The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
"The Library of Babel" is a short story by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges that presents a vast, imaginary library filled with an infinite number of books. This library, characterized by its hexagonal rooms and an unending arrangement of shelves, symbolizes the complexity and chaos of knowledge. Within this setting, the narrator, who is a librarian, explores existential questions alongside fellow inhabitants, each grappling with their purpose and the overwhelming expanse of the library.
The narrative delves into the librarians' endeavors to find meaning in a collection that encompasses every possible book, including nonsensical texts and future prophecies. Some inhabitants seek the elusive "Man of the Book," believed to possess a volume that could unlock the mysteries of existence, while others resign themselves to the randomness of knowledge creation. Ultimately, the story reflects on the futility of seeking absolute truth in an infinite universe, where personal interpretations of meaning become vital for individual understanding. Borges crafts a poignant exploration of human existence, knowledge, and the inherent search for order within chaos.
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The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
First published: "La biblioteca de Babel," 1942 (English translation, 1962)
Type of plot: Fantasy
Time of work: Unspecified
Locale: An imaginary library
Principal Character:
The narrator , unnamed
The Story
The setting of "The Library of Babel" is not only the story's most important characteristic, it is, in a way, everything. Much of the narrative consists of descriptions of an imaginary library that is so large that no one has seen the top, bottom, or end of it. It is so old that the recorded history of its librarians stretches back for many centuries and still one cannot account for the library itself or for its architects. It houses so many books that the most accepted explanation for its collection is that it contains all possible books; that is, it contains all the infinite variations on every book whose pages could be generated by random strings of letters, words, or phrases without duplication. The narrator of the story asserts that, "like all men of the Library," he traveled in his youth, journeying from cubicle to cubicle searching for a book or "a catalogue of catalogues" that might explain where he was and why he was there. He anticipates dying without finding that knowledge, only "a few leagues from" the bookshelves by "which I was born." "Once dead there will not lack pious hands to hurl me over the central banister of the vast building," he claims; "my sepulchre shall be the unfathomable air. . . . My body will sink lengthily and will corrupt and dissolve in the wind engendered by the fall, which is infinite."
The story turns on the narrator's and the librarians' attempts to make sense of the infinite building in which they find themselves, a building that has been neatly divided into hexagonal rooms that open on to one another while surrounding a grand central staircase. Generations are born and die within these rooms without understanding the mysteries of their universe or their place in it. Apparently, an increasing number seem to resolve such questions by committing suicide.
The theories that others concoct to explain their situation are like the theories men have traditionally concocted to fathom their own sense of the infinitude of the world. Some believe it their duty to eliminate useless books, books filled with nonsense syllables or unknown languages. Others believe that it is useless to read or write or study in such an environment. Knowledge, they claim, will be more likely produced by chance. They roll dice. Some believe in the superstition of "the Man of the Book." They argue that because there must be some one book on some one shelf somewhere that is the "perfect compendium to all the rest," at least one person must have read it. Such a librarian, they hope, has found the knowledge that would make him "analogous to a god." They search for him. Others search for books that foretell their own futures. The librarians spend their lives looking for such volumes, never knowing whether they have found a meaningful fiction or an absolute fact.
The history of their theories, discoveries, and disappointments, as summarized and evaluated by the narrator, moves the plot along. Like many of Jorge Luis Borges's narrators, however, this one claims that no one theory seems persuasively better than the others. The story ends without accounting for the mysteries it has raised, the narrator himself claiming to have settled on his own solution to the nature of his universe: The library is "limitless and periodic." The same volumes repeat themselves "in the same disorder (which repeated, would constitute an order: Order itself). My solitude rejoices in this elegant hope." However, his hope is a purely personal one. When confronted with a world too big and too complex to explain, men must settle on an idea that satisfies their own personal natures and that plausibly explains what data they have. In "The Library of Babel," this seems to be the closest the inhabitants will come to achieving absolute truth.