Infinite Genius
Borge has an intelligence level that is respectable in every sense of the word. The man's a genius. There's so much to find in this story it's tough to keep up. I'm going to touch on a few specific things and just go from there.
First things first, the title. The Bible is what so the allusion didn't slip by me. In Genesis 11:1-9 God confuses the race of men with many languages so that they can't cooperate as well as they would have been able to otherwise. This is because of their pride in attempting to ascend to heaven while still on earth by building the giant Tower of Babel. I would say the equivalence here comes from God's statement, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Gen. 11:6) This relates to the Library because if it was possible to comprehend and receive all the information that was within the Library "nothing... will be impossible" for the race of men. Nevertheless, the very nature of an infinite library with no navigational instructions ruins this hope. Like the many languages that confuse men, the never-ending the library and its gibberish books confuse and divide mankind in the story. The people participate in various "sects," (page 5) some wishing to destroy books, others searching for "The Man of the Book" a supposed Saviour-like deity; this division is a result of the very nature of the library itself and it resembles the division that the people in the Bible had after becoming unable to communicate with each other. Without unity, ideas and belief systems spread like fires, and people just do whatever they individually desire. That is why it's the Library of Babel. The language of almost every book is unintelligible, and the existence of the library causes division among the human race.
Second, this quote:
"One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction undertaken by humans is infinitesimal. Two: each book is unique, irreplaceable, but (inasmuch as the Library is total) there are always several hundreds of thousands of imperfect facsimiles - of works which differ only by one letter or one comma."
Not sure why but this instantly made me think of human beings. There's a quote somewhere on a meme or facebook or something of the like that says "remember you're unique: just like everyone else." It's a somewhat depressing quote, but it's also true. Sadly, while the human race seems rather amazing due to the vast number of unique individuals, the sheer number of persons makes uniqueness not that amazing in the common world. My personal opinion is that the human race is awesome, and that uniqueness is mad cool, but from a philosophical perspective I think that Borges might have just showed that death on an individual cale has no large scale effect, and that people are not special. People are not special, because everyone is special, and 7 billion special persons means that one person being special is not unique. Okay that's it for that moving on last point, I promise.
Last thing I wanted to point out was the diction when Borges used the word "arcana" (page 4). The word arcana means secrets or mysteries according to google, but it also has a second definition involving tarot cards. Tarot cards are some kind of tool used by supposed clairvoyant persons or fortune-tellers and other such nonsense persons. But I think it's interesting that Borges uses this word here as it has this second meaning underneath. Since Tarot cards have this meaning started in freemasonry and other things I think this pseudo-supernatural concept is being related to the chance for the people in the library who search for it to find the books on "vindication." (pg 4) Perhaps as vindication is often seen as a somewhat religious/spiritual thing, maybe he's trying to contribute to the tone? This is probably like not even significant but I thought it was cool.
Welp, Last Blog Post-ish. It was a good run. Mystery solved.
First things first, the title. The Bible is what so the allusion didn't slip by me. In Genesis 11:1-9 God confuses the race of men with many languages so that they can't cooperate as well as they would have been able to otherwise. This is because of their pride in attempting to ascend to heaven while still on earth by building the giant Tower of Babel. I would say the equivalence here comes from God's statement, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Gen. 11:6) This relates to the Library because if it was possible to comprehend and receive all the information that was within the Library "nothing... will be impossible" for the race of men. Nevertheless, the very nature of an infinite library with no navigational instructions ruins this hope. Like the many languages that confuse men, the never-ending the library and its gibberish books confuse and divide mankind in the story. The people participate in various "sects," (page 5) some wishing to destroy books, others searching for "The Man of the Book" a supposed Saviour-like deity; this division is a result of the very nature of the library itself and it resembles the division that the people in the Bible had after becoming unable to communicate with each other. Without unity, ideas and belief systems spread like fires, and people just do whatever they individually desire. That is why it's the Library of Babel. The language of almost every book is unintelligible, and the existence of the library causes division among the human race.
Second, this quote:
"One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction undertaken by humans is infinitesimal. Two: each book is unique, irreplaceable, but (inasmuch as the Library is total) there are always several hundreds of thousands of imperfect facsimiles - of works which differ only by one letter or one comma."
Not sure why but this instantly made me think of human beings. There's a quote somewhere on a meme or facebook or something of the like that says "remember you're unique: just like everyone else." It's a somewhat depressing quote, but it's also true. Sadly, while the human race seems rather amazing due to the vast number of unique individuals, the sheer number of persons makes uniqueness not that amazing in the common world. My personal opinion is that the human race is awesome, and that uniqueness is mad cool, but from a philosophical perspective I think that Borges might have just showed that death on an individual cale has no large scale effect, and that people are not special. People are not special, because everyone is special, and 7 billion special persons means that one person being special is not unique. Okay that's it for that moving on last point, I promise.
Last thing I wanted to point out was the diction when Borges used the word "arcana" (page 4). The word arcana means secrets or mysteries according to google, but it also has a second definition involving tarot cards. Tarot cards are some kind of tool used by supposed clairvoyant persons or fortune-tellers and other such nonsense persons. But I think it's interesting that Borges uses this word here as it has this second meaning underneath. Since Tarot cards have this meaning started in freemasonry and other things I think this pseudo-supernatural concept is being related to the chance for the people in the library who search for it to find the books on "vindication." (pg 4) Perhaps as vindication is often seen as a somewhat religious/spiritual thing, maybe he's trying to contribute to the tone? This is probably like not even significant but I thought it was cool.
Welp, Last Blog Post-ish. It was a good run. Mystery solved.
I like how you said that the Library causes division. I saw the parallels between the tower from the Bible and the Library, but I had not thought of the Library being the cause of division. I also noted the mention of vindication. In the book, the word was capitalized. I have learned in this class that capitalization always has a purpose, so I wonder what the purpose is in this book.
ReplyDeleteGreat analysis! I am very intrigued by your statement about how the Library serves to divide the population. I agree that, since the library is indeed infinite, it causes a great deal of division within the human society Borges outlined in this story. I had not known about the Biblical story until you brought it up, so thank you for making the comparison.
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