Seminar #1
Rachel McDowell
Seminar Reading, September 29, 2006
“The Library of Babel,” and “Library Position Paper No. 1”
Jorge Borges and James Holly’s views of libraries appear to be very different, yet could be interpreted as having many of the same purposes. Borges refers to the library as “The universe,” implying that the library and the beginning of time are lined together as one, and that the answers to all of life’s questions can be found somewhere in the infinite recesses of the library. Holly, however, refers to the library he would prefer as a “generic library,” that may not hold answers to the questions of the universe, but perhaps any questions that faculty and students of a college may have. While Holly’s library may not be infinite, he wants his library to hold general knowledge on any subject one may inquire about. In other words while it may not hold “everything,” such as what Borges wrote:
Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.
It still holds inexhaustible volumes on nearly every subject, no two books being the same. Instead of being highly exhaulted beings that are so stressed with carrying the universe on their shoulders that they often die of suicide or pulmanary artery disease, Holly’s librarians are colleagues of college faculty and friends to college students seeking knowledge.
It seems as though Borges’s figurative and imaginitive library may not exist, but the feeling that one gets reading “The Library of Babel,” can still be felt when visiting a “generic library,” that no matter how long you spent in that library you would never read all of the books or soak in all of the information held within, and that somewhere hidden within is the answer to all of your questions.
