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The Library of Babel
JORGE LUIS BORGES
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The Library of Babel - with spoilers
Mod
Cecily wrote: "We're discussing, and maybe reading, this on the almost infinite internet. JLB was prescient, but does technology make it hard for us to imagine and interpret the story as he might have intended?.."
Well, one of the first things I thought when I read the story and noted the timeframe that he wrote it in, (which was apparently around 1939), was: how could a guy have, in a time when PC's weren't even used yet, have anticipated the internet?
A few things of note: the story starts off (in my translation) with the following sentence: "The universe (which others call the Library)"
This already makes one think and wonder about the plurality he is presenting. In a way, I suppose the universe is a bit like such a library - and here we could even start touching on theories of alternate universes.
One also needs to keep in mind that 'time' is a human construct - note that this library, like the cosmos, is (seemingly?) infinite. I would therefore assume that "time" is not a factor in this universe. Therefore, an infinite variety of possibilities can play out within it.
One thing that puzzles me a bit about the story still, is to wonder why Borges brought specific geometric shapes into the story or scenario, as it were. That sort of made it seem dry and architectural to me, but I don't know if he has a specific angle with that.
Traveller wrote: "One thing that puzzles me a bit about the story still, is to wonder why Borges brought specific geometric shapes into the story or scenario, as it were. That sort of made it seem dry and architectural to me, but I don't know if he has a specific angle with that."I suspect he does: 120 degrees.
Gérard Genette called footnotes and opening quotations and the like "paratexts". As much of Borges's game involves fictitious paratexts, the Library of Babel is certainly an ideal opening for this endeavor.As to how a man living in 1935 could have conceived of such a fantastic tale: it is possible (however unlikely) that Borges was introduced to some variety of psychoactive at some point in his life, given his geographic locale.
I first "discovered" Borges while perusing the Chamblin Bookmine in Jacksonville, FL. A huge, sprawling expanse of all sorts of books, that place is a haven to be descended upon should you ever find yourself traveling along interstate 95.
The structure of the library of Babel—both as a place and a story— frustrated me the first time I read it (whilst "distracted") as at the time I was expecting something more in terms of narrative arc and characterization. Over time I learned how to appreciate the oblique nature of the vision which Borges paints with the precision of a cartographer. & one part that still haunts me is in the mention of the "librarian of genius" who postulated the contents of various works most notably (view spoiler) . Note that the Gnostic Gospel of Basilides mentioned by this librarian of genius is in fact a real thing—Basilides was a theologian based out of Alexandria, Egypt, no less. Jung was also a fan of Basilides and Borges wrote an essay on Basilides's doctrines.
Unlike circles, hexagons may tesselate—like Escher's lizards. I found this animation on wikipedia useful for visualizing the geometrical differences between a circle and a hexagon. Note how the hexagon contains two half-circles. While a circle is a classic symbol of the infinite, it also suggests a uniformity or inherent pervasive oneness. The endless series of individual hexagons suggest the possibility of micro-containment within the boundless macro-verse. Just as one may come to know one person over the course of a lifetime, to the exclusion of countless other individuals. And of course, in knowing that one person, there will always be a part of that person which remains hidden, waiting to be discovered—because in knowing another we come to know ourselves.
Perhaps I extrapolate too much.
"To speak is to fall into tautology."
For those of you who are into Minecraft, someone has recreated the Library using that.In a similar vein, there is a fan-made worldmap for the game Thief that is based upon this story. You can watch the play-through here on youtube; I have no idea how to go about downloading that, though if you're into games, you should be able to figure it out :)
Much more fun to listen to is this adaptation of the story for the marimba. (Google image searches for this story are fun but overwhelming! i also found two art/design projects: one, two) . . .
A line from the Guardian article: "What we want is to find what we don’t know how to look for.”Yeah!
