Exploring the essence of the world is one of the most important themes in Borges' works. Borges, who regarded the library as the product of God, also put philosophical thinking on the nature of the world into the library. He learned about the universe, felt the world and thought about the ultimate significance of human development from the library environment where he lived and worked all his life.
When the library of Babel opened, he called it "the universe", that is, the world. "The universe (also called a library) is composed of infinite, perhaps infinite hexahedral corridors, with a wide ventilation shaft in the center and extremely low railings around it." The library is infinite, because its infinity includes all kinds of permutations and combinations of words and the infinite possibility of the development and continuation of world knowledge. People believe that the library can collect all the books. "Any personal or world problem can find a convincing answer in the hexagon. The universe is reasonable, and the universe suddenly has infinite hope. " It is also speculated that there must be a book on a hexagonal shelf that is the sum of all the books: a librarian read it and said it was a miracle. People hope that a book can solve all the problems facing mankind, and people also want to explain the mysteries of the world through the library. "At that time, they also wanted to understand the basic mysteries of human beings and the origin of libraries and time." If the philosopher's language is not enough to explain, then an all-inclusive library should find an unheard-of language, as well as its vocabulary and grammar. In the Library of Babel, the starting point of Borges' thinking about the universe is to use the knowledge and language stored in the library to explain the nature of the world and explore the origin of the world and human beings. He believes that the books collected in the library are explanations of the world order and all knowledge and problems. This omnipotent library and universe are all-inclusive of human knowledge. It contains all the books, all the possible permutations and combinations of languages and characters, and constitutes a code to explain the secret order of the world, which hides the secrets that indicate the future social development of mankind. The mystery of this prophetic book tempts people to explain and reconstruct the world order again and again, and to explore the essence of the world and the mystery of the future of mankind.
At the end of the novel, it says, "If an eternal traveler walks in any direction for centuries, he will find that the same book will be repeated in the same disorder (after repetition, it becomes order: cosmic order)." "Universe" and "library" are the same thing in the novel, or Borges uses "library" as a metaphor for "universe". Borges, such a wise and knowledgeable person, disdains to study and dissect everything in the world as the starting point and destination in his works; Exploring the spiritual world, life and universe, so as to establish Borges' spiritual kingdom, conforms to his innate literary sense, high insight and interest in pondering life. "Great writers are destined to complete the mission of exploring fate. Whether it is ridicule or compassion, their hearts have their own bearing."
In this way, "library" is naturally not the theme of the novel "The Library of Babel". However, if we want to explore such metaphysical abstract concepts as life and the universe, we can only express abstract ideas in abstract language unless we describe a comparable concrete thing and include ideas in it. The latter method is not suitable for the genre of novels, and Borges is unwilling to adopt it. He is keen on satire and parody, and can skillfully apply these literary techniques to readers' hearts gracefully and calmly. Looking back on Borges' life, the library played an indispensable role in it. Some features of the library are very similar to the universe in a sense, and Borges deeply realized its taste. It is not only the most familiar thing in real life, but also has something in common with some ideas in spiritual life. Library has naturally become a concept that appears from time to time in Borges' works, and the library and books collected by the library have become an integral part of Borges' own spiritual kingdom, which is "miscellaneous and huge, ... boundless for reality and fantasy, even an invisible frontier".
In the library of Babel, the library consists of an indefinite number, perhaps infinite hexagonal corridors. On both sides of each hexagon, there is a small hall without bookshelves, which leads to another identical hexagon, and the space extends infinitely horizontally. The spiral staircase on one side of the small hall lengthens the space infinitely vertically. The infinite expansion of the library will inevitably fill the universe or become the universe itself. The abstract concept (universe) is used to generalize concrete things (infinite library), and the concept of "poverty" bypasses "infinity" and is concrete! "The philosophical significance of the novel can be reflected by philosophical thinking and philosophical replacement of the library and the universe.
