moved by Oriana's glowing review, I started thinking that I speak Swedish, Norwegian isn't that different (it's a kind of Spanish/Portuguese deal), so why not give it a shot? By the time I was 20 pages into Forføreren , I was hooked, and then I immediately continued with Erobreren and Oppdageren . The trilogy is the most brilliant thing I have read this century, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Thank you Oriana!
So, there you are, and I hope I've made at least one sale :) In the interests of completeness, here's the rest of the list, in alphabetical order:
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style
The Authoritarians
The Bent Sword
Breaking Dawn
Crowds and Power
The Dreamfighter: And Other Creation Tales
Eclipse
L'élégance du hérisson
Exercices de Style
Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will
Go the Fuck to Sleep
Galatea 2.2
Gray Matters
Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
How To Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own
Musical Chairs
Mysterier
New Moon
No Hope for Gomez!
Not a Chance: Fictions
The Riddler's Gift (Lifesong, #1)
The Sparrow
Sult
The Triple A's Check It Out
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
Whom God Would Destroy
Zazie dans le métro
Happy Goodreading!
Well, our own world isn't quite as bad - but it's still harder than it should be to locate the books you really want to read, when they're mixed up with the ones you just think you might want to read. I am often appalled at the amount of time I waste on this site, but comfort myself with the thought that it has helped me find some amazing books I normally wouldn't even have considered.
But exactly how helpful has it been? The other day, it occurred to me to try and answer this question quantitatively. I calculate that, since I started hanging out here in late 2008, I have read 42 books just because someone here has recommended them. (I didn't count books recommended by people on Goodreads whom I also know in real life, otherwise the figure would be considerably higher). After some more thought, I've picked out a Top Ten, which I present here for your amusement:
10. I've never seen anyone outside Goodreads mention Everything Explained Through Flowcharts , recommended to me by David G, but it's the funniest thing I've seen in ages. I challenge you to read it without giggling helplessly at least a couple of times. Why it isn't more famous is more than I understand.
9. À rebours , a weird 19th century French novel recommended to me by Sabrina, is another book that deserves to be better known. Nothing happens, but it's somehow utterly compelling. I think it's also been very influential.
8. I love books written under strong formalist constraints, but I'd never heard of Eunoia , recommended by Gary. Five chapters, each using only one vowel, and, even though it sounds impossible, it works remarkably well as poetry. Really!
7. Eric W recommended The Terrible Hours: The Greatest Submarine Rescue in History . If you're after inspiration and good old-fashioned heroism, look no further.
6. Choupette was so indignant about Plateforme that I had to check it out for myself. I liked it enough that I also read Les particules élémentaires . I won't promise that you'll enjoy them, but they're certainly going to make you think.
5. Everyone recommended The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains . Alas, all too true. The mere fact that I'm sitting here writing this proves his point.
4. Would you believe it, I hadn't even heard of Infinite Jest before I joined GR. Within a couple of months, I'd given in and bought a copy. Admittedly, I also bought a copy of Twilight at the same time...
3. Pavel told me I had to read Voices from Chernobyl , and he was right. Whatever your opinions on nuclear power, it's irresponsible not to. You can't take more than a chapter or so at a time; after that, you just sit there stunned, doing your best not to cry. Another book that people have unaccountably overlooked.
2. Was I really going to read a thousand page physics text full of scary math? I did a math degree in the late 70s, but this looked way over my level. However, Nick called me chicken enough times that I decided to tackle The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe . I've finally got to the end, and wow, was it a fascinating read! If you like math and physics, take Nick's advice: forget the pop science books and go for the big one. It's worth the effort.
1. I don't really know Norwegian, and how likely was it that I'd buy a three volume magical-realist Norwegian novel by an author I'd never heard of? But, moved by Oriana's glowing review, I started thinking that I speak Swedish, Norwegian isn't that different (it's a kind of Spanish/Portuguese deal), so why not give it a shot? By the time I was 20 pages into Forføreren , I was hooked, and then I immediately continued with Erobreren and Oppdageren . The trilogy is the most brilliant thing I have read this century, and I can't recommend it highly enough. Thank you Oriana!
So, there you are, and I hope I've made at least one sale :) In the interests of completeness, here's the rest of the list, in alphabetical order:
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style
The Authoritarians
The Bent Sword
Breaking Dawn
Crowds and Power
The Dreamfighter: And Other Creation Tales
Eclipse
L'élégance du hérisson
Exercices de Style
Fate, Time, and Language: An Essay on Free Will
Go the Fuck to Sleep
Galatea 2.2
Gray Matters
Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!
The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos
How To Learn Any Language: Quickly, Easily, Inexpensively, Enjoyably and on Your Own
Musical Chairs
Mysterier
New Moon
No Hope for Gomez!
Not a Chance: Fictions
The Riddler's Gift (Lifesong, #1)
The Sparrow
Sult
The Triple A's Check It Out
Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights
Whom God Would Destroy
Zazie dans le métro
Happy Goodreading!
August 2, 2023
Finally a short story by Borges that is more intelligible to me. The story is a parable where the universe is an infinite library.
“The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.”
For the rest of the stories I've read by him, the answer to the question “You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?” is usually N0.
“The library will endure; it is the universe. As for us, everything has not been written; we are not turning into phantoms. We walk the corridors, searching the shelves and rearranging them, looking for lines of meaning amid leagues of cacophony and incoherence, reading the history of the past and our future, collecting our thoughts and collecting the thoughts of others, and every so often glimpsing mirrors, in which we may recognize creatures of the information.”
For the rest of the stories I've read by him, the answer to the question “You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?” is usually N0.
February 8, 2020
I read "The Library of Babel," one of Jorge Luis Borges’ most famous stories, as part of the Ficciones collection. “The Library of Babel” posits a universe in the form of a library made out of connected hexagonal rooms, each room filled with books and the barest necessities for life. Each book contains 410 pages, with 40 lines of 80 letters each. There are 25 letters and punctuation marks in the alphabet. The Library contains every possible combination of those letters. Most of the books are complete gibberish, of course, but like the Infinite Monkey Theorem says, if you have enough monkeys banging away on typewriters for long enough (i.e., infinite time and infinite monkeys), eventually they’ll write Hamlet.
But life for the people dwelling in this library is profoundly frustrating, even depressing, since only a vanishingly small percentage of the books make any sense at all. Borges explores the ways that people might react to this, with several nods to religion and philosophy. There's not any real plot to this story; it feels more like an essay or an intellectual exercise ("How would people react if...").
Mathematicians have had a field day with this book’s concept, figuring out how many books such a library would contain. Per Wikipedia’s article on this story, there would be far more books in this library (1.956 x 10 to the 1,834,097th power) than there are thought to be atoms in the observable universe (10 to the 80th power). It's mind-boggling.
But this story is not so much about the numbers, as about what it would be like to live in this intriguing but highly frustrating world.
You can read a copy of this story here.
