Review: The Library of Babel

The Library of Babel by Jorge Luis Borges
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

It's a very imaginative and metaphysical and philosophical work. The story itself, on the face value is very short and not very intriguing. But it can be discussed in various levels. While reading it reminded me of many aspects of our lives. At one point a book with repeating characters MVC reminded me of the DNA, with the combination seemingly random meaningless but as a whole it carries a lot information about a the being in question. It also subtly tells the stupid things we do in the quest of finding some superior figure that makes sense. Humans throughout the history had sought such messiah figures, and anointed greatness to them and engaged in bloody violence for the same. The wicked part is, the author does this without offending either party, the one who believes and even the ones who don't, despite using terms like 'blasphemous sect'. The text is surprisingly mathematical as well, I mean the concepts. Any solid as a collection of infinite planes, wow. So on point. Somehow it also reminded me of string theory.

It deserves praise for the amount of discussion it can ignite. A truly philosophical work. And for this same reason, I think, I'd appreciate it better in my later years than I do now.

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