St John
Jude St John
Dr. Maja Starcevic
AP English Literature and Composition: Love and Death
2 May 2024
The Meaning is in the Search: A Babel Infinity Mirror
“The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries.” The narrating librarian goes on to describe the beautiful and vast world they live in, filled with endless knowledge: each “hexagonal gallery” consists of four bookshelves of five shelves each, amounting to a theoretical total of 29^1312000 books. With a limit of about 1,312,000 characters per book, this library contains all possible combinations of commas, periods, spaces, and twenty-two (lowercase) letters of the alphabet.
In the face of the overwhelming material, groups such as the “Purifiers” have taken to violence and book burning in pursuit of a higher truth. Some are convinced there exists a “Crimson Hexagon” with illustrated texts, while others seek to find a book that serves as a perfect index of all other books in the Library.
What these groups have not considered is the existence of a holy text (a Bible, if you will, displaying the meaning of life) containing wisdom from authors and philosophers in a similar, detached universe. Etched upon this hexagon, in between the bookshelves and vestibules, is the first page from the Bible of Babel, titled “the meaning is in the search.” For ease of readability, the text is shown with full use of the 26 English letters, but no other modifications have been made.
The concept of death and a search for meaning is present throughout this Bible. This piece aims to catalog, in order, each quote on the first page to aid readers' understanding.
The quotes from “sappho of mytilene” and “mikhail bulgakov” touch on the enduring legacy of written texts and those who create them. Separately, “william shakespeare”’s quotes warn the reader against taking action without thought to the consequences: the only way to fight the absurdity of life is to stay alive, and one’s life should not be readily put on the line for a useless aim. “francois marie arouet” perhaps naively posits the existence of a utopia, while “william butler yeats” is less optimistic, displaying the loss of direction in humanity through metaphor. This metaphor reminds the reader to find direction in their actions, rather than aimlessly searching through the texts. Next, two lines are devoted to rhyming phrases by “leonard cohen,” emphasizing the life-changing importance of each word in the Library. The reader is reminded of the fleeting quality of life by “gaius valerius catullus” and then of the importance of purposeful action from “william shakespeare.” “john keats” proposes love as a means of finding solace from the absurdity of life, while a morbid yearning for death presented by “gaius petronius arbiter” is bookended by reminders of the ever-approaching quality of death by “thomas stearns eliot.” “marianne moore” questions the purpose of a search for some single truth—as “daniel kehlmann” describes it, the only truth in life is death. The first page ends with a stark reminder of impermanence from “jorge luis borges,” who some believe to be the Book-Man himself: “know this, in some way youre already dead.”
This etched page is repeated ad infinitum in this display, representing the near-infinite number of books that contain this page across the Library’s over 10^5229 hexagons. As you ponder the quotes presented, keep in mind the endless stories found on the bookshelves to either side.
“By this art you may contemplate the variations of the 23 letters…”