But life for the people dwelling in this library is profoundly frustrating, even depressing, since only a vanishingly small percentage of the books make any sense at all. Borges explores the ways that people might react to this, with several nods to religion and philosophy. There's not any real plot to this story; it feels more like an essay or an intellectual exercise ("How would people react if...").
Mathematicians have had a field day with this book’s concept, figuring out how many books such a library would contain. Per Wikipedia’s article on this story, there would be far more books in this library (1.956 x 10 to the 1,834,097th power) than there are thought to be atoms in the observable universe (10 to the 80th power). It's mind-boggling.
But this story is not so much about the numbers, as about what it would be like to live in this intriguing but highly frustrating world.
You can read a copy of this story here.
November 30, 2023
تا حالا شده از هیبت نویسندهای که یه اثر هم ازش نخوندین، به اندازهای بترسین که خوندن آثارش رو در دوران بازنشستگی لحاظ کنین؟! بورخس برای من تو این دسته قرار میگرفت تا اینکه جرأت خوندنش رو در فرو��دینماه به دست آوردم.
اما به قدری میخکوبم کرد و باعث شد حرفی برای گفتن نداشته باشم که زحمت امتیاز دادن هم به خودم ندادم! اون زمان با سهیل، هزارتوی ارواح رو همخوانی میکردیم که بهم پیشنهاد داد این اثر رو هم بخونم. چون شباهتهایی بین کتابخانه بابل و گورستان کتابهای فراموششده میدید. و از اونجایی که برام جالب بود تا بفهمم آیا ثافون ازش الهام گرفته یا نه، پام رو از گورستان در حد یه ربع بیرون کشیدم و به کتابخانه بابل گذاشتم...
حقیقتا مغز بینوای من با اون ۱۵ پاراگراف فسقلی منفجر شد. اینکه یه آدم چطور میتونه این حجم از اطلاعات رو در این حد فشرده بنویسه برام باورنکردنی بود. همونطور که انتظار داشتم با یک بار خوندنش نمیتونستم درک زیادی ازش داشته باشم. برای همین گفتم یکم بگذره و دوباره و دوباره سراغش بیام.
بورخس، خدایگان ارجاعات هست اما به طرز زیرکانه و هوشمندانهای ازش استفاده میکنه. نه اونقدر گلدرشت که تو ذوق بزنه و بگی پس نویسنده چی از خودش داشته و همهش از قلم بقیه وام گرفته تا خودش رو بالا ببره و نه اونقدر محو که نفهمی از کجا نشأت گرفته. اون به طرز زیبایی، گفتههای بقیه رو با گفتهی خودش ترکیب میکنه.
با استعاره دنیایی رو خلق میکنه که در عین حال که جادویی هست، واقعی هم به نظر میرسه. جهانی که به کتابخانه تشبیه شده و چسبیدن بابل بهش بیراه نیست. در واقع قبل از شروع داستان، ارجاع توسط عنوان اثر شروع میشه و باید بیراه تلقیش نکنی.
پیشنهاد من بعد از خوندن این داستان کوتاه، دیدن ویدیویی هست که آقای علی شاهی دربارهش تحلیل کرده و خالی از لطف نیست. (با یه سرچ ساده پیداش میکنین)
و در نهایت از سهیل متشکرم که باعث و بانی این آشنایی دلچسب شد♡
اما به قدری میخکوبم کرد و باعث شد حرفی برای گفتن نداشته باشم که زحمت امتیاز دادن هم به خودم ندادم! اون زمان با سهیل، هزارتوی ارواح رو همخوانی میکردیم که بهم پیشنهاد داد این اثر رو هم بخونم. چون شباهتهایی بین کتابخانه بابل و گورستان کتابهای فراموششده میدید. و از اونجایی که برام جالب بود تا بفهمم آیا ثافون ازش الهام گرفته یا نه، پام رو از گورستان در حد یه ربع بیرون کشیدم و به کتابخانه بابل گذاشتم...
حقیقتا مغز بینوای من با اون ۱۵ پاراگراف فسقلی منفجر شد. اینکه یه آدم چطور میتونه این حجم از اطلاعات رو در این حد فشرده بنویسه برام باورنکردنی بود. همونطور که انتظار داشتم با یک بار خوندنش نمیتونستم درک زیادی ازش داشته باشم. برای همین گفتم یکم بگذره و دوباره و دوباره سراغش بیام.
بورخس، خدایگان ارجاعات هست اما به طرز زیرکانه و هوشمندانهای ازش استفاده میکنه. نه اونقدر گلدرشت که تو ذوق بزنه و بگی پس نویسنده چی از خودش داشته و همهش از قلم بقیه وام گرفته تا خودش رو بالا ببره و نه اونقدر محو که نفهمی از کجا نشأت گرفته. اون به طرز زیبایی، گفتههای بقیه رو با گفتهی خودش ترکیب میکنه.
با استعاره دنیایی رو خلق میکنه که در عین حال که جادویی هست، واقعی هم به نظر میرسه. جهانی که به کتابخانه تشبیه شده و چسبیدن بابل بهش بیراه نیست. در واقع قبل از شروع داستان، ارجاع توسط عنوان اثر شروع میشه و باید بیراه تلقیش نکنی.
پیشنهاد من بعد از خوندن این داستان کوتاه، دیدن ویدیویی هست که آقای علی شاهی دربارهش تحلیل کرده و خالی از لطف نیست. (با یه سرچ ساده پیداش میکنین)
و در نهایت از سهیل متشکرم که باعث و بانی این آشنایی دلچسب شد♡
December 8, 2022
Clever, I guess, but dull and stuffy, too. Thank goodness it only ran for seven pages.
August 20, 2025
I'm new to Jorge Luis Borges. The Library of Babel was my first time reading him, and so, my mind was a blank canvas. I still don't comprehend the picture he painted there. It'll take time to understand and appreciate its various brush strokes. For now, I only see certain shapes and colour combinations, and I make my own interpretation. My reading of this short story may not be in line with Borges's vision, yet it's the kind of story that could be looked at through different lenses. So, for me, The Library of Babel is an allegory for the universe, its creation, the meaning of life, as well as the human condition.
This is how Borges viewed the creation. Borges's views of the universe are complex. He saw the universe as one fixed entity. Whatever change the nature wrought in any other, the universe lived forever. The universe is vast and formidable. No human action can pose a threat to it. It is unique and consists of many mysteries that the limited human mind cannot fathom.
The nature of the universe is such that "if an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same order."
For ages, Man has searched for the truth of life without success, and Borges describes the struggle wonderfully.
Borges compares human frailty with the eternity of the universe and shows the permanent nature of the existence of the universe.
And finally, he shows how death ends all for humans.
Having said all, for the question Borges asks, "You who read me - are you certain you understand my language?" my answer is NO. :)
A word must be said about this Penguin edition. It consists of ten short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, including The Library of Babel. Some of them appear in his Ficciones. This review is only of The Library of Babel. The rest will be reviewed as part of Ficciones when I read that.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
The Library has existed ab æternitate. Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the work of chance or of malevolent demiurges; the universe, with its elegant appointments, can only be the handiwork of a god.
