The Library of Babel
by Jorge Luis Borges(1941)
Short Storyc. 8 pages
“The universe, which others call the Library, is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.”
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by Jorge Luis Borges(1941)
“The universe, which others call the Library, is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.”
Jorge Luis Borges(1941)
The universe is a library containing every possible book: every arrangement of letters, every text that has been or could be written, including its own refutation. Borges imagines the librarians wandering these infinite hexagons, searching for the catalog of catalogs, the book that makes sense of everything. Some worship; some despair. The story is five pages long and contains infinity. Borges was a librarian himself, going blind, and the library became his metaphor for everything. The books are all there, somewhere. Finding them is impossible. The search is everything.