The Library as a Beehive

Posted on by
Reply

After reading Borges’ famous short story “The Library of Babel” (1941) for the first time, I was overwhelmed by its scope of theme. A story trying to make sense of the nonsensical is sure to be dense. The more I read, the more expansive this infinitely yet finite library became. Making sense of the story and its purpose was difficult, to say the least. Despite this, I kept coming back to one word in particular, “hexagon,” a word that immediately reminded me of something, but a thought not developed enough that I decided to brush it off. It wasn’t until my second re-reading that I was able to focus on Borges immediate description of the library’s infrastructure and architecture and the word itself.

“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite,
perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries. In the center of each gallery
is a ventilation shaft, bounded by a low railing. From any hexagon one can
see the floors above and below-one after another, endlessly. The arrangement of the galleries is always the same: Twenty bookshelves, five to each
side, line four of the hexagon’s six sides; the height of the bookshelves, floor
to ceiling, is hardly greater than the height of a normal librarian. One of the
hexagon’s free sides opens onto a narrow sort of vestibule, which in turn
opens onto another gallery, identical to the first-identical in fact to all.” (Borges 1)

The immediacy of the description suggests that Borges is not only highlighting the books and the knowledge that are on the shelves, but the architecture of the library itself.

A structure that similarly mirrors the labyrinth of the Library is a beehive. Beehives do not naturally form into hexagonal shapes. The process takes place when a worker bee molds the wax into circles, only for their body heat to melt the comb into its familiar hexagonal shape. “Roman scholar and writer, Marcus Terentius Varro, proposed that it was a mathematical hunch known as “The Honeybee Conjecture.” He said that a structure that was built from hexagons is slightly more compact than a structure built from tiny squares or triangles. The more compact the structure is, the less wax the bees need to complete the honeycomb. (Allon par. 3) Honey is important to bees, it is not only used as a food source but as a climate control for the hive itself, communication, preservation, honey is essential to bees and every aspect of their being. Bees spend their whole lives on the quest for honey, nectar, pollen. They die only for another worker bee to takes its place to continue the never ending goal of finding, creating, and storing honey.

The idea of librarians living and dying within the library, cataloging knowledge, is reminiscent of the lives of bees, and the library itself is akin to a beehive. There is a natural process in which the library and its librarians function. The process that the narrator describes within the first few paragraphs mirrors this. Natural labor is deconstructed into an animalistic, primal level, where, through instinct, bees’ lives revolve around honey, so too do the lives of these librarians revolve around the books and their potentially infinite knowledge, “Now that my
eyes can hardly make out what I myself have written, I am preparing to die,
a few leagues from the hexagon where I was born.” (Borges 1)

At its core, the library is a hub of cells filled with knowledge; it must be protected. And its inhabitants participate in eternizing it. “-The bee serves as example when one must reinforce the definition of the human as rational animal. (The first to question this complicity was Derrida in The Animal that Therefore I am.) But Borges’ brief story deconstructs each of these binaries: language/sound, rational/irrational, and human/animal. The random creation of the library’s texts shows that even the most complex achievements of human “reason” are equally possible without any animating consciousness or any intention-to-signify at all. The life of us bibliotecarios is no more justified and no more good than that of the bees. And who’s to say a bee doesn’t believe his vindication awaits in the very next hexagon?” (Basile). Of course, the distinction in my comparison is that humans have a conscience and animals, namely bees in this instance, do not. Yet the comparative nature of the library itself invites the reader to deconstruct this notion and compare a natural order to that of a chaotically infinite one and the purpose of not only the library but the librarians as well.

The Library or The Universe?

Posted on by
1

While reading Borges, the first element that stood out to me was his discussion of the universe in relation to libraries, aka that they are the same thing. I had not heard this comparison before if I am being honest, but now that I think about it, it makes sense. The library is a collection of stories, histories, and archives of information: much like the Universe. The discussion of how the library was made into the shape of a hexagon- “the library is a sphere who exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible”- shows the complexity of them both. This made me think about how the universe is inaccessible to us fully and it will never be able to be fully explored. Borges discusses the library and the universe in the same way, a mystery. It seems it’s almost impossible to have a full understanding of either, both being described as theory and symbolic to a bigger picture.

The ‘book’ during this time is described as impenetrable and mysterious, because only certain people could read/translate them. This reminded me of the video we watched in class the other day that showed how foreign the book was versus the scroll, and how people had to be taught how to use it. This is much like technology now for older generations, and even me when new technology is out I have to be taught as well. Borges description is a reminder that the book and the library was not accessible to everyone, and not everyone knew how to understand/read it. This is relevant to current times too, as not everyone has the same access to the same resources, its all a privilege, which is what Borges discussion of the library reminded me of. Not only of our progress of information and understanding, but that these things are a privilege not everyone has the same level of access to.