Puddin Pointy-Toes wrote: "Traveller wrote: "One thing that puzzles me a bit about the story still, is to wonder why Borges brought specific geometric shapes into the story or scenario, as it were. That sort of made it seem ..."The shape reminded me of bee hives.
Mod
Ha, okay, the internal "angle" of a hexagon.
Rand wrote: "Unlike circles, hexagons may tesselate—like Escher's lizards. I found this animation on wikipedia useful for visualizing the geometrical differences between a circle and a hexagon. Note how the hexagon contains two half-circles. While a circle is a classic symbol of the infinite, it also suggests a uniformity or inherent pervasive oneness. The endless series of individual hexagons suggest the possibility of micro-containment within the boundless macro-verse...."
Ah yes, that is true, of course!
Ruth wrote: "The shape reminded me of bee hives. .."
That's a good way to form an image of the library - an infinite honeycomb!
Rand wrote: "For those of you who are into Minecraft, someone has recreated the Library using that.
In a similar vein, there is a fan-made worldmap for the game Thief that is based upon this story. You can watch the play-through here on youtube; I have no idea how to go about downloading that, though if you're into games, you should be able to figure it out :)...."
Ooh, thanks! I don't play Minecraft much, (it's very time-consuming) but I have friends and family members who do. ..and though Thief is a bit old for my personal tastes, that's very nice to know!
It's quite amazing how much this story or maybe one should call it a "scenario" rather than a story, has inspired.
Looking a bit further at the maths aspect - on around page two or three of the scenario, the narrator says:
" There are five shelves for each of the hexagon's walls; each shelf contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters which are black in color." , and then he goes on to mention an axiom or two.
So of course, this story or scenario has inspired a few mathematicians. I found this book which seems to deal mainly with the maths presented in the scenario.
The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel by William Goldbloom Bloch
Mod
Oh, and besides that the library feels like a Platonic "ideal form" of the internet, I found this interesting bit about the "binary" or more structural aspects of the informoration available in the library, on Wikipedia:
Quine's reduction
In a short essay, W.V.O. Quine noted the interesting fact that the Library of Babel is finite (that is, we will theoretically come to a point in history where everything has been written), and that the Library of Babel can be constructed in its entirety simply by writing a dot on one piece of paper and a dash on another.
These two sheets of paper could then be alternated at random to produce every possible text, in Morse code or equivalently binary.
Writes Quine:
"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 is 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."
Of course, as many of us know, machine code is written in binary, so this gives the whole scenario even more of an information technology "feel" to it - for me anyway.
Mod
That yet again reminds me of the internet, but of course, it goes for any collection of data.
Traveller wrote: "A few things of note: the story starts off (in my translation) with the following sentence: "The universe (which others call the Library)" This already makes one think and wonder about the plurality he is presenting."
It also suggests an external and creative intelligence.
Traveller wrote: "keep in mind that 'time' is a human construct"
Is it? The labels we attach to it are, but time itself...? It existed before I was born, and before any humans existed, so surely time has some tangible existence quite separate from us. (I will have to consult my personal physicist in this matter...)
;)
Rand wrote: " Gérard Genette called footnotes and opening quotations and the like "paratexts". As much of Borges's game involves fictitious paratexts, the Library of Babel is certainly an ideal ..."I like that description. It also chimes with "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", joint third in the poll, so up for discussion in a few days. With that, it's not so much paratexts, but the idea of confused authorship and authenticity.
Ruth wrote: "A line from the Guardian article: "What we want is to find what we don’t know how to look for.”"Unknown unknowns, a la Rumsfeld?
Math(s):As Traveller and others pointed out, this story contains maths/geometry, and has inspired those of a mathematical inclination in many ways (artists, too). Yet in some ways, this is a very simple story; it certainly doesn't have much in the way of plot or characterisation. Yet somehow, even those without detailed mathematical understanding can imagine it and be captivated by it. How does JLB manage that, or am I deluding myself with my own relative ignorance?
Uh, I was a math major and consider myself half way decent in understanding such matters, but I felt totally lost. I think lack of plot or characters (there were characters?) didn't help.
Mod
Cecily wrote: " this is a very simple story; it certainly doesn't have much in the way of plot or characterisation. Yet somehow, even those without detailed mathematical understanding can imagine it and be captivated by it. How does JLB manage that, or am I deluding myself with my own relative ignorance? ..."
Yeah, it's not really a 'story' insomuch as rather a description of a scenario (à la Miéville!).
I have a suspicion that those who require strong plot and characterization, might not take to Borges too well, generally speaking.
But he does give things that are a nice change, such as things to think about and to play with! He gives scenarios that come across as so timeless and universal, that they seem able to be applied to a spectrum of real-world analogies.
Cecily wrote: "Yet somehow, even those without detailed mathematical understanding can imagine it and be captivated by it. How does JLB manage that, or am I deluding myself with my own relative ignorance? "I didn't read the story yet, only the Article on Wikipedia. It says there are at least 1.956 x 10**1834097 books in the library. That's 1956... followed by 1834094 zeros; an utterly inconceivable number.
I've made a quick calculation. Assuming all 7 billion people were writing 10 pages of a book per day it would take us 6.81 x 10**1834085 days to write all the books in the library which is roughly 10**1834073 times the age of the Universe.
Likewise the number of atom-particles in the Universe is estimated to be 6 x 10**79. So there would be 2.56 x 10**1834017 as many books as particles.
Also the volume of books and the total mass would exceed the respective volume/mass of the universe by many many orders of magnitude!
Conclusion: The library cannot actually exists ;-)
Mod
You really need to get hold of
, Matt. I have a feeling you'll enjoy it. If you search for it online, you might still be able to bags a free copy somewhere.
Traveller wrote: "I have a feeling you'll enjoy it."I'll most likely do. Thank you, Traveller. I added it my ever growing to-read-list. It doesn't have 10**1834097 books yet, but it's getting there.
Mod
Umberto Eco, author of The Name of the Rose, which is a book which also revolves, in some respects, around a library. In addition, Eco himself has a ginormous personal library
of apparently as many as 30 000 books.
Two interesting pieces about Eco, libraries, books and knowledge:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandsty...
and
http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/...
Mod
Traveller wrote: "I have a suspicion that those who require strong plot and characterization, might not take to Borges too well, generally speaking."Ooh, that's an interesting idea.
His stories are generally too short to have much plot, but they often have a twist or two, so that might suffice for plot-lovers? As for characterisation, there's rarely opportunity for character development, but within the limited window, some characters are vividly drawn.
What do others think?
In terms of Quine's reduction, binary code, and Matt's maths, it's worth reading JLB's short story, The Book of Sand: http://www4.wittenberg.edu/academics/...As for Eco... gah: this is the third, entirely separate, instance just TODAY, where I've been pointed to him by friends on GR. I don't even like mysteries, and am not a big read of historical fiction either, but will surely have to submit - eventually.
Mod
Works for me. Happy to oblige, I've not been a stranger to stirring the pot! XD
Mod
."
Pity you didn't join us for our discussion of Foucault's Pendulum. It might just have driven you nuts! :O
He's good fun if you like semiotics, though. :) Or aesthetics theory.
Traveller wrote: "Those of you who enjoy maths, logic puzzles and/or the American constitution, might enjoy GÖDEL’S LOOPHOLE"Very interesting. I like Gödel, and if this story is true, and he really found a proof for the loophole, I'm sure this proof is flawless.
The link didn't work for me though, but I found another one:
http://www.researchgate.net/profile/E...
Traveller wrote: "Those of you who enjoy maths, logic puzzles and/or the American constitution, might enjoy GÖDEL’S LOOPHOLE"Just the abstract was enough for me!
Are you suggesting Eco would be even more likely to confuzzle?