This is how Borges viewed the creation. Borges's views of the universe are complex. He saw the universe as one fixed entity. Whatever change the nature wrought in any other, the universe lived forever. The universe is vast and formidable. No human action can pose a threat to it. It is unique and consists of many mysteries that the limited human mind cannot fathom.
The Library is so huge that any reduction by human hands must be infinitesimal. Each book is unique and irreplaceable...
The nature of the universe is such that "if an eternal traveler should journey in any direction, he would find after untold centuries that the same volumes are repeated in the same order."
When it was announced that the Library contained all books, the first reaction was unbounded joy. All men felt themselves possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal problem, no world problem, whose eloquent solution did not exist...there was much talk of The Vindications (books of apology and prophecies) that would vindicate for all time the actions of every person in the universe. Thousands of greedy individuals rushed downstairs, upstairs, spurred by the vain desire to find their Vindication. These pilgrims squabbled in the narrow corridors, muttered dark imprecations, strangled one another on the divine staircases, threw deceiving volumes, were themselves hurled to their deaths. Others went insane.
For ages, Man has searched for the truth of life without success, and Borges describes the struggle wonderfully.
It was argued, there must exist a book that is the cipher and perfect compendium of all the books, and some librarian must have examined that book; this librarian is analogous to a god. Many have gone in search of Him. For a hundred years, men beat every possible path, and every path in vain.
Borges compares human frailty with the eternity of the universe and shows the permanent nature of the existence of the universe.
Epidemics, heretical discords, and pilgrimages that inevitably degenerate into brigandage have decimated the population. I mentioned the suicides, which are more and more frequent every year. I suspect that the human species teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library - enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret - will endure.
And finally, he shows how death ends all for humans.
When I am dead, compassionate hands will throw me over the railing; my tomb will be the unfathomable air, my body will sink for ages, and will decay and dissolve in the wind engendered by my fall.
Having said all, for the question Borges asks, "You who read me - are you certain you understand my language?" my answer is NO. :)
A word must be said about this Penguin edition. It consists of ten short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, including The Library of Babel. Some of them appear in his Ficciones. This review is only of The Library of Babel. The rest will be reviewed as part of Ficciones when I read that.
More of my reviews can be found at http://piyangiejay.com/
Read
July 9, 2021
Why read fiction? One answer I return to again and again: to fire the imagination.
You might be stumped coming up with a short story that has fired the imagination in more ways for more readers than The Library of Babel by the great Jorge Luis Borges.
"The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries. In the center of each gallery is a ventilation shaft, bounded by a low railing. From any hexagon one can see the floors above and below-one after another, endless."
So reads the opening lines of this seven-pager. That's right, seven pages containing fifteen paragraphs, but one has the feeling all the many bits of detail within any of those paragraphs could gyrate outward to generate infinite possibilities. Sidebar: Take a moment to scan the multitude of artist's renderings of the library via a simple Google search.
For any lover of books across the globe, this Borges tale is a MUST READ (Link below). I'll contain my excitement by confining my observations to the following quartet:
ONE BOOK BECOMES BILLIONS OF BOOKS
Let's take a simple example: 500 of my reviews are collected into one thick volume. By a simple rearrangement of individual reviews, we come up with billions of books. How many exactly? Is there a mathematician in the house?
Anyway, you get the idea. Take a book you yourself might write - collection of reviews, essays, stories, poems, whatever. Now imagine how that one book could translate into an entire library of Babel. Easy as pie or perhaps I should say pi-squared.
INTERNET LIBRARY
Jonathan Basile created an internet version of the Babylon library. How many books are included? Jonathan notes if a user clicked through the books at a rate of one per second, it would take about 10 to the power of 4668 years to go through the library. Unfortunately, he continues, the earth will be consumed by the sun in less than 10 to the power of 10 years.
PHILOSOPHER CHIMES IN
In his analysis of the library in Borges' tale, W. V. O Quine wrote: "The ultimate absurdity is now staring us in the face: a universal library of two volumes, one containing a single dot and the other a dash. Persistent repetition and alternation of the two are sufficient, we well know, for spelling out any and every truth. The miracle of the finite but universal library is a mere inflation of the miracle of binary notation: everything worth saying, and everything else as well, can be said with two characters."
Is this overstatement by an analytic philosopher? To take one example: How about Concrete Poetry or a novel like John the Posthumous by Jason Schwartz where a critical part of the work is the exact placement of words on a page?
THE DECISIVE DIVIDING LINE
Eduardo Galeano bemoaned the fact a huge number of his potential readers are cut off from reading his books since they never had the opportunity to learn how to read. This counts as a tragedy in our modern world - large chunks of the world's population remain illiterate.
Link to The Library of Babel: https://sites.evergreen.edu/political...
September 3, 2017
Hey, you. Yea, I am talking to you! Do you want to get freaked out by the sheer magnitude of an idea that's right in front of you? Step right in!
In this short story, Author Jorge Luis Borges envisions a universe in the form of a vast library, a library of meticulous pattern and structure. In this library, you can find an incomprehensible number of hexagonal rooms with a specific number of books: Books that contain all knowledge of the universe. But here is the catch: All this knowledge is mixed with utter gibberish.
The author, Mr. Borges, was a librarian himself and it is safe to assume that the inspiration of his unique universe came from his surroundings, and it is quite brilliant. He reflects the flaws of human kind subtly here in form of rogue librarians, mystical legends, and slow madness.
Nevertheless, the short story itself is filled with bits of Babel as it's more of a detailed description of an alternative universe and not a story. I was going to give a three stars rating and move on with my life.
But then I found a Website.
I think I am late to the party, but two years before, a man named Jonathan Basile created the library of Babel online using an algorithm. Any English sentence/paragraph of length 3200 characters can be found this library mixed with Babel. There are about 10^5000 books in this library (Age of Earth is 10^17 seconds). To understand What's actually happening, you might need to watch a Youtube video. But let me tell you something, the library contains every sentence you have ever said or will say in future, It contains every book ever written or will be written, It contains the first words you ever said and last words you will say, it contains secrets to the universe and unfortunately or fortunately, it contains a lot of gibberish.
And before even I wrote this review, these sentences were there in Library of Babel.
*Zoom this image*
It's no trick, it's just about exhausting every possible combination the 26 letters of the alphabet can create!
In this short story, Author Jorge Luis Borges envisions a universe in the form of a vast library, a library of meticulous pattern and structure. In this library, you can find an incomprehensible number of hexagonal rooms with a specific number of books: Books that contain all knowledge of the universe. But here is the catch: All this knowledge is mixed with utter gibberish.
The author, Mr. Borges, was a librarian himself and it is safe to assume that the inspiration of his unique universe came from his surroundings, and it is quite brilliant. He reflects the flaws of human kind subtly here in form of rogue librarians, mystical legends, and slow madness.
Nevertheless, the short story itself is filled with bits of Babel as it's more of a detailed description of an alternative universe and not a story. I was going to give a three stars rating and move on with my life.
But then I found a Website.