The description of the language form in the universe of the library of Babel is another important content of the novel. Borges summed up the writing symbols in the book as 25, namely spaces, periods, commas and 22 letters. All books, no matter how they change, are made up of these 25 writing symbols. The Thinker pointed out that all books, no matter how ever-changing, are composed of the same factors: spaces, periods, commas and 22 letters. He also quoted a fact that all travelers have confirmed: no two books are exactly the same in that huge library. Based on these unquestionable premises, he came to the conclusion that the library is all-encompassing, and the bookshelf includes all possible combinations of more than 20 writing symbols (although the number is large, it is not infinite), or everything that all words can express. Borges further believes that the text composed of these 25 symbols is chaotic. "Almost all books are incomplete and chaotic." My father saw a hexagonal book in the 1954 area. From the first line to the last line, all the letters "MCV3" were repeated over and over again ... Among countless absurd homophones, chaotic and incoherent words, only one line was understandable or straightforward.
The arbitrary arrangement and combination of 25 writing symbols constitute the possibility of all books, which embodies Borges' view of language, that is, language is the essence of the world. Tracing back to the beginning of human development and evolution, language has played a key role in human history. Language constitutes the core of world order and world existence. The western philosopher Heidegger once said that language is the essence of the world. Borges undoubtedly holds the same view, and he also endows language with ontological existence. As a novelist, Borges shuttles between language and writing. His writing symbols are not only the basic material of his novel world, but also the starting point and foothold of his thinking about the world and looking at life. The chaotic writing symbols reflect Borges' thinking about the world order. As the essence of the world, the disorder of language also reflects the disorder of the essence of the world. The prototype of the Babel Library comes from the Old Testament: Noah's descendants will settle in the plain of Shinar and build a Babel, which can go straight to heaven and do anything. God is afraid that people will be content with the status quo and do nothing after creating the Tower of Babel, which makes the people who built the Tower of Babel feel confused and unable to communicate with each other, so the Tower of Babel fell short. Babel is Babel, and "Babel" means chaos. From this allusion, we can see the chaos of the world order. God has isolated people in this world from each other and cannot communicate with each other, which may be the necessity of the existence of human society. In the communication between self-sufficient individuals, the loss of information is inevitable, and even the expression of individual self can not fully explain the inner self. Language connects us together, and language also separates us from each other, which is a dialectical existence. From the individual to the society, the nation and all mankind, there will inevitably be chaos and disorder. Borges used the library as a metaphor to implicitly express his views on the whole world order. The disorder of the universe is Borges' understanding of the nature of the world, but at the same time he longs for the hidden order behind the disordered world. He believes that the historical process of disorderly and chaotic evolution also contains a certain order, which is an unchangeable law. "I take the liberty to provide an answer to the old question: the library is infinite and endless. If an eternal traveler travels in any direction, he will find that the same book will be repeated in the same disorder after centuries (after repetition, it becomes order: cosmic order). " The hypothesis and conclusion of orderly order made Borges get some comfort, as he wrote in his book, "With that wonderful hope, my loneliness got some relief".