Yup, he's a good confuzzler, but not all of his stuff is confuzzelatory. :)
Mod
Also less confuzzelatory, are his books History of Beauty - On Ugliness.
Matt wrote: "
Very interesting. I like Gödel, and if this story is true, and he r..."
Enjoy, Matt! Glad you found an alternate link for the thesis. :)
Traveller wrote: "Enjoy, Matt! Glad you found an alternate link for the thesis. :) "This is indeed an interersting read. The author of this paper made some convincing assumptions about what flaw Gödel may have found in the US constitution. Alas, we don't know for sure. The list of the other, non-Gödeling, "design defects" seem serious to me.
The paper also has quite a few references to the story at hand.
And I found the manuscript by Morgenstern about the history Gödel's naturalization:
http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/...
Hi all,Until today I was a complete Borges virgin. My reading is primarily focussed on English and western European literature (Dutch/German/French). Because I recently moved to Belfast and tomorrow I finally get the keys to my own apartment, reading has been a bit on the backburner these days. This short story (more like a setting that a story) has been a welcome little oasis of peace. I loved that fact that it was just that, a setting, and that no attempt at plot muddied the serenity of the library. Borges is definitely a keeper.
*I felt that language and the love of language was at the heart of the story. Linguistics also get a positive treatment as it all about the evolution and possibilities of language. Linguistics studies the DNA structure of language. DNA would be another interesting library with only 4 different letter building blocks, infinite combinations of which only a few actually have meaning/function.
On the other hand other peripheral phenomena of language don't come off too well:
*Book industry/marketing:"There are also letters on the spine of each book; these letters do not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say."(3rd paragraph) This reminded me of how sometimes reading a book is very different from what you expected from the cover. Don't judge a book by it's cover has gotten more and more meaning with the advent of zealous marketing departments of publishers.
*Literary criticism/reviews: "This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ..." (5th paragraph) Does language lose it's purity if we try to read too much into it? For me it is one of the pleasures of language that different readings give different meanings, but sometimes one might get carried away when close-reading.
*One other thing that I want to throw into the group here. Footnote 2, "Suicide and pulmonary diseases have destroyed that proportion". Why suicide and pulmonary disease?
The suicide makes sense, an infinitely repetitive world would easily drive people mad. But, why specifically pulmonary disease? Is it the draught from the air shafts, are the books a bit mouldy, infectious diseases, are librarians chain smokers?
PS I enjoyed reading the articles about Eco, 'the alibi of photocopies'....guilty as charged, very familiar.
Mod
Until today I was a complete Borges virgin. My reading is primarily focussed on English and western European literature (Dutch/German/French). Because I recently moved to Belfast and tomorr..."
What an excellent, thought-provoking set of comments, some of which I'd like to comment on, but let me first mention that I feel very happy that Borges made a positive impression on you, Annelies! (Btw, I do hope you enjoy your new home!)
Annelies wrote: "Literary criticism/reviews: "This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ..." (5th paragraph) Does language lose it's purity if we try to read too much into it? For me it is one of the pleasures of language that different readings give different meanings, but sometimes one might get carried away when close-reading."
Ah, yes, I see what you and Borges are saying there. Close reading, New Criticism, and especially, Reader-response criticism (being the school of thought that posits that it's not important what the intention of the author of a text was, but rather, it's important what the text means to the reader), is being criticized/scoffed at by Borges.
While I personally have New Historicist leanings and the author's intent is important to me, I can see how the text in itself and what the text means to the reader can all have value - I don't see why they should be mutually exclusive.
How do our other members feel about these approaches? Is the historical context of a text important? ...or should we ignore those and look at a text in isolation? Are all the things we read into a text important even if the author did not consciously put them there?
...and isn't using texts as inspiration exactly what many people have done with this very text of Borges here under discussion? This story alone has inspired an amazing amount of "spin-offs" and discussion and nods in other forms of art.