I think I am late to the party, but two years before, a man named Jonathan Basile created the library of Babel online using an algorithm. Any English sentence/paragraph of length 3200 characters can be found this library mixed with Babel. There are about 10^5000 books in this library (Age of Earth is 10^17 seconds). To understand What's actually happening, you might need to watch a Youtube video. But let me tell you something, the library contains every sentence you have ever said or will say in future, It contains every book ever written or will be written, It contains the first words you ever said and last words you will say, it contains secrets to the universe and unfortunately or fortunately, it contains a lot of gibberish.
And before even I wrote this review, these sentences were there in Library of Babel.
*Zoom this image*
It's no trick, it's just about exhausting every possible combination the 26 letters of the alphabet can create!
September 6, 2017
So, this is a short story, but there is so much in it that I reread it a half dozen times, found a few audio readings and looked up summaries trying to grasp the whole story. Basically its weird, but cool.
In this guys universe the world is made up of libraries. Each room is a hexagon with two small closets. One is a bathroom and the other is a room to sleep standing up. People are born, live and die in these rooms.
Now here is where it gets really bad. There are only four shelves of books in each room and most are in languages hard to decipher. When they are finally deciphered the are gibberish.
No fiction, none of your favorite authors. No wonder they are suicidal.
There are some wanderers who travel from hexagon to hexagon looking for the perfect book. (Which they never find) and there are others on a pilgrimage looking for a magical book that was read by a messiah. There is also a group of dissenters who destroy books that they disagree with. But the author says that doesn't matter because there are hundreds of copies of each book spread throughout.
This is a short story and definitely worth a read.😊
In this guys universe the world is made up of libraries. Each room is a hexagon with two small closets. One is a bathroom and the other is a room to sleep standing up. People are born, live and die in these rooms.
Now here is where it gets really bad. There are only four shelves of books in each room and most are in languages hard to decipher. When they are finally deciphered the are gibberish.
No fiction, none of your favorite authors. No wonder they are suicidal.
There are some wanderers who travel from hexagon to hexagon looking for the perfect book. (Which they never find) and there are others on a pilgrimage looking for a magical book that was read by a messiah. There is also a group of dissenters who destroy books that they disagree with. But the author says that doesn't matter because there are hundreds of copies of each book spread throughout.
This is a short story and definitely worth a read.😊
July 26, 2015
“For a book to exist, it is sufficient that it is possible. Only the impossible is excluded.”
Paradoxes abound in this allegory that has aspects of The Blind Watchmaker, especially DNA, and also the Infinite Monkey Theorem.
I have the Collected Fictions (with copious translator's notes), but am splitting my review of that into its components, in publication order: Collected Fictions - all reviews. This is one of the the longer stories in The Garden of Forking Paths, published in 1941.
The universe is an infinite Library. Maybe the universe is the internet? But Borges’ library is more beautiful: an endless series of connecting, identical, hexagons, and it has - and will - exist for eternity.
Each vestibule has “a mirror which faithfully duplicates appearances”, leading men to infer that the Library is not infinite, otherwise “what need would there be for that illusory replication?”
But it is infinite: the books contain “all that is able to be expressed, in every language”, composed of the same alphabetic elements, and each is unique. But are uniqueness and infinity contradictory?
Most of the books are indecipherable, and “trying to find sense in books” is “a vain and superstitious habit”, likened to palmistry and numerology. Surely that doesn’t apply to this, or does it? (Recursion, again.)
“You who read me – are you certain you understand my language?”
“Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the work of chance or malevolent demiurges; the universe… can only be the work of a god.” That’s “a god”, not “God”.
Who or what made me? Am I real, or just making marks on one of an infinite number of pages that may never be read?
These ideas of infinity are explored and elaborated on in “Undr” and The Mirror and the Mask, which throw minimalism into the mix. More specifically, the story of The Book of Sand is like the Library of Babel in miniature: a single, infinite book. They are all in The Book of Sand.
Paradoxes abound in this allegory that has aspects of The Blind Watchmaker, especially DNA, and also the Infinite Monkey Theorem.
I have the Collected Fictions (with copious translator's notes), but am splitting my review of that into its components, in publication order: Collected Fictions - all reviews. This is one of the the longer stories in The Garden of Forking Paths, published in 1941.
The universe is an infinite Library. Maybe the universe is the internet? But Borges’ library is more beautiful: an endless series of connecting, identical, hexagons, and it has - and will - exist for eternity.
Each vestibule has “a mirror which faithfully duplicates appearances”, leading men to infer that the Library is not infinite, otherwise “what need would there be for that illusory replication?”
But it is infinite: the books contain “all that is able to be expressed, in every language”, composed of the same alphabetic elements, and each is unique. But are uniqueness and infinity contradictory?
Most of the books are indecipherable, and “trying to find sense in books” is “a vain and superstitious habit”, likened to palmistry and numerology. Surely that doesn’t apply to this, or does it? (Recursion, again.)
“You who read me – are you certain you understand my language?”
“Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the work of chance or malevolent demiurges; the universe… can only be the work of a god.” That’s “a god”, not “God”.
Who or what made me? Am I real, or just making marks on one of an infinite number of pages that may never be read?
These ideas of infinity are explored and elaborated on in “Undr” and The Mirror and the Mask, which throw minimalism into the mix. More specifically, the story of The Book of Sand is like the Library of Babel in miniature: a single, infinite book. They are all in The Book of Sand.
July 8, 2023
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.”
Up until when I first read this story, perhaps three or so years ago now, I would often be asked a certain question and I would always answer it the same way. The question was this: what is your greatest fear? My answer was this: that I die without having read all of the books that I own/want to read/know of/etc. Now, if we were being real, you could cut through all the bullshit of my answer and get right to the core, probably editing the response down to “that I die” – because that’s what it really is, I guess. Flourishing up the sentence won’t make it any more or less true. But there is nuance to the answer, and it had to be explored. Anyhow, I digress, as I often do. I read The Library of Babel and my anxiety about the “book” part of my ultimate fear just up and vanished.
This is undoubtedly my favourite short story of all time. I don’t even view it as a short story - it’s gospel. I fear that successive readings have taken it beyond the realm of criticism and discussion. I have made a dogma of it. For that reason, I don’t have much to say. Here are portions that are particularly poignant to me, though I believe that any time you want to look at a specific section of this story, you should just go ahead and read it all.
“Like all the men of the Library, in my younger days I traveled; I have journeyed in quest of a book, perhaps the catalog of catalogs. Now that my eyes can hardly make out what I myself have written, I am preparing to die, a few leagues from the hexagon where I was born. When I am dead, compassionate hands will throw me over the railing; my tomb will be the unfathomable air, my body will sink for ages, and will decay and dissolve in the wind engendered by my fall, which shall be infinite. I declare that the Library is endless.”
“In order to grasp the distance that separates the human and the divine, one has only to compare these crude trembling symbols which my fallible hand scrawls on the cover of a book with the organic letters inside-neat, delicate, deep black, and inimitably symmetrical.”
