The Library of Babel

Told in the first-person point of view, “The Library of Babel” purports to be the work of an unnamed librarian attempting, near the end of his life, to understand the strange world in which he has lived from birth. The Library in which he lives and works is so vast that no one knows where its limits lie, or even whether it has any limits. As far as the librarian knows—drawing on the collective, historical knowledge of centuries of librarians—the Library comprises the entire universe and has existed for all time. Because of its uncertain boundaries, the Library offers The Promise of the Infinite—a promise equally tantalizing and threatening in that it cannot be tested: Since no one can find the Library’s boundaries, there is no way to know whether it has any. The librarian’s description of the ritual that will follow his death expresses the religious reverence that attaches to this mystery:

When I am dead, compassionate hands will throw me over the railing; my tomb will be the unfathomable air, my body will sink for ages, and will decay and dissolve in the wind engendered by my fall, which shall be infinite (Paragraph 2).