I found this reading to be very interesting. I had never heard of the library being built or compared to a hexagon. ‘The chief of an upper hexagon’ – as in their were so many different levels and librarians or deciphers that worked in different section?? Much like now but I found it intriguing how hexagons made up different levels of space and understanding. “There was no personal or world
problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope.” (pg. 4) The idea that the library held all the answers is interesting as its compared to the universe that is so vast, but it makes sense as we typically like to think that we have all the answers- some things never change too much. Overall this reading was very interesting and I felt like I got valuable information about the history of the library.

(sorry late! computer issues yesterday)

Borges Knocks on the Door of Reality

Posted on by
2

Frankly, I read this work twice over the course of 2 days but I feel like I need to read it many more. What I took from this work is a critique of the pursuit of objectivity. What is the library? The library is their universe which is analogous to our universe. The books are analogous to our information about the natural world. The passage regarding travelers feverishly searching for their “vindication” makes me think of those in (what Borges’ argues is an effectively futile) pursuit of who they “really are” or what the meaning of their life is.

“All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure… At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future… The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man’s finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero” (5)

Borges also seems to explore religion from an Absurdist perspective. The criticism of the deep longing for a sense of belonging from a faith-based perspective reminds me a lot of Camus and his criticism of those who believe that the universe has an ultimate meaning:

“Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified. The impious maintain that nonsense is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble and pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception” (7).

The revelation that the library exists “ab aeterno” (from an infinitely remote point of time in the past, according to Merriam-Webster) reminds me of Descartes’ revelation that the there is the mind (res cogitans) and the world outside the mind (res extensa). Both posit the universe as somewhere unattainably far away from the mind. This alienation of the human experience from reality/truth is dangerous because it rids the individual of agency, which is what I think Borges’ is trying to say when he writes “The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms” (7).

I see Borges final affirmation that the library is cyclical as a way to demonstrate how something can have infinite meanings despite surrounding one material thing. In other words, there can only be a certain amount of variations due to the 25 total characters available for use in the books, 410 pages, 40 lines per page, etc. This doesn’t mean that there can’t be an infinite number of possibilities, however, because those variations can loop around. Similarly, even if there is a definite (yet near-infinity) amount of ways one can convey they perception of reality, once near-infinity runs out it may just loop back around again.

Reflections of Today and Borges’ “Library of Babel”

Posted on by
1

Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “The Library of Babel” is a fantastical thought exercise that essentially reflects various human reactions to abstract questions in a thoughtful and sometimes humorous way. Borges sets up the story to take place inside a library which equates to the whole world for the people living inside it. The Library contains an infinite amount of books which have a perpetually endless combinations of letters and punctuation. With this knowledge many librarians have formulated their own schools of thought and way of life to accommodate conceptualizing and dealing with their world. 

When reading the short story, I enjoyed the diversity of thought within each librarian and how that manifested in their living, or rather, coping. In the uncertainty of the Library, librarians created things like religion and a norm culture to help regulate their way of life. A group that stood out to me the most was the Purifiers, who would invade “the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves” (Borges, 6). I think their response to the chaos of their world makes sense, but it almost feels rash in their need for control. The Purifiers’ line of thought mirrors plenty of people’s beliefs today, as many grapple with our chaotic world by simply trying to carve it into what their perfect world would look like. I think an example of this, relevant to today, is book banning. The act of banning books often reads as a response from adults who cannot grapple with the notion that the world is more than what they can conceptualize, so in turn, they try to control what they can to make more people similar to themselves. Borges does this reflection of our world in the Library repeatedly with different philosophies and religions, which made me love and ponder on this piece for a long time.

Intro: Sierra Beggs

Posted on by
Reply

Hi everyone, my name is Sierra Beggs, and I look forward to taking this class with all of you! I’m a recent transfer from Palomar. I’ve been in San Diego all of my life—mainly in a small town called Ramona. It’s both a blessing and a curse, because I don’t know if I could live anywhere else, but it is also a pretty expensive place to live (as probably all of you know). I love being so close to the beach, mountains, and desert all at once. My mom even used to call me a fish, because I love being in the water. When I was younger, I would be in the ocean for six hours straight without coming to shore, which also lead to some pretty nasty sunburns because I’m so pale. And I can’t forget to mention the sheer biodiversity we have, not just with plants, but also animals and insects.

