The first blog entry into the obscure - my interpretation (initial notation)

06/01/2014

Blog entry 1:

 As I am beginning my Master of design course in illustration on the 20th January, I have begun looking at the breif I am to follow this semester. The work the group shall create during this semester will be based on a short story The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges. Now that I have read the book I feel that it would only be proper to explore the possible meaning behind this particular story, starting with my own interpretation of this obscure and suggestive short story. Before I can create successful visual communication for a story such as this I need to strive to understand it as much as possible.

Extra reading The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges can be accessed through the following link:

 http://www.thecriticalpoint.net/index_files/libraryofbabel.pdf
(Borges, 1944)

Notation on my interpretation of The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges:

• Narrators own interpretation - The narrator is a character that Borges has created who has his own thoughts, feelings and prejudices, the readers interpretation can not only be based on what is described, but on what said character feels, witnesses and believes.

• Philosophical

• Religious

• The library's content could perhaps be times journals - history of man kind - As if a scribe has been writing different world events since the dawn of time.

•   The crimson hexagon is god is an essence of energy a divine set of books or book which is god or would make one divine?

• Man attempts to perceive times journals - as does the narrator but cannot fully comprehend what is there

• The bible not being whole as the library once was

• Records lost book burnings & Seizures

• Only take areas you want to believe - People only take areas of holy books they want to believe or they only believe areas to be true, which is why there is such diversity of certain religions, such as Christianity.

• 30 volumes along 5 hexagons different perceptions of certain times? The Torah -5 books of Moses - Jews, Christians, Muslims and others  

• A book Portuguese close to Arabic or Yiddish - Latin - Reference to Qur'an potentially

•  The library is made up of hexagons:
• Beginning hexagons 6 - 
• 666 everlasting sign of devil? However number of beast could be a hidden message or incorrect
• Star of David hexagon is a template 
• Hexacle star - Star of David Hebrew symbolism combination of other symbols -Very little 6 is referred to religiously

• Fruits as lamps:
• The two trees in the garden of Eden
• Food of the gods were supposed to be gold visible in the darkness
• Fruit of life the glow at the end of trials
• Golden apples Greek reference atlas ended up lifting earth mythology

• Interpreted in different ways because no flow there is little structure other than simply there are catalogs of the books in the hexagons

• The crimson hexagon a heaven? Smaller books inside?

• Verbose empty words, much like his own? Empty words pointlessness

• The narrator could be intended to be portrayed as an anti-theist as he read into the books as empty words? Was he trying to be objective - due to the time the book was written would Borges have had to be obscure if he wanted to talk about atheism?
• I intend to find out more about the time the piece was written

• Was not on board fully with idealists? The narrator seems to be rather skeptic about certain ideals.

• Deductive or inductive? It is difficult to deduce what the narrator intends to portray or work out by describing the "Library" and its events.

• Mentioned more concepts without questioning such could have been rambling of his memories - does he intend to question the ideals of others?

• His "hell" may have been created by his deduction of pointlessness

• The librarian who found the crimson hexagon never found was he made divine? Does this man represent a prophet or someone that found divinity through travel, as Jesus is suggested to have by wandering the wilderness for 40 days and 40 nights: Extra reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temptation_of_Christ (Wikipedia, 2013)

• The circular room thought of as a deity possibly whereas others perceive the red room to be everyone with similar yet conflicting ideals? 
• Jehovah's witness believe God is an orb yet there is not doctrinal proof, is this why the narrator more freely dismisses the circular room than the red room?

• A mans inability to understand the narrator struggled to understand - we live in this world/ universe but we do not fully comprehend why or how.

• The library is the term for the universe - astronomy? Gods that have planetary names - The cosmos the universe gods? Deities reside within planets we reside upon a deity

• Refers to human race as only race - does this suggest the story is set in a time in the future where animals apart from humans are extinct or does it suggest that humans are the only species with the capability to ponder why we are her?

• Piece written 1940s - I feel to understand better the circumstances and social environment around the time this was written, will help me to better understand was Borges may have been suggesting, so I shall dedicate my next blog entry to this.

• One sleeps upright when one is hanging from a noose? Suicide booths in which people would hang themselves? This in itself suggests an atmosphere of impending despair - potentially when people are searching for answers they cannot comprehend.
•  Two tiny compartments 
• Physical necessities
• Nourishment
• Toilet
• Sex
• Exercise
• Water closets? In book

• Pilgrimages -Ancient civilized traditions
• To places such as mecca religious places spiritual
• Missing stairs risking lived

• Narrator born a few leagues from the hexagon he prepares to die, the library is life? Is everything engulfs everything

• The library is a sphere like a planet? Or an orb?

• Black letters? 
• The letters on the front of each book do not tell the reader what is inside they do not in essence act as a blurb or title
• The "organic" letters are of god the "scrawl" of man on the covers? Is this why the covers do not comprehend the inside?

• Man is the imperfect librarian - god is the perfect librarian? 
• Or the full human? The full human is a theory suggested by Leone Ebreo in his 'Dialogues of love' -This theory suggests that Adam the first man, before Eve was created from his rib was the full human with both masculine and feminine traits and created in the image of God. Extra reading: An interesting blog entry on the subject of androgyny and how  renaissance artists may have strived to suggest the full human by Jill Burke, which I studied for my extended essay
• http://renresearch.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/men-with-breasts2/
  (Burke, 2011)
• Literal man not women or man as in human?

