[hmoller]

The Library of Babel
How i interpreted the title is by seeing what was including in it. The two subjects in the title are library and Babel, library being a vast collection of books. Babel according to the dictionary means confusing. Putting them together you get a confusing library which this story mentions as a metaphor for a bigger picture. The metaphor is the world and how it all functions needing all its books also needs order to maintain its stability. The way that the story comments on an organized system is by having a well established order. The way that it organizes this system is by having a numeric order for each and every book, section, shelve, and line. The line that was the most significant to me was “the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal.” I have chosen this because it says that any human is infinitesimal to the library, which means that a human has no real meaning to the bigger aspect that is the world. The connection between these two stories is Funes stored all his memories although they might not be important to us they were necessary to his daily life. The library needs very single book like Funes needs his memories to have their same procedures in order.

[Adam Elkhouly]

@ebarragan

As I was reading through the story I felt the same way as if the librarian was God. I already thought that the library was a metaphor for the universe and that God put people down in their “correct” places and helped to sort out confusion in the world. I agree with you.

[Sheily F.]

As well as, Eliza, the first thing that came to my mind when I read this title was the famous Tower of Babel from the Bible In Genesis 11 where God confused men and gave them different languages so that they couldn’t understand each other and turn away from their purpose to build the tower. That was the beginning of the different languages and spread of people among the regions, biblically speaking. Something that confuses me about this story is that it portraits its metaphor as the library symbolizing the universe, the imperfect librarian symbolizing Men and their power to rule and administer what is in our world; and finally, there is this Cyclical book which represents God. In the meantime, my confusion is that if the librarian is men and God is the book, does this mean that Men is controlling the mighty power of God or using it in some way? If anyone could respond to that I would appreciate it.

However, I have another observation on the Library of Babel. I believe this line in paragraph 7, “This thinker observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are made up of the same elements: the space, period, comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, ” is really interesting in the sense of human culture and relationships. If we analyze this phrase, it means that men not matter how different they might be, or from what background, social status, or what kind of live they might have, we are all unique but made out of the same, we all need the same elements to live, including blood, air, water, etc. and we all learn from each other. This quote further means we come from the same mighty source which is God.

[kevin25valencia]

I think I would like to start this post by comparing both stories to one another. In my opinion they are very similar to each other and I think their central theme is the inability to process a limitless amount of knowledge. In ‘Funes, The Memorius’, Borges introduces us to a young man named Ireneo Fumes. Even from his very first encounter with Fumes, the young man already showed a superior attention to detail and time. After the accident Fumes had, his sense of detail heightened to superhuman levels. We learn quickly, that this was not a blessing but a curse. His superior memory overwhelmed him to a point where he couldn’t have his own personal thoughts without memories clouding his mind. He turned into what we can describe as a machine, with a vast amount of information, but no way to properly access it. Much like the Library of Babel, an extensively large library with all the information in the universe, past, present, and future. Composed of hexagonal sections and books in no particular order, all and any of the information ever needed can be found here. Books were composed of a series of letters and punctuation marks in different order. All possible outcomes of the order of these letters and punctuations were printed into books. Therefore, every possible outcome that can occur in the universe, is recorded and in the library. The information is there, but with so many books, its almost impossible to find what you need.

“He knew that at the hour of his death he would scarcely have finished classifying even all the memories of his childhood.”

Funes had so much information locked in his head, but his effort to process it all is futile, it can be described as a waste. I think the above mentioned quote is very important in the story because it clearly describes what I think is the central theme to both stories. Funes and his knowledge Is like us and out internet. A vast amount of information is given to us through the internet….. At what point in our lives will we be able to process it all? Probably never.

[kevin25valencia]

I agree with those who compare the Library of Babel story to god and religion. Borges’ intentions was for us to do precisely that. Draw comparison between religion and the Library. The title immediately makes us think of the “Tower Of Babel” and I think Borges wants us to keep that in mind as we read the story. I strongly agree with @aelkhouly5716 . What the story describes is the complete opposite of what I can recall of the Tower of Babel. Borges does not describe unity amongst librarians. In fact he talks about certain individuals who go about destroying books they deem useless.

[wandrilleboisset]

FUNES, THE MEMORIOUS
The story of Funes, The Memorious really impacted me, because it told the story that was not true but seemed very possible. It also made me think a lot about how the mind of Funes worked and how his every thought where influenced by memories and therefore he could no longer “think”. This phrase proves a good point that I make to people who want to go to art school, my point is this: People who go to art school end up learning a lot about other people’s work so much that it ends up corrupting the originality of their own work and in the end makes their work unoriginal and less valuable. The story of Funes is a perfect example of this point. I also found it interesting to ponder on how Funes mind worked, I can imagine its huge amount of information and knowledge crammed into his head and how all the different views and arguments must have clamored inside his head making his mind chaotic and taking his ability to think clearly or to think at all.