Oh, and I also have a 16 1/2 year old dog named Ruby, who I can’t even begin to explain how much I love (she’s shown in the first picture at the bottom—isn’t she just the cutest). She’s like a little toddler. She’s a little blind and a little deaf now, which causes her to cause a lot of chaos—like getting into places where she thinks she’s stuck, but isn’t really stuck. She also told me she’s going to live at least until 19, so no worries there.

There’s honestly not much to say about my life, although, I do work at Barnes and Noble, so at least my book addiction can be supplied at a reasonable price thanks to a discount. I like reading in any format, but physical books have a special place in my heart. I wasn’t that into reading until 4th grade. My mom was in a PTA meeting afterschool, and told me to stay put…but I can’t sit still for the life of me. So in my boredom I snuck into the library, with the totally legit spy skills I learned from a friend. While wondering around in the library, I picked up a copy of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan. I read the first page and was enamored. From that moment on, the smell of books was ingrained in my brain, and reading became one of my favorite things. And writing also became something I loved. Other than that, I enjoy acting and singing. I’m also trying to get myself to have more hobbies. Currently, I’m trying to learn some music theory and hopefully compose some music.

(The last two photos are from when I was lucky enough to travel to a few places I’ve always wanted to visit. The first one is the Temple of Poseidon in Greece, and the second was in Amsterdam at the Van Gogh Museum. As you can tell, I was extremely excited to see Van Gogh’s paintings in person because he is one of my favorite artists. [Along with Caravaggio who I also got to see some of his works in person.])

“The Library of Babel” Borges

Posted on by
1

Jorge Luis Borges’, “The Library of Babel”, took me a couple reads to grasp. In the “indefinite and perhaps infinite” Library, what stood out to me was the importance, and vastness, of language. The Librarians struggle with the “formless and chaotic nature of almost all the books… for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences” (Borges, 2). When all possible combinations exist, the incoherent outnumbers the coherent. Borges’ Librarians specifically struggle with deciphering books that may use recognizable words, but form illogical sentences with seemingly no meaning. While some Librarian’s believe the majority of the books to be nonsense, the narrator argues that there is not a “single example of absolute nonsense”, instead, “in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and last system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define it have another value” (Borges, 8). In an indefinite library, and here on Earth, language and etymologies are constantly evolving, and just because you can read the words, does not equal comprehension: “You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?” (Borges, 8). While some Librarians write off books they deem as nonsense, Borges recognizes that language is not static, but constantly evolving. 

Mystics in the Library

Posted on by
Reply

“The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species — the unique species — is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.”

This paragraph comes just before the end of “The Library of Babel” by Borges. Throughout the story, this narrator presents his experience of the Library straightforward and factually. He acknowledges the existence of other views (the mystics, the “impious”), but he dismisses them.

“The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God” (2).

“The impious maintain that nonsense is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble and pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak (I know) of the `feverish Library whose chance volumes are constantly in danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse everything like a delirious divinity'” (6-7).

I, however, am a firm believer in the constantly-changing nonsensical library and the circular chamber (I, myself, have seen the god-book. It was torus-shaped.). Clearly, I’m a mystic. I could say I’ve been a mystic my whole life. Ironically though, I only felt comfortable calling myself a mystic since reading William James’ lectures on mystical experience. James was one of the first scholars of religion as a social phenomenon. He qualified “real” mystical experiences. After reading his qualifications, I realized I’d had real mystical experiences before.

But who was William James to decide what makes a mystical experience real or not? And who is this “man of the library” to decide what parts of the library are real or not? He’s not the “Man of the Book” (6). He’s just another wanderer. And what good has his wandering done? “In adventures such as these,” he says, “I have squandered and wasted my years” (6). Going back to that penultimate paragraph, the narrator looks back at the living world. He laments those who worship books but can’t read them. What about those who can read but cannot fully understand?

Isn’t that all of us? What human can read something and fully understand all the nuances and connections to other texts, events, people, memories? I can’t even remember all of the individual influences that come together to help me create a new piece of writing. But that’s sort of a creative dream of mine: a hypertext that manages to connect everything. Like Marino’s Marginalia, but nothing not highlighted. Highlights on highlights. Infinite footnotes. “It does not seem unlikely to me that there is a total book on some shelf of the universe” (6). I agree that it could exist. I wish I could create it.

But what would be the point? All of the connections that I could make are not all of the connections that could be made. It would need to be something that EVERYONE took part in creating. And at that point, I’m just creating The Universe. The book that this peregrine is looking for is the entirety of the library.