• O time thy pyramids -Could this phrase be linked most obviously to the ancient Egyptian structures? The Egyptian pyramids are one of the worlds conundrums due to their creation being supposedly an impossible feat for the tools and means these ancient people possessed. Is Borges giving a more solid insight into the sort of questions that are asked and researched but never fully answered in the "Library"?

•   Verbal nonsense and incoherency for every rational line or forthright statement

• 25 natural symbols referring to the alphabet

• Ancient peoples the first librarians may have written the impenetrable books? Or were they keepers of books?

• Codes?

• Books referred to as in order but jumbled as if the means to decipher them is out of reach

• In all the library there are no 2 identical books so library is whole, perfect, complete like god?

• Autobiographies of the arch angels they wrote themselves - this is interesting because it seems to suggest heaven, but could the arch angels Borges' narrator speaks of be famous people or people who are perceived as angelic due to their knowledge - such as Da vinci and Galileo - could the library suggests knowledge as divine, so those who were reveled for having a great knowledge are perceived as higher beings or angels?

• False catalogs like false statements in the bible? False gospels? 
• Proof of falsity of the true catalog, the gnostic gospel
• This gospel is known to speak of Mary Magdalene and other such things did the church wish to prove a true gospel false? 
• Is this meant to suggest the gnostic gospel is true it is written in an obscure fashion to suggest such or is it merely in a list format - was this written in this format in order to get people to think?

• There was originally joy at the perfect whole but then people wanted to know their vindication from a book or books about everyone's lives through "greed" the abandoned their native hexagons, homes? Countries? 
• Called themselves pilgrims looking for this answer
• "Strangled one another on divine stair cases" - heaven?
• A comment on how mans greed ruined the perfect world?
• A comment on mans need to vindicate himself?
• There is no chance of a man finding his own vindication

• "They threw deceiving volumes down ventilation shafts", therefore loosing bits of truth or history, men ruined their own history?

• People wanted to find out more the mysteries of mankind or the origin of the library/ universe - a squabble religious people have had forever

• Official searchers for the profound texts called inquisitors- a religious word or a word meaning questioner? Steps missing nearly died 
• No one hopes to find anything- a soul destroying task?

• One blasphemous sect proposed that the searches be discontinued- atheist or opposing religion? 
• The sect disbanded by authorities - the church a reference to the aluminate? The church being the authority at the time? Metal discs and a forbidden dice cup feebly mimicking the divine disorder- what are there reference to?- a secret cult? Or people who presume themselves to be that cult? Like neo - paganism?

• Others eliminated what they perceived to be worthless books - a reference to Nazi book burning? They would show credentials that weren't always false- a Nazi credential? An order set to do or someone using a credential as an excuse as suicide bombers use their religion as an excuse? 
• Their name is execrated today- they are loathed - the Nazis execrated because they no longer exist - because of what they are remembered for.

• The Nazis hated the Jews a reference to that?
• The destroyers referred to as the purifiers as the Nazis wanted to purify the world by leaving only the Aryan race?

• The books of the crimson hexagon books smaller than natural books, books omnipotent- all mighty- illustrated and magical -are these books divine? Heaven, god, the garden of Eden? From an illustrators point of view what would seem divine? Renaissance art - religious art - perfect photographic art?

• The book man a god- the librarian that read the book that is the cipher and perfect compendium of all other books- the librarian that is thought of as a god or divine? 
• People searched for him
• Was he a prophet or Jesus?
• People worshiped him that all spoke a certain language- a certain tribe- people that were all of a "zone" a land or tribe perhaps
• How to locate the idolized hexagon that sheltered him
• The narrator of the story searches for him by consulting books to find other books- squandered- thinks a waste of his life? He believes in the man and the divine book he wants someone to have read it he believes it is heaven? He feels he is in Hell because he is unable to find the truth - is not knowing ones fate Hell?
• The library may find its justification as the universe- mans quest to find the meaning of life

• Some believe the library to be nonsense- life is pointless or an accident, scientists or people who believe that life was an accident caused by certain events such as temperature, the composition of atoms that created things such as water, the distance from the sun?

• There is no combination of letters the divine library hasn't foreseen- nothing humans can do that god has not foreseen? 
• Everything is significant or insignificant, the feelings the narrator has are polar opposites constantly conflicting

• The symbol library possesses correct definition in a book everlasting ubiquitous system of hexagonal galleries

• (you read me- are you certain you understand my language?) is this reference to how people say they are of a religion but do not fully comprehend the doctrine? or is this a direct suggestion to the reader to look deeper into the connotations of the short story as a whole?

• The certainty that everything has been written annuls us- makes people pointless no one can do something different- annulment of a wedding makes it not exist because something has not been consummated? Makes it moot are people moot or religion? 
• Renders us phantasmal- ghost like or not real feeling of uselessness?

• People may become extinct but the library/ universe will go on

• The narrator suggests that the source is unlimited but the books are not so they are endlessly repeated in the same disorder which means it becomes order- the order (of god?) 
• He hopes that there is method in the madness order in the disorder

Notation created by myself on my own interpretation of 'The Library of Babel' by Jorge Luis Borges. Links have been added where necessary for further reading on certain areas or subjects.