This one is particularly juicy:
“When it was announced that the Library contained all books, the first reaction was unbounded joy. All men felt themselves the possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal problem, no world problem, whose eloquent solution did not exist-somewhere in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly became congruent with the unlimited width and breadth of humankind's hope. At that period there was much talk of The Vindications-books of apologiae and prophecies that would vindicate for all time the actions of every person in the universe and that held wondrous arcana for men's futures. Thousands of greedy individuals abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed downstairs, upstairs, spurred by the vain desire to find their Vindication. These pilgrims squabbled in the narrow corridors, muttered dark imprecations, strangled one another on the divine staircases, threw deceiving volumes down ventilation shafts, were themselves hurled to their deaths by men of distant regions. Others went insane .... The Vindications do exist (I have seen two of them, which refer to persons in the future, persons perhaps not imaginary), but those who went in quest of them failed to recall that the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero.”
“I believe I mentioned the suicides, which are more and more frequent every year. I am perhaps misled by old age and fear, but I suspect that the human species–the only species–teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library–enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret–will endure.”
The cover of the edition I have selected here may be too small to make out, but I do highly recommend checking out the illustrations of Erik Desmazières. They can be found here.
Up until when I first read this story, perhaps three or so years ago now, I would often be asked a certain question and I would always answer it the same way. The question was this: what is your greatest fear? My answer was this: that I die without having read all of the books that I own/want to read/know of/etc. Now, if we were being real, you could cut through all the bullshit of my answer and get right to the core, probably editing the response down to “that I die” – because that’s what it really is, I guess. Flourishing up the sentence won’t make it any more or less true. But there is nuance to the answer, and it had to be explored. Anyhow, I digress, as I often do. I read The Library of Babel and my anxiety about the “book” part of my ultimate fear just up and vanished.
This is undoubtedly my favourite short story of all time. I don’t even view it as a short story - it’s gospel. I fear that successive readings have taken it beyond the realm of criticism and discussion. I have made a dogma of it. For that reason, I don’t have much to say. Here are portions that are particularly poignant to me, though I believe that any time you want to look at a specific section of this story, you should just go ahead and read it all.
“Like all the men of the Library, in my younger days I traveled; I have journeyed in quest of a book, perhaps the catalog of catalogs. Now that my eyes can hardly make out what I myself have written, I am preparing to die, a few leagues from the hexagon where I was born. When I am dead, compassionate hands will throw me over the railing; my tomb will be the unfathomable air, my body will sink for ages, and will decay and dissolve in the wind engendered by my fall, which shall be infinite. I declare that the Library is endless.”
“In order to grasp the distance that separates the human and the divine, one has only to compare these crude trembling symbols which my fallible hand scrawls on the cover of a book with the organic letters inside-neat, delicate, deep black, and inimitably symmetrical.”
This one is particularly juicy:
“When it was announced that the Library contained all books, the first reaction was unbounded joy. All men felt themselves the possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal problem, no world problem, whose eloquent solution did not exist-somewhere in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly became congruent with the unlimited width and breadth of humankind's hope. At that period there was much talk of The Vindications-books of apologiae and prophecies that would vindicate for all time the actions of every person in the universe and that held wondrous arcana for men's futures. Thousands of greedy individuals abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed downstairs, upstairs, spurred by the vain desire to find their Vindication. These pilgrims squabbled in the narrow corridors, muttered dark imprecations, strangled one another on the divine staircases, threw deceiving volumes down ventilation shafts, were themselves hurled to their deaths by men of distant regions. Others went insane .... The Vindications do exist (I have seen two of them, which refer to persons in the future, persons perhaps not imaginary), but those who went in quest of them failed to recall that the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero.”
“I believe I mentioned the suicides, which are more and more frequent every year. I am perhaps misled by old age and fear, but I suspect that the human species–the only species–teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library–enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret–will endure.”
The cover of the edition I have selected here may be too small to make out, but I do highly recommend checking out the illustrations of Erik Desmazières. They can be found here.
February 14, 2025
⭐⭐⭐⭐½ (round 🆙)
It’s always a little daunting for me when I’m about to undertake a classic. It’s why I often don’t review after the first reading or even then I’m reticent for fear of not giving the work justice. Anything that lasted the forage of time to remain relevant is just such a doyen of Literature, who am I to offer an opinion?
Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” is a profound exploration of infinity, knowledge, and the human quest for meaning. The narrative presents a universe conceived as an immense library, composed of an indefinite number of hexagonal galleries, each housing books that encompass every possible combination of twenty-five orthographic symbols. This construct serves as a metaphor for the boundless nature of existence and the limitations inherent in human understanding.
Borges’ prose is both precise and evocative, guiding readers through the labyrinthine structure of the library while delving into philosophical contemplations. The inhabitants of this universe grapple with the overwhelming vastness of information, oscillating between hope and despair as they search for meaning within the seemingly chaotic collection of texts. The story reflects on the paradox of seeking absolute knowledge in a realm where such completeness is both promised and perpetually elusive.
Thematically, the novella delves into the tension between order and randomness, the finite and the infinite. Borges challenges readers to consider the implications of a universe where every possible truth and falsehood coexist, rendering the act of discovery both essential and futile. The narrative invites reflection on the nature of reality, the pursuit of knowledge, and the existential dilemmas faced by individuals in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos.
In the words of the Borges Narrator, “The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.” This encapsulates the boundless & quite enigmatic nature of the setting here, emphasising the infinite possibilities contained within the world Borges has created.
Furthermore, Borges writes, “I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter.” This for me really highlights perfectly the true reverence for knowledge juxtaposed with an inability to comprehend it, a recurring theme throughout the narrative here in my opinion, a theme I found profoundly interesting.
The Library of Babel lived up to its aura, it’s a masterful blend of imaginative storytelling & philosophical inquiry. Borges crafts a narrative that is as intellectually stimulating as it is evocative, inviting readers to ponder the infinite complexities of knowledge and existence.
It’s always a little daunting for me when I’m about to undertake a classic. It’s why I often don’t review after the first reading or even then I’m reticent for fear of not giving the work justice. Anything that lasted the forage of time to remain relevant is just such a doyen of Literature, who am I to offer an opinion?
Jorge Luis Borges’ “The Library of Babel” is a profound exploration of infinity, knowledge, and the human quest for meaning. The narrative presents a universe conceived as an immense library, composed of an indefinite number of hexagonal galleries, each housing books that encompass every possible combination of twenty-five orthographic symbols. This construct serves as a metaphor for the boundless nature of existence and the limitations inherent in human understanding.
Borges’ prose is both precise and evocative, guiding readers through the labyrinthine structure of the library while delving into philosophical contemplations. The inhabitants of this universe grapple with the overwhelming vastness of information, oscillating between hope and despair as they search for meaning within the seemingly chaotic collection of texts. The story reflects on the paradox of seeking absolute knowledge in a realm where such completeness is both promised and perpetually elusive.