Thinking about the disorder, confusion and even orderly repetition of books in the library of Babel includes Borges' philosophical thinking about the universe, which is also his understanding of the disorder and confusion of books themselves. Since human beings have written records, books have not only produced and explained knowledge, but also caused confusion of knowledge itself, such as different schools and theories attacking each other and competing for the highest right to speak. However, none of these seems to be able to find a once-and-for-all explanation of the truth and explain the eternal law of human historical development. Various theoretical contradictions are intertwined, and it seems that eternal truth will never be reached. subject
The title of this novel stems from a meaningful allusion. According to the Jewish Bible and the Old Testament, after the flood, more and more people began to move eastward and settled in a plain in cinar (near Babylon, Cuba). At that time, everyone in the world spoke the same language. They said to one another, "Come, let's build a city and a tower, the top of which will reach the sky, so that we may proclaim our name, lest we be scattered all over the earth. Thanks to our common language and joint efforts, the city and the tower will be built soon. However, this shocked God, who was deeply angered by human vanity and arrogance. He couldn't tolerate human beings offending his dignity and decided to punish these arrogant people. So he quietly left the kingdom of heaven and came to the world, making human language chaotic and scattered everywhere, and the tower was abandoned halfway. In Hebrew, "Babel" means "rebellion", so this tower is called "Babel". Some people interpret the word "rebellion" as "Babylon", the city as "Babylon" and the tower as "Babylonia". In Babylonian, "Babel" or "Babylon" means "Kamino Cardo". The title of the novel "The Library of Babel" has four meanings because of the word "Babel". The "Babel" library refers to the original purpose of the library, and also refers to the infinite function of reaching the grave through the library. The "disorder" of the library is the disorder of the library, and it is precisely because of disorder that the pursuit and pursuit of order has emerged; "The Way of God" library means the sacredness of the library, and at the same time presents the purpose and function of the library again. Babel is a landmark building built by human ancestors to guide the direction and prevent similar people from being scattered all over the place. With the intervention of God, the Tower of Babel collapsed, but the library "can only be a work of God". The collapsed Tower of Babel was rebuilt in the form of a library, from which human beings can get guidance and confirm their direction.
Symbolic thing
In the novel, a clever librarian infers that "the library is all-encompassing, and the bookshelf includes all possible combinations of more than twenty writing symbols (although the number is huge, it is not infinite), or everything that all words can express." This reminds librarians of the well-known Alexandria Library more than 20 years ago. It is said that the only purpose of building the Alexandria Library is to collect books from all over the world and realize the dream of gathering world knowledge. Time in the novel is defined as "500 years ago" (of course, time is meaningless in Borges' works). Whether it was more than 20 years ago, or "500 years ago", or now, collecting all the books is always a beautiful dream that the library can't achieve but insists on advancing. This wonderful psychology was hit by Borges: "When people heard that the library has all the books, the first thing they got was a strange sense of happiness. People feel that they are the owners of a perfect secret treasure house. Any personal or world problem can find a convincing answer in the hexagon. The nature of human greed (neutral words) determines the original desire to pursue all "complete" things, and the original dream of the library finally traces back to the original sin.
This paper barely describes the three elements of the novel extracted from the library of Babel. The novel describes the long and painful endless journey of human beings looking for "order" in the library since the beginning of time. Novels with extremely limited space repeatedly render the "disorder" state of the library with strong pen and ink. "My father saw a hexagonal book in the 1954 area. From the first line to the last line, it is the repetition of the three letters of MCV. Another book (often referred to in this field) is just a maze of letters ... It is suggested that every letter may be implicated in the following letters, and the "MCV" in the third line of page 7 1 cannot have the same meaning as the "MCV" in another position on another page ... The godless people assert that the nonsense in the library is normal and reasonable (not even simple and coherent). These descriptions are not only disorderly, but also the result of chaos-"chaos".
In the traditional teaching materials of library science, there are many words that express the functions of the library, such as "ordering". The value of library work is indeed reflected in this point to a great extent, although it can also lead to many more exciting, important and far-reaching significance. In the novel, the search for "order" in the library has been transformed into the search for "the whole book" which is considered as "the sum of all books". Although "looking around for a hundred years" is still fruitless, "I" think the existence of "the whole book" is not impossible. "I pray that the neglected God will spare one person-even if there is only one person for thousands of years! Look at this book. If I can't get that honor, wisdom and happiness, let others get it. ..... I hope your huge library can be proved by one person, even for a moment. How persistent human beings are in the pursuit of "order", and how indispensable and irreplaceable the library with "order" function is. When the novel ends with "with that beautiful hope (meaning" order "), my loneliness has been freed", how naive and ridiculous the discussion about the death of libraries once or now seems. Another passage in the novel can also be regarded as a wonderful summary of that discussion: "Aging and fear may mislead me, but I think that unique human beings will be extinct, and libraries will exist: blue lights hanging alone, infinite, rare books, unknown, useless and not corrupt." "