“I pray to the unknown gods that a man — just one, even though it were thousands of years ago! — may have examined and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified” (6).

From one wandering mystic to another… You are that One. You’re examining and reading the book right now. And you’re also writing it. This is the book. “Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry,” are the book. “suicides, more and more frequent with the years,” are the book. The humans, about to be extinguished (in 1941. Plenty of reason to think that in 1941.) are the book. It’s the whole thing.

Alexis Curtis: The Pilot Episode

Posted on by
1

Hello all!

My name is Alexis. I’m a senior here at State, and a transfer student who attended Palomar College. I’m a fellow English major, with a minor in digital and social media studies. I’m looking forward to working with and getting to know you all this semester! I love books, and I think I love books because the represent opportunity. The opportunity of literacy & education, as well as the opportunity to dream.

I am a native to San Diego County, but I lived in Berkeley for a year. I’ll be back someday. I am a nerd, and am very into video games (HZD:FW & FFXV are my #1s), comics (Damian Wayne is the best Robin), YouTube (My favorite Youtuber ChilledChaos streamed Undertale once and I ditched my final to go watch, yes I failed the class, yes I was already failing at that point.), and anime (Fairy Tail and Yu Yu Hakusho are the best!). I’m thinking about trying out for SDSU’s Marvel Rivals team! I used to be obsessed with the game, but I have poor internet at my parents’ house which made it so I didn’t play over the summer. I tried to play a round when I moved back to campus, but I am, in fact, washed. I don’t think I’ll make the team, but that doesn’t mean that the experience wouldn’t be worth it. In rapidfire mode, I love movies, cooking, the color green, and the ocean. I hate the Joker, weather below 75 degrees, raw meat, and I am terrified of tomorrows.

Here’s a picture of me at Griffith Observatory in July. It’s blurry, as I had to screenshot the original photo as the file was too big 🙁 . It was a hike to get there, so the flats and sweater combo in the Los Angeles heat was absolutely not the vibe. I liked the outfit though, so that’s all that matters. 😘

The Introduction of Delinda Souksavath

Posted on by
1

Hello! My name is Delinda Souksavath, 21 years old. I am currently an undergraduate student, majoring in English and Comparative Literature. What I hope to do with my education is to become an author. I was born and raised in San Diego, but my parents both come from Laos and immigrated. My mother was a student at SDSU but never got to finish her education, so I am also kind of going to school for her as well.

My hobbies consist of writing the stories I have stuck in my head, taking dance classes, going to the gym, cooking, and playing video games. I currently am obsessed with the game Peak, but I also like playing Marvel Rivals and Minecraft. I honestly like playing video games with friends more than by myself, I feel if I play by myself I kind of go crazy talking to myself.

My relationship with books has been very interesting, as funnily enough, I hated books and reading as a kid. I was a lot slower at learning than the other kids, which reflected in my reading comprehension skills and it frustrated little old me at the time. I had thought reading was no fun, until I discovered A Series of Unfortunate Events and it introduced me to the fiction genre. After that, I got sucked in. After finishing that, I read more of Lemony Snicket’s work and once I went through those I branched out to other books. Now, I love books and reading. With this class, I hope to expand my mind about books as a whole and what they do to our society and the impact they have!

Introduction: JJ

Posted on by
2

Hi all! My name is JJ. My family is from Iran but I was born in Australia and we all moved to the US when I was one (so no Australian accent unfortunately). I am a first year MALAS (Masters in Liberal Arts and Sciences) student and I graduated from SDSU last semester as an interdisciplinary studies major with a minor in philosophy. I love learning about how everything is related with each other and strongly believe nothing is produced in complete isolation.

I love social theory and hope to become a sociology professor one day. Dr. Choi in the sociology department has been a major influence in the way I think. I am interested in (but know embarrassingly little) about Postmodernism. I am considering writing my thesis regarding the social construction of reality and what it means to have “invisible” (non-linguistically defined) experiences.

I currently work as an A/V technician for the Student Union. I love the job because, simply said, it’s a lot of fun. Being behind the scenes and working with fancy equipment on major events as a student feels like a huge privilege. I also work as a Gen S instructor for first year students living on campus. This is my first semester so it is a very new job to me but so far I’m really enjoying it!

On the side, I love to cook. My favorite thing to cook is steak but I love making intricate salads as well. One of my favorite parts of cooking is looking at what’s in the fridge and figuring out how to make something that tastes great–kind of like an episode of master chef.

I am really looking forward to this class because I love learning about context. I know very little about books as a concept and am excited to learn more about it!