Thematically, the novella delves into the tension between order and randomness, the finite and the infinite. Borges challenges readers to consider the implications of a universe where every possible truth and falsehood coexist, rendering the act of discovery both essential and futile. The narrative invites reflection on the nature of reality, the pursuit of knowledge, and the existential dilemmas faced by individuals in an incomprehensibly vast cosmos.
In the words of the Borges Narrator, “The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.” This encapsulates the boundless & quite enigmatic nature of the setting here, emphasising the infinite possibilities contained within the world Borges has created.
Furthermore, Borges writes, “I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter.” This for me really highlights perfectly the true reverence for knowledge juxtaposed with an inability to comprehend it, a recurring theme throughout the narrative here in my opinion, a theme I found profoundly interesting.
The Library of Babel lived up to its aura, it’s a masterful blend of imaginative storytelling & philosophical inquiry. Borges crafts a narrative that is as intellectually stimulating as it is evocative, inviting readers to ponder the infinite complexities of knowledge and existence.
December 4, 2018
Borges's philosophical short-story describes the universe in terms of an infinite library constructed in a series of hexagon galleries in which the books contain every possible combination of letters, spaces and punctuation marks providing a metaphor for thinking about knowledge and truth. As a paradox of infinite possibilities, some of the volumes within turn out to be what appears to be complete gibberish, Some go nuts from the despair of trying to logically understand and catalogue every book in the library, whilst some take a leap of faith. Beyond the abstract intentions, Borges was also expressing the angst of simply being lost in the universe, and of not being able to understand it. In other words, the limited knowledge of this infinite library by the narrator inhabiting this vast space reflects Borges’s own uncertainty about Life and the Universe, the nature of hope, and the creation of meaning. It's quite simply quintessential Borges, and not a bad place to start for the newbie, although, it still feels like throwing yourself in at the deep end. He evokes a sense of wonder and the infinite possibilities that go with it like nobody else.
January 10, 2025
There is so much to this book. Mind bending -attitude shifting, book. It blows your minds with the concepts of infinity, fate and knowledge. It often doesn’t make sense but it does evoke complex yet fully enthralling images. I find this book hauntingly beautiful but complex.
January 10, 2022
Absurd and perplexing, yet wryly amusing and maybe even thought provoking. Surely the infinite monkey theorem explains the existence of such a work as The Library of Babel, as well as the non-infinite volume of work it describes contained within its own infinitude.
February 10, 2023
Borges depicts the universe as a huge library with infinite number of books. The human race’s days might be numbered but the library will endure for eternity.
March 23, 2012
Found this to be a great analogy to the world we live in. Everyone seems to have the answer to all of life's problems, but the issue is it's not so simple to sort through all of the variables when you have little to no means of measuring each option. That's pretty much how I read this short story, in life it is feasible to live the 'perfect' life, since the variables are there, however since there is no distinctive guide to do so, we are forced to do our best to sort through the gibberish (in the story, being the books which made sense no matter how you looked at them) to opportunities that may have a glimpse of hope for positive results.
So yeah, we live in a world like The Library of Babel, where potentially the answer to all of life's issues are out there somewhere, but since we have no means of locating it, we're stuck in the chaos that is existence as we know it.
The build-up of imagery at the beginning was also spectacular. Cheers Borges!
So yeah, we live in a world like The Library of Babel, where potentially the answer to all of life's issues are out there somewhere, but since we have no means of locating it, we're stuck in the chaos that is existence as we know it.
The build-up of imagery at the beginning was also spectacular. Cheers Borges!
October 14, 2020
"Yo sé de una región cerril cuyos bibliotecarios repudian la supersticiosa y vana costumbre de buscar sentido en los libros y la equiparan a la de buscarlo en los sueños o en las líneas caóticas de la mano... Admiten que los inventores de la escritura imitaron los veinticinco símbolos naturales, pero sostienen que esa aplicación es casual y que los libros nada significan en sí. Ese dictamen, ya veremos no es del todo falaz"
"El hombre, el imperfecto bibliotecario, puede ser obra del azar o de los demiurgos malévolos; el universo, con su elegante dotación de anaqueles, de tomos enigmáticos, de infatigables escaleras para el viajero y de letrinas para el bibliotecario sentado, sólo puede ser obra de un dios. Para percibir la distancia que hay entre lo divino y lo humano, basta comparar estos rudos símbolos trémulos que mi falible mano garabatea en la tapa de un libro, con las letras orgánicas del interior: puntuales, delicadas, negrísimas, inimitablemente simétricas"
Habría que hacerle una minuciosa autopsia a esta obra... Para analizar cada capa, cada metáfora, cada analogía y cada alegoría.
Tiene una cubierta matemática, arquitectónica y metafísica, pero en el interior creo que es bastante personal e introspectivo.
En alguna de las capas mas visibles, para un simple mortal como yo, observo que nos habla sobre la creación/Génesis.
La busqueda de un saber superior o absoluto. Pero a su vez, es alguien solitario, que esta en su ocaso y tiene muchas preguntas para hacerle a su dios.
Infinidad de preguntas que remiten a la misma humanidad. Y es bastante desalentador saber que la respuestas puedan estar al alcance, pero si uno no sabe donde buscar, siempre va a estar igualmente a la deriva .
"El hombre, el imperfecto bibliotecario, puede ser obra del azar o de los demiurgos malévolos; el universo, con su elegante dotación de anaqueles, de tomos enigmáticos, de infatigables escaleras para el viajero y de letrinas para el bibliotecario sentado, sólo puede ser obra de un dios. Para percibir la distancia que hay entre lo divino y lo humano, basta comparar estos rudos símbolos trémulos que mi falible mano garabatea en la tapa de un libro, con las letras orgánicas del interior: puntuales, delicadas, negrísimas, inimitablemente simétricas"
Habría que hacerle una minuciosa autopsia a esta obra... Para analizar cada capa, cada metáfora, cada analogía y cada alegoría.
Tiene una cubierta matemática, arquitectónica y metafísica, pero en el interior creo que es bastante personal e introspectivo.
En alguna de las capas mas visibles, para un simple mortal como yo, observo que nos habla sobre la creación/Génesis.
La busqueda de un saber superior o absoluto. Pero a su vez, es alguien solitario, que esta en su ocaso y tiene muchas preguntas para hacerle a su dios.
Infinidad de preguntas que remiten a la misma humanidad. Y es bastante desalentador saber que la respuestas puedan estar al alcance, pero si uno no sabe donde buscar, siempre va a estar igualmente a la deriva .
May 7, 2024
Oh, the irony of writing a review of The Library of Babel when it already has 677 reviews just in this hexagonal subsection of the internet alone.
March 9, 2021
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish-language and universal literature. Borges' works have contributed to philosophical literature and the fantasy genre, and have been considered by some critics to mark the beginning of the magic realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.
His best-known books, Ficciones and El Aleph, published in the 1940s, are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, philosophers, libraries, mirrors, fictional writers, and mythology.
