The Library of Babel

The story describes the universe as consisting entirely of a vast library, told from the perspective of one of its inhabitants (the librarians). Though the order and content of the books is random and apparently completely meaningless, it has been conjectured by the inhabitants that the books contain every possible ordering of just a few basic characters (letters and punctuation marks). Though the majority of the books in this universe are pure gibberish, the library also must contain, somewhere, every coherent book ever written, and every possible permutation or slightly erroneous version of every one of those books, and every book that might ever be written. The narrator notes that the library must contain all useful information, including predictions of the future, biographies of any person, and translations of every book in all languages. Conversely, for any given text some language could be devised that would make it readable with any of an infinite number of different contents.

Despite--indeed, because of--this glut of information, all books are totally useless to the reader, leaving the librarians in a state of suicidal despair.

This short story features many of Borges' signature themes, including infinity, reality, and labyrinths. The concept of this infinite library is often compared to Borel's dactylographic monkey theorem.

See also Borges the European.

External link

• The James Irby translation of the story (http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel)