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Symbols
In Ficciones, libraries and books (and even the general act of writing) symbolize both humanity’s search for knowledge and the desire to further the creation of knowledge. In “The Library of Babel,” the librarian describes an infinite library, which is his whole “universe.” Thus, this library represents the universe at large, full of information and requiring infinite time to understand its mysteries. Furthermore, the fact that a life lived in the library represents real life ultimately highlights the daily search for knowledge and understanding that each person undergoes in the real world. To that end, many of the characters in Ficciones are fictional authors. This focus on writing highlights intellectual pursuit and the creation of art as a central aspect of life. For example, Pierre Menard compares writing to “breathing,” thus positioning it as something that is integral to human survival and existence itself.
The Library and Books Quotes in Ficciones
The Ficciones quotes below all refer to the symbol of The Library and Books. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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7. The Library of Babel
Quotes
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth. I have journeyed in search of a book, perhaps of the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can scarcely decipher what I write, I am preparing to die a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born.
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To me it does not seem unlikely that on some shelf of the universe there lies a total book…. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. May heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but may Thy enormous Library be justified, for one instant, in one being.
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The Library and Books Symbol Timeline in Ficciones
The timeline below shows where the symbol The Library and Books appears in Ficciones. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
Borges gives a brief introduction to this section of the book. He says that the eighth story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” is a mystery, while...
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1. Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius
...Herbert Ashe, a late friend of his father’s. After Ashe’s death, the narrator finds a book that Ashe bought, entitled A First Encyclopedia of Tlön, Volume XI. The book makes references...
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...its conception of paradoxes, geometry, and literature. Regarding literature, the general philosophy is that all books are the work of a single author, and plagiarism therefore does not exist.
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2. The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim
In this story, Borges writes about the reception of a fictional book, The Approach to Al-Mu’tasim, by a fictional author, Mir Bahadur Ali. Borges cites two (also...
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...in and of himself. Borges also skeptically reflects on the tendency of critics to praise books that derive from earlier books.
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3. Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote
...previously read Don Quixote but does not count it as one of the more influential books in his life, is so drawn to it.
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6. An Examination of the Work of Herbert Quain
...and the “pomp” of Quain’s descriptions of the sea. Though Borges does not have the book anymore, he describes the plot from memory: in the first part, an assassination takes place....
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7. The Library of Babel
Borges’s narrator describes his universe, which is a library. He describes the hexagonal galleries of bookshelves, which contain 20 bookshelves each. These galleries are...
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The narrator further explains aspects of the library. Each book has the same number of pages, with the same number of lines and...
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Furthermore, there are 25 characters that exist in the library—22 letters, the period, the comma, and the space. Much of the work in the library...
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Because the library is infinite and contains every possible combination of letters, everything that can be expressed exists...
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Some librarians believe that there is a book somewhere in the library that acts as a key to the library itself, but it...
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...them, but to find them all would be impossible. There are official “inquisitors” in the library whose sole purpose is to unlock its secrets. Some librarians, on the other hand, take...
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...these inquisitors seem exhausted. The librarian takes comfort in this idea that one of the books contains the secrets to the library. He imagines an immortal voyager exploring the library until...
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8. The Garden of Forking Paths
The story opens by saying that a book called A History of the World War states that a British offensive during World War...
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9. Funes, The Memorious
...writes a tribute to his deceased friend, Ireneo Funes to be gathered in a memorial book with the writing of other friends of Funes. “I remember him,” the narrator writes, quickly...
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...staring ahead. Since the narrator has been teaching himself Latin, he has brought some Latin books to the town. Funes hears of these books and writes a letter to the narrator,...
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12. Death and the Compass
Lönnrot takes Yarmolinsky’s books about Judaism home to study them. He becomes fascinated with the Jewish theories about the...
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When the Commissioner investigates Gryphius’s room, he finds a Latin book about Hebrew philology. The Commissioner shares this book with Lönnrot, who translates an underlined passage...
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17. The South
...of The Thousand and One Nights to read. He regards his choice to bring the book on his trip as a defiant confirmation that his misfortunes are over, as the book...
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...hospital. There, people throw spitballs at Dahlmann. Dahlmann tries to ignore them, opening up his book and trying to get lost in the fantasy of the story. However, when the men...
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