“The Library exists ab aeterno.”
October 26, 2016 5:16 PM   Subscribe

An Attempt to 3D Model Jorge Luis Borges’s Library of Babel [Hyperallergic] Programmer Jamie Zawinski has created a digital rendering of the infinite, hexagonal library that is the subject and setting of Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Library of Babel.”
posted by Fizz (14 comments total) 25 users marked this as a favorite
 
JWZ is more of a club owner who programs on the side. I like this excerpt:

"I can't help but think about the weight and pressure of a column of air that high, and what is it sitting on, and how to route the plumbing from all of those toilets, and that toilets imply digestion, so where does the food come from? Is there a section of the library devoted to farming, and metallurgy? But now I'm overthinking a sub-infinite but nearly boundless hill of beans."

His blog harks back to the early web in its eclectic weirdness, which makes sense given his employment history.
posted by mecran01 at 5:36 PM on October 26, 2016


...and we've got the texts to fill it!
posted by gwint at 6:28 PM on October 26, 2016 [3 favorites]


This is actually a pretty clever solution. Borges always calls the spaces 'galleries' rather than 'rooms' if I remember right, which would explain why the sixth wall isn't described - it's open to a larger space. "Galerías" from the Spanish seems to mean the same thing as the English "gallery" so I don't think much is changing in translation. JWZ could put more emphasis on that word if he wanted more support from the original text.

Anyway, I always loved the line "The library contains the true story of your life - and innumerable false ones."
posted by echo target at 7:08 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


Plz add to xscreensavers
posted by benzenedream at 8:39 PM on October 26, 2016 [1 favorite]


> JWZ is more of a club owner who programs on the side.

Nah, he's more like the human being who is the living gateway to the dimension of Awesome. Sometimes, the flow of Awesome makes him program stuff. ...But most of the time it's club organising, I guess.
posted by wwwwolf at 11:57 PM on October 26, 2016


It is not a very long text. And yet every attempt at drawing it, including this one, seems to miss something.
Offhand, where is the lighting, for example? Borges clearly writes:

"Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of
lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is
insufficient, incessant."

posted by vacapinta at 2:40 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


Also, every single rendering has made one huge mistake: Borges never mentions any walls.
The bookcases are free-standing.

That is why "From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The
distribution of the galleries is invariable. " and why the hexagons are separated by "vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings."
posted by vacapinta at 3:28 AM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


Anyone interested in the workings of the Library of Babel should consult William Goldbloom Bloch's The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel, which I had the pleasure of copyediting back in 2008. You want details, he's got 'em!
posted by languagehat at 6:08 AM on October 27, 2016


..and that toilets imply digestion, so where does the food come from?

Sorry for the frequent commenting but there are problems in translation too. It is not clear that Borges means one of the rooms to be a toilet. He actually says 'necesidades finales' which might mean 'basic needs' including food?

(really: I think with my background in mathematics and Spanish Literature I should take this story on. The Library of Babel generator doesn't even use the same alphabet as Borges)
posted by vacapinta at 6:11 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I work in a really big library, so the first thing that comes to mind is who cleans the infinite bathrooms?
posted by lagomorphius at 10:01 AM on October 27, 2016




The text doesn't say the hallways are straight, just that they are narrow. It can be done with hexagons only, like a honeycomb, if you assume very thick walls: one wall in each hexagonal room opens to a hexagonal air shaft, the opposite wall from the air shaft has a doorway and the two closets. As the walls are very thick, the hallway runs within the walls and opens to one other identical hexagonal room. A spiral staircase goes up the centre of each hexagonal room. No need for a connection between rooms at the air shaft. You can only get to one other hexagon room from each hallway. Only hexagons, densely packed with no leftover space, only one door per room, endless spiral stairs and air shafts. By alternating stairs and hallways you can access any part of the library.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:35 AM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


I read and reread that story ages ago trying to figure out the layout. My suspicion is that it doesn't quite work out, but also that Borges knew that and meant it to not quite work.
posted by Kattullus at 2:41 PM on October 27, 2016 [2 favorites]


There is a common lost nightmare scenario where the dreamer is in a building which has separate pathways--like some big hotels have doorways and hallways which are only for service and another set of doorways and hallways which are for guests and the passage from guest track to service track is camouflaged from the guest side--and the dreamer always thinks right around the next corner is the track switch he is looking for but he can never find it; it's never the spot he is sure he remembers it being.

I always thought the library of Babel was like that. The route is just beyond your grasp no matter how long you spend working on it.
posted by bukvich at 10:06 PM on October 27, 2016 [1 favorite]


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