The Library of Babel
Wow, I guess this is the conclusion of my (our) Mystery Blog posts. It feels great to end the posts here because, in my opinion, The Library of Babel, is the most thought-provoking short story (and real story) we have read in this class. I agree with the rest of my fellow bloggers that, while the story does not contain any sort of plot, it is a thought-exercise that helps elucidate the motivations of humans and how they act in a world of "infinity".
I enjoy how, from the beginning, Borges lays out the "axioms" of the library to let the reader know exactly what is being dealt with: the library is eternal, contains only 25 symbols in all its books, and has no two identical books (113-115). This harkens back to the discussion we had last Tuesday when we discussed how Borges draws axioms (or syllogisms) in his writing to make his points. Here, since these posited axioms are impossible to prove or disprove, the reader is forced to accept them as fact and see how humanity turns out.
The most intriguing part of the library, and the part that captivates or disenchants the groups in this story, is the fact that the library is infinite. Due to its incalculable size and the axioms, there is really no way to DENY the existence of any book on any topic, so people and certain groups become obsessed about finding the secrets to life in the Library. I believe that this optimism shows humanity's desire (and overestimation of its ability) to glean out the books of Vindication or fact from the immense, infinite trove of patently false, gibberish, or mistruths the library has. Borges even says that humans dedicate themselves entirely to finding their own Vindications or those of others, even though "the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero"(115). And groups such as the worshippers of the Book-Man are even more confident in themselves ... as they literally try to find the one hexagon out of infinity where their God stays.
Another tidbit that I personally found very interesting what how Borges evaluated language under the premise of an infinite library. As Borges shows, there is a fundamental discrepancy in the library: even though the library itself is infinite, the books inside of the library are not (118). One group, who he calls the Infidels, believe that even the gibberish books have value because, somewhere in the library, there may (and probably is) a book that explains the meaning of the gibberish. Therefore, each syllable must be taken with utmost seriousness, because the meaning behind each word can technically have infinite possibilities (117). My favorite part was when Borges broke into second-person narration to ask the question: "You who read me - are you certain you understand my language"(118), implying that Borges's Spanish is not necessarily the same Spanish as the reader. I find it ironic that, since we are reading a translation, we really do NOT understand Borges's Spanish at all, and are probably missing key details about the meaning Borges would be giving to readers in his native tongue. I believe that this idea of multiple meanings per word solves the discrepancy I mentioned earlier: even though the permutations of the 25 symbols are finite (though immense), each word may have a different denotation (increasing possibilities to absurdly high) and a different connotation (which makes the meaning infinite). As long as we say the human mind can fathom an infinite number of ideas, any word can have an infinite number of connotations, allowing the infinite library to be infinite even with a finite number of books.
I enjoy how, from the beginning, Borges lays out the "axioms" of the library to let the reader know exactly what is being dealt with: the library is eternal, contains only 25 symbols in all its books, and has no two identical books (113-115). This harkens back to the discussion we had last Tuesday when we discussed how Borges draws axioms (or syllogisms) in his writing to make his points. Here, since these posited axioms are impossible to prove or disprove, the reader is forced to accept them as fact and see how humanity turns out.
The most intriguing part of the library, and the part that captivates or disenchants the groups in this story, is the fact that the library is infinite. Due to its incalculable size and the axioms, there is really no way to DENY the existence of any book on any topic, so people and certain groups become obsessed about finding the secrets to life in the Library. I believe that this optimism shows humanity's desire (and overestimation of its ability) to glean out the books of Vindication or fact from the immense, infinite trove of patently false, gibberish, or mistruths the library has. Borges even says that humans dedicate themselves entirely to finding their own Vindications or those of others, even though "the chance of a man's finding his own Vindication, or some perfidious version of his own, can be calculated to be zero"(115). And groups such as the worshippers of the Book-Man are even more confident in themselves ... as they literally try to find the one hexagon out of infinity where their God stays.
Another tidbit that I personally found very interesting what how Borges evaluated language under the premise of an infinite library. As Borges shows, there is a fundamental discrepancy in the library: even though the library itself is infinite, the books inside of the library are not (118). One group, who he calls the Infidels, believe that even the gibberish books have value because, somewhere in the library, there may (and probably is) a book that explains the meaning of the gibberish. Therefore, each syllable must be taken with utmost seriousness, because the meaning behind each word can technically have infinite possibilities (117). My favorite part was when Borges broke into second-person narration to ask the question: "You who read me - are you certain you understand my language"(118), implying that Borges's Spanish is not necessarily the same Spanish as the reader. I find it ironic that, since we are reading a translation, we really do NOT understand Borges's Spanish at all, and are probably missing key details about the meaning Borges would be giving to readers in his native tongue. I believe that this idea of multiple meanings per word solves the discrepancy I mentioned earlier: even though the permutations of the 25 symbols are finite (though immense), each word may have a different denotation (increasing possibilities to absurdly high) and a different connotation (which makes the meaning infinite). As long as we say the human mind can fathom an infinite number of ideas, any word can have an infinite number of connotations, allowing the infinite library to be infinite even with a finite number of books.
I also found the part where Borges breaks from the story to ask the reader whether he truly understands what he is saying to be really interesting. This highlights the issue with reading any translation, as each language has its own quirks and meanings that another language can't convey. The library of Babel might even include texts of lost languages or languages from the future, the possibilities are endless. Every single book and word can have a meaning, regardless of how non-nonsensical it seems . However, trying to find meaning in these books is daunting.
ReplyDelete