The Library of Babel

This short story, the subject of our final blog post it seems, was one of of multiple themes as well as symbolism regarding the Universe and it's mortal inhabitants. The concept of the hexagonal form of the different pieces of the Universe (or the Library) is very intriguing in that, although I am confused by Borges' choice of shape, gives at least some way of understanding a concept that is otherwise a complete mystery. The Library of Babel discussed how the Universe is organized with regards to the knowledge, past, present, and future, that it holds and how humans interact with this knowledge. Borges discusses a "Library" that holds all the books in the Universe, which seems to be a celebrated fact. "When it was first proclaimed that the Library comprised all books, the first impression was one of extravagant joy." (Page 83) However, readers find many of these books "useless" and hard to comprehend, especially since no 2 books are exactly alike. 

A group called the "inquisitors" have a duty to search for a significant piece of information in the vast Library, but become saddened when inevitably nothing of importance is found. "Obviously, no one expects to discover anything. The uncommon hope was followed, naturally enough, by deep depression." (Page 84) The idea that somewhere in one of the many areas of the Library or Universe resided "precious" books that were just barely out of reach was unbearable in many cases. Since this library contains every single possible book, in no specific order, the Library itself can be viewed as pretty useless on some senses, which, again, depresses the scholars searching for these books.