His work has been recommended to me numerous times but I was quite intimated and didn't know where to start. Therefore, I opted for reading just a single short story from Ficciones first. (Most of them can be found online actually.^^)
The Library of Babel seemed most interesting to me, mainly due to its intriguing title. Most of ya'll are probably familiar with the origin myth of the Tower of Babel meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. I was curious to see how language and maybe even a competition between God and humans would come to play in this story.
In The Library of Babel, Borges speculates about a possible world which basically is a library that is preexistent and houses an infinite amount of books. The narrator explains that he therefore believes that the library contains all possible combinations of the alphabet, which means that any book that has ever been written, will be written and will never be written are already in the library.
Technically, the library should be a hoard of knowledge. Somewhere in it, the cure for cancer has already been written down. Somewhere in it, the events of your death will be narrated. The crux lies in the fact that one will never find the passages, because in order to find them, one must already know exactly what one is looking for. For example, there are an infinite amount of sentences starting with the words "the cure for cancer is ...", if one wants to find the right one, one must already what the right cure is. Therefore, it's paradox. The library houses an infinite amount of valuable knowledge, as well as an infinite amount of nonsense. Which renders the whole library nonsensical and useful in and out of itself.
Therefore, due to its infinite vastness, the library isn't accessible to the librarians who live in it. Instead, they stumble from one nonsensical book to the other. But since, as the narrator rightly notes, the library also must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages, it isn't surprising that most people in Borges' world are obsessed with finding useful knowledge in this library. They see it as their mission. It is a chilling vision of a dystopian future.
The library is composed of an infinite array of hexagonal galleries containing an indefinite number of books. The books in the library are of bounded length, "each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters".
Through reading this story, it was incredibly hard for me to envision how this library would work, but there is this amazing website (libraryofbabel.info) which is basically a simulation of how Borges' library would work. It's crazy. It is nearly impossible to find a sentence (in a English that is comprehensible to you) by simply browsing a couple of these shelves and yet, somewhere in this infinity, you could even find your own name and those of your friends and family. It's such a mindfuck and I love it!
The story is a great exploration of how something meaningful becomes nonsensical in infinity. I mean, if one wanted to estimate the size of the library, one would come to the following result: With a round library the diameter would amount to approximately 10^600,000 metres. In contrast, the universe visible for us is relatively small with a diameter of only 8,8 · 10^26 metres. How crazy is that? We, as human beings, cannot even imagine or fathom this sense of infinity.
W. V. O. Quine noted that we will theoretically come to a point in history where everything has been written and that any text that doesn't fit in a single book can be reconstructed by finding a second book (which is guaranteed to exist) with the continuation, therefore the library must be finite. The size of the alphabet can be reduced by using, say, Morse code, even though it makes the books more verbose; the size of the books can also be reduced by splitting each into multiple volumes and discarding the duplicates.
His best-known books, Ficciones and El Aleph, published in the 1940s, are compilations of short stories interconnected by common themes, including dreams, labyrinths, philosophers, libraries, mirrors, fictional writers, and mythology.
His work has been recommended to me numerous times but I was quite intimated and didn't know where to start. Therefore, I opted for reading just a single short story from Ficciones first. (Most of them can be found online actually.^^)
The Library of Babel seemed most interesting to me, mainly due to its intriguing title. Most of ya'll are probably familiar with the origin myth of the Tower of Babel meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. I was curious to see how language and maybe even a competition between God and humans would come to play in this story.
In The Library of Babel, Borges speculates about a possible world which basically is a library that is preexistent and houses an infinite amount of books. The narrator explains that he therefore believes that the library contains all possible combinations of the alphabet, which means that any book that has ever been written, will be written and will never be written are already in the library.
Technically, the library should be a hoard of knowledge. Somewhere in it, the cure for cancer has already been written down. Somewhere in it, the events of your death will be narrated. The crux lies in the fact that one will never find the passages, because in order to find them, one must already know exactly what one is looking for. For example, there are an infinite amount of sentences starting with the words "the cure for cancer is ...", if one wants to find the right one, one must already what the right cure is. Therefore, it's paradox. The library houses an infinite amount of valuable knowledge, as well as an infinite amount of nonsense. Which renders the whole library nonsensical and useful in and out of itself.
Therefore, due to its infinite vastness, the library isn't accessible to the librarians who live in it. Instead, they stumble from one nonsensical book to the other. But since, as the narrator rightly notes, the library also must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages, it isn't surprising that most people in Borges' world are obsessed with finding useful knowledge in this library. They see it as their mission. It is a chilling vision of a dystopian future.
The library is composed of an infinite array of hexagonal galleries containing an indefinite number of books. The books in the library are of bounded length, "each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters".
Through reading this story, it was incredibly hard for me to envision how this library would work, but there is this amazing website (libraryofbabel.info) which is basically a simulation of how Borges' library would work. It's crazy. It is nearly impossible to find a sentence (in a English that is comprehensible to you) by simply browsing a couple of these shelves and yet, somewhere in this infinity, you could even find your own name and those of your friends and family. It's such a mindfuck and I love it!
The story is a great exploration of how something meaningful becomes nonsensical in infinity. I mean, if one wanted to estimate the size of the library, one would come to the following result: With a round library the diameter would amount to approximately 10^600,000 metres. In contrast, the universe visible for us is relatively small with a diameter of only 8,8 · 10^26 metres. How crazy is that? We, as human beings, cannot even imagine or fathom this sense of infinity.
W. V. O. Quine noted that we will theoretically come to a point in history where everything has been written and that any text that doesn't fit in a single book can be reconstructed by finding a second book (which is guaranteed to exist) with the continuation, therefore the library must be finite. The size of the alphabet can be reduced by using, say, Morse code, even though it makes the books more verbose; the size of the books can also be reduced by splitting each into multiple volumes and discarding the duplicates.
“The ultimate absurdity is now staring us in the face: a universal library of two volumes, one containing a single dot and the other a dash. Persistent repetition and alternation of the two are sufficient, we well know, for spelling out any and every truth. The miracle of the finite but universal library is a mere inflation of the miracle of binary notation: everything worth saying, and everything else as well, can be said with two characters.” — W. V. O. QuinteSo, all in all, I really love how much food for thought this short story provided in only 10 pages. However, I cannot give it a higher rating since the story in and out of itself wasn't accessible to me. I definitely learned that if I ever read a full collection of Borges, I will do that in German (my native language) rather than English because I found him incredibly difficult to follow.
March 23, 2025
I read this as a brief (8 page) interlude while reading A Short Stay in Hell, as this is the work on which that is based.
This is the seed of an idea that illustrates the futility of trying to comprehend infinity. The story is set in an infinite library containing every possible book: a book for every possible combination of letters - so almost all of them consist entirely of an incomprehensible jumble of non-words. There is no explanation of how the population of “librarians”, including the narrator, found themselves in the library - although the narrator refers to his childhood in the library. It was written in 1941, so it’s unsurprising that it contains no women - so where did the children come from?
The story chronicles various attempts by the librarians to make sense of the books - as sects and belief systems rise and fall.
As an observation on the nature of infinity, it’s thought provoking. But it’s also stuffy and of its time, and A Short Stay in Hell does it infinitely better (do you see what I did there?)