Just by the way, I've read/listened to interviews with author China Mieville, and he seems to be of the latter belief - he seems to feel that if others read into his books things that he didn't realize he put there, well, that's also cool. :)
Still working on the pulmonary disease puzzle, Annelies.
Annelies wrote: "The suicide makes sense, an infinitely repetitive world would easily drive people mad...."
Yeah, I don't think really the permutations so much as that a lot of it sadly appears to be nonsense - also, the sheer volume of the info - some meaningful, some meaningless, might drive them dilly; and this aspect points to the (sorry Derek) postmodern flavor of the story; or at least, we can apply it to our postmodern information age society where the individual is flooded with constant information coming in form all sides on various platforms, and one needs to filter the info and screen some of it out or one would be overwhelmed. (Spam, anyone?)
Mod
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...
Another article about the same "library" : http://flavorwire.com/515783/brooklyn...
..and on this page you can view some interesting graphical depictions of the Library. http://www.johncoulthart.com/feuillet...
Btw, according to the second article I pointed to in this post, Borges cribbed the idea of the LOB off a story by this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurd_La...
this is strange. i found the comment i am currently typing in a book of the library.
Mod
https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi?......"
Oh boy... and the mind-games are beginning....
On second thoughts, I can easily see why the denizens of the library might have gone stir-crazy! :D
Annelies wrote: "Hi all, Until today I was a complete Borges virgin...."I hope you found this a good and tantalising entry point, and you read a few - or a lot - more, especially as brevity suits your life at the moment.
It's interesting that you mention DNA; aspects of this made me think of The Blind Watchmaker.
Pulmonary disease... is it the dust from the books, exacerbated by a closed system, or is there something deeper implied? I expect the latter, but don't know what.
Traveller wrote: "Is the historical context of a text important? ...or should we ignore those and look at a text in isolation?I think you get a different reading in each case, but which is "better" perhaps depends on the book. Some would make little sense without historical context, but others can be seen in a clean fresh light without.
With this story, perhaps the greater issue is whether a modern reader can detach themselves from Borge's future/our present.
Matt wrote: "PS click here and search for my previous comment...https://libraryofbabel.info/book.cgi?......"
Not just magical realism, but real magic?!
Mod
Yes... the story has a timelessness about it which is always a feature that allows people to re-interpret a text to suit their own times. There's a lot of that in Shakespeare's work, which is of course why his work is evergreen and classic. I suspect one could say the same of Borges.
I hear what you're saying to me, specifically, because I know that with this specific work, I personally have been interpreting it in contemporaneous terms, but I don't feel that is wrong of me, because - well, as we get from Borges' work itself, - people love to see patterns in things, and for me, this text works very well for that, and I do derive satisfaction from it which gives the text an almost "social" value as it were. (Don't know if I'm explaining that very well).
But I do see the problem that can create - being that one can lose Borges and his original intention with this scenario if you put too much of your own interpretation on it.
might have put this link on the circular ruins thread- better here: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2011/2...
That's delightful. (I daresay there might be the odd spoilsport philospher who'd pick holes in it, but I enjoyed it.)
I can't believe this was one of my less-favorite stories back when I first read this collection, many years ago. re-reading it tonight, all I have are positive feelings. this felt like Borges at his most playful and relaxed. I was surprised, but after some thought, eventually appreciative of the not-so-gentle mockery at the idea that people can truly find themselves - let alone the answers to life's mysteries - within the pages of a book.
I'm glad you've now found the love of it. I wonder, was it one of the first you read? It was one of the first I read, and although I could tell it was impressive, I was disoriented and found it somewhat indigestible. Reading other JLB stories and rereading many of them, including this, is a very different experience.
Without wanting to go too far off topic or into negativity, do you remember which others were/are less favourite?
