Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) was an Argentinian fiction writer, poet, essayist, longtime director of the National Library of Argentina, and professor of English and American literatures at the University of Buenos Aires. His books of fiction that have been translated into English include The Aleph and Other Stories 1933-1969 (E.P. Dutton, 1970) and Doctor Brodie's Report (E.P. Dutton, 1972). "The Library of Babel" first appeared in English in the collections Ficciones (Grove Press, 1962) and Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings (New Directions, 1962) and was originally published in Spanish in The Garden of Forking Paths (Sur, 1941). This version, from Labyrinths, was translated by James E. Irby.
"The Library of Babel" (Composing Cyberspace p. 293) is not available online.
1. Draw a picture or diagram of a portion of the Library as described by the narrator; also, make a more detailed, close-up drawing of a single hexagonal gallery. Compare your drawings with those of other readers and discuss how you picture the Library similarly and differently. With your group or class, try composing a consensus drawing on a blackboard, whiteboard, or computer that represents your best understanding of the Library's appearance and structure.
2. What is the narrator's situation as he tells this story? What's the state of his physical health? What's he looking for, and what seems to be his motivation for telling the story? What's the condition of the human species?
3. The Library contains all possible books on all possible topics and, therefore, includes solutions (and false solutions) to all problems, yet people seem to have almost no chance of finding a particular piece of information they seek. What are people's various reactions to this situation, according to the narrator? With which reactions are you most sympathetic, and why?
4. What similarities and differences do you find between Borges's fictional Library and a real library? How does the fictional Library compare with your understanding of the Internet or World Wide Web?
5. What do you think Borges is trying to say in this story about the relationship between language and knowledge or meaning? How persuasive do you find the Library as an allegory for the universe or the human condition?
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