This is the seed of an idea that illustrates the futility of trying to comprehend infinity. The story is set in an infinite library containing every possible book: a book for every possible combination of letters - so almost all of them consist entirely of an incomprehensible jumble of non-words. There is no explanation of how the population of “librarians”, including the narrator, found themselves in the library - although the narrator refers to his childhood in the library. It was written in 1941, so it’s unsurprising that it contains no women - so where did the children come from?
The story chronicles various attempts by the librarians to make sense of the books - as sects and belief systems rise and fall.
As an observation on the nature of infinity, it’s thought provoking. But it’s also stuffy and of its time, and A Short Stay in Hell does it infinitely better (do you see what I did there?)
Read
January 1, 2024The universe is an endless library. This library contains infinite rooms filled with 410 page books; these books contain every possible combination of letters. The library would contain your own biography, and your own biography had you done something just a little bit different when you were seven years old, and your own biography but with a typo on page 403. It would contain the cure for cancer and the secret of its own creation. It would contain this review, before I wrote it. The problem is that, by an inconceivable majority, this library would be filled with strings of nonsensical, random combinations of letters.
This was a brilliant little short story about faith, superstition, probability, the madness of the infinite and humanity's doomed quest for enlightenment.
"If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified."
If you enjoy Piranesi or The Starless Sea and have any interest in classics, this is interesting, fairly readable, and only 7 pages!
No rating, I don't rate classics because it feels like an outrageous act of hubris. Imagine writing something in 1940 and some dickhead in 2023 sits down at a computer, reads it on a little pdf while they're bored at work, and says, "hmm. 4 stars."
This was a brilliant little short story about faith, superstition, probability, the madness of the infinite and humanity's doomed quest for enlightenment.
"If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified."
If you enjoy Piranesi or The Starless Sea and have any interest in classics, this is interesting, fairly readable, and only 7 pages!
No rating, I don't rate classics because it feels like an outrageous act of hubris. Imagine writing something in 1940 and some dickhead in 2023 sits down at a computer, reads it on a little pdf while they're bored at work, and says, "hmm. 4 stars."
May 29, 2022
This short story isn't plot or character driven. It's more of a philosophical treatise on the idea of the infinite and the paradox. In this work Borges seems to say that the universe is vast and we as humans will never be able to understand it.
While interesting to contemplate, this isn't my cup of tea.
While interesting to contemplate, this isn't my cup of tea.
November 28, 2024
You who read me—are you certain you understand my language?
When it was announced that the Library contained all books, the first reaction was unbounded joy. All men felt themselves the possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal problem, no world problem, whose eloquent solution did not exist—somewhere in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly became congruent with the unlimited width and breadth of humankind's hope.
...
the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero.
*****
I pray to the unknown gods that some man—even a single man, tens of centuries ago—has perused and read that book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification.
*****
I am perhaps misled by old age and fear, but I suspect that the human species— the only species— teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library— enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret—will endure.
When it was announced that the Library contained all books, the first reaction was unbounded joy. All men felt themselves the possessors of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal problem, no world problem, whose eloquent solution did not exist—somewhere in some hexagon. The universe was justified; the universe suddenly became congruent with the unlimited width and breadth of humankind's hope.
...
the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero.
*****
I pray to the unknown gods that some man—even a single man, tens of centuries ago—has perused and read that book. If the honor and wisdom and joy of such a reading are not to be my own, then let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell. Let me be tortured and battered and annihilated, but let there be one instant, one creature, wherein thy enormous Library may find its justification.
*****
I am perhaps misled by old age and fear, but I suspect that the human species— the only species— teeters at the verge of extinction, yet that the Library— enlightened, solitary, infinite, perfectly unmoving, armed with precious volumes, pointless, incorruptible, and secret—will endure.
April 2, 2022
Метафоричность этого произведения позволяет всем понимать по разному, что есть библиотека – вселенную, культуру, человечество, где каждая книга – это человек? Мне ближе понимание, что библиотека - это культура или может быть даже история культуры всего человечества. Каждая книга – это кусочек культуры, знаний, истории, мифов, это культурный код. Заканчивается рассказ так: « Те, кто воображает его без границ, забывают, что ограничено число возможных книг. Я осмеливаюсь предложить такое решение этой вековой проблемы: Библиотека безгранична и периодична. Если бы вечный странник пустился в путь в каком-либо направлении, он смог бы убедиться по прошествии веков, что те же книги повторяются в том же беспорядке (который, будучи повторенным, становится порядком: Порядком). Эта изящная надежда скрашивает мое одиночество.» <?i> Повторение книг в том же беспорядке, формирует орнамент, паттерн. Это повторение истории, если хотите диалектическое развитие общества, его культуры по спирали.
October 30, 2016
You who read me - are you certain you understand my language?
Understanding? Certain? Wouldn't even pretend. A Kaleidoscope of earlier ideas like Borel's dactylographic monkey theorem, Pascal's metaphor and Robert Burton's variations, a mathematical thought experiment with infinities and labyrinths that employs cabalistic reasoning which blurs the infinite and the finite with philosophical implications that puts the Gita in mind, a melting pot of motifs that would influence Eco's influential masterpiece - the name of the rose, and a strange allegory that had me reading all over the internet and pondering for hours I know not how many. And all these in a short-story. Moving his bigger works to top-priority.
June 22, 2025
Este conto sobre a infinita Biblioteca de Babel não foi de leitura fácil, mas tem uma profundidade que nos deixa a pensar bastante... E a questionar sobre o universo (biblioteca). Foi necessário para mim investigar mais sobre este conto mas vale muito a pena o ler. 😉
February 21, 2017
Možda Borhes i nije sa ove planete.
December 20, 2023
„Вавилонската библиотека“ е чудесен разказ на Борхес, който няма как да не развълнува всеки страстен читател... ❤️
„За да схванем каква огромна разлика има между божественото и човешкото, достатъчно е да сравним грозните и разкривени знаци, които несигурната ми ръка е надраскала върху корицата на една книга, със съразмерните букви по нейните страници: ясни, изящни, блестящо черни, неподражаемо симетрични.“
„Достатъчно е една книга да бъде възможна, за да съществува.“
„Библиотеката е безгранична и периодична. Ако един вечен пътешественик тръгне в която и да е посока, той би се убедил след много векове, че едни и същи книги се повтарят в един и същ безпорядък, който с повторението се превръща в порядък...“
„За да схванем каква огромна разлика има между божественото и човешкото, достатъчно е да сравним грозните и разкривени знаци, които несигурната ми ръка е надраскала върху корицата на една книга, със съразмерните букви по нейните страници: ясни, изящни, блестящо черни, неподражаемо симетрични.“
„Достатъчно е една книга да бъде възможна, за да съществува.“
„Библиотеката е безгранична и периодична. Ако един вечен пътешественик тръгне в която и да е посока, той би се убедил след много векове, че едни и същи книги се повтарят в един и същ безпорядък, който с повторението се превръща в порядък...“
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