Daniel Dennet, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, has a section (pp. 107 ff) called "The Library of Mendel". In it he riffs off Borges' story, first drawing out many of the astounding implications of the contents of the library, before using a similar concept of a library containing "all possible genomes, ie, DNA sequences". He credits Richard Dawkins, from his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, with the idea which he then extends for his own purposes.I was sort of blown away by the library, and wish very much to find in it the volume which is the most perfectly written, and informative, biography of me. I'd also like to see the like volumes of the biographies of all the commenters in this stream.
Side note: seeing talk about volumes of biographies reminds me of Death's library in Pratchett's Discworld.
Ted wrote: "I was sort of blown away by the library, and wish very much to find in it the volume which is the most perfectly written, and informative, biography of me."That's brave. I'm not sure I'd want to read the biography of me!
Ruth wrote: "Side note: seeing talk about volumes of biographies reminds me of Death's library in Pratchett's Discworld."
Both comments fit with this idea: the Human Library where you don’t check out physical books. Instead, you check out people and learn about their lives:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendly...
Cecily wrote: "Without wanting to go too far off topic or into negativity, do you remember which others were/are less favourite? ..."it was so long ago... I remember this was one of my least favorites and I also remember particularly liking Garden of Forking Paths and Death and the Compass. I'm looking forward to gauging the difference in my reactions for the latter two, if there is any.
Cecily wrote: "Ted wrote: "I was sort of blown away by the library, and wish very much to find in it the volume which is the most perfectly written, and informative, biography of me."That's brave. I'm not sure ..."
You're probably right, Cecily. I wouldn't want to read that until after I was dead. Anyway, I think I was using some license in what I wrote, it was only a ploy to bring out the fact that such a book would exist - and containing exactly the number of characters that would completely fill one of the volumes, whatever size they were supposed to be.
On Paths Unknown
Books mentioned in this topic
Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life (other topics)The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design (other topics)
The Name of the Rose (other topics)
History of Beauty - On Ugliness (other topics)
Foucault’s Pendulum (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Umberto Eco (other topics)Gérard Genette (other topics)
William Goldbloom Bloch (other topics)
Gérard Genette (other topics)
With a short story, spoilers are inevitable.
The group discussions I've been involved in before have all been of novels, so I'll start off with a few general ideas and questions. Feel free to discuss all and any of them, and to raise other points.
Overview
A librarian explains the nature of an infinite library, and the paradoxes involved. It was published in 1941.
You can read it here:
https://maskofreason.files.wordpress....
Possible Discussion Points
We're discussing, and maybe reading, this on the almost infinite internet. JLB was prescient, but does technology make it hard for us to imagine and interpret the story as he might have intended?
The title is Biblical, but the story references "a god", rather than "God", or even "Babel".
There's lots to consider about language(s), communication, and misunderstanding. We tend to seek patterns, whether in clouds, flames, stars or random sequences of letters, ignoring the nonsense and ascribing deep meaning or even magic to the rest.
Can you visualise the library? Does it matter whether you can or not?
Do (im)practicalities matter to you, or are you happy with exploring the ideas in a loose sense?
Who created the library, and does it include this story?
It opens with a quotation and ends with a footnote, as well as having another on the second page by a supposed subsequent editor. These are things one often skips over, but here they're crucial in building up layers of reality.
The footnote, suggesting an alternative sort of infinite library, is revisited in the story "The Book of Sand", published more than 30 years later.
Infinite/Immortal Monkey(s) for real - virtually
You may want to play around with this simulation: https://libraryofbabel.info/
A typical page from it is, of course, gobbledygook, but you can find real strings, such as common sayings or even your name.
An article about the site: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015...
Where you're coming from
You may also want to mention whether you're new to JLB or not, and what sort of things you usually read, either here, or in the convening topic. (I was new to JLB until this year, when I read all his short stories, over several months. I mainly read novels, mostly what is classed as literary fiction (nasty label), but including sci-fi and speculative fiction.)
That's enough of me... Over to you