The library of Babel was a text that I did not find quite as interesting as the story of funds perhaps because I had a harder time understanding or relating to it as I did with Funes, the Memorian. But I did find it interesting how it took different arguments and related to them yet at the same time argued against them; for example the argument on how the library was infinite and the other argument on how the library was actually the definition of finite. I thought both of these points where interesting.

[ftejeda]

In my interpretation of Borges Library of Babel , I think he is actually writing about human complexity’s and the way human organized and classify the world as he quoted “The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries” , there are many example thought out the story that indicates that Borges library is actually the world it self. As I recall reading the same story in the original language it was written (Spanish) I remember that the at first, I also made a connection with “The Tower of Babel” . Borges also discuss religion in this particular story when he quoted “Someone proposed a regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A’s position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to infinity … In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years. I pray to the unknown gods that a man — just one, even though it were thousands of years ago! ” In this part of the story Borges actually discuss his view on religion .This demonstrate that in this particular essay Borges not only analyzed the universe but also discuss human complexity,religion and the way we preserve things.

[julie001]

Funes the memorious
The most important sentence in this story is “I remember him (I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb; only one man on earth deserved the right …” this is the most important sentence because it describes how the whole story takes place. He is giving memory to the one man on earth that has so much memories he can’t create his own. The man, Ireneo Funes life was consumed with an infinite amount of memories and both personal and distant. The way the author describes how he remembers Funes lets you know finally there is a memory of Funes. A memory in which Funes himself couldn’t withhold.
The story Funes the memorious relates to the concept of the archives because Funes himself was a living, breathing archive. He remembered everything since he got hurt. He was a young body with an ancient mind. “Then it was that I saw the face of the voice which had spoken all through the night. Ireneo was nineteen years old; he had been born in 1868; he seemed as monumental as bronze, more ancient than Egypt, anterior to the prophecies and the pyramids.” This concept is on a personal, cultural, and institutional memory. It is personal because it is within Funes it is boiling and constantly growing inside him, it is also cultural because it is happening within an environment and shat he knows and remembers changes the world around him. Now at first I didn’t know if it was an institutional memory then I looked up the word. Institutional memory means a collective set of facts, concepts, and experiences. It is held by a group of people. As it transcends the individual, it requires the ongoing transmission of these memories between members of this group. So if we think of it like all this memory he has grows more and more; facts, feelings, actions, desire, gestures, thoughts, and so on. It also states it has to be within a group so I interpreted it as everyone he touches mentally when he tells them about all he can remember or think of that idea grows. It grows changes and transforms bigger and bigger through a branch of people constantly spreads. I however don’t know id that is one hundred percent correct but that is how I took it as.
The connections I see between Funes and various aspects of digital culture is that we today use pictures, videos, computers, and so on to remember correct, well Funes uses his mind. He creates the same memory with the same amount of lets say gigabits as what we use in technology. The depth his mind goes to we couldn’t comprehend or even begin to start we need that base of technology. So with giving that example I feel that our connection when we look at a photo album we see a vast amount of photos put together well he sees that when he closes his eyes just memories of the day.
What does this story have to say about archives? This story says about achieves is that what we ourselves can’t remember or pass down from generation to generation we have achieves. Pieces of knowledge cultural, personal, and institutional parts of memories from all around the world that helps us remember. They help build on old memories or create new ones. This story also shows that there so much knowledge in the world one can only fantasize or dream of withholding.
Both Library of Babel and Funes the memories are similar because they both refer to mass amount of information that no normal human being can hold in ones mind. To capture all this information you need to be like, Ireneo Funes a “super human.”

[Miguel]

After I studies both titles I concluded one can make much how these two pieces relate as libraries are full of history and even memories of our lives and past lives. In The Library of Babel it seems as the library is the archive of our universe full of every act, emotion, thought of man kind. The following is not the most significant phrase, but definitely the best to support what I consider the most interesting part of this piece “Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways urged on by the vain intention of finding their vindication”. This to me indicates there is no one story in the universes library that can make ones life wrong or right; although some of our memories are similar, they are also imposable to compare and make use of memories of others.
To conclude my post, I agree with Patrick when you say “… without memories their is no advancement in life, everything would always be new,” but to add I believe one must decided what is essential to remember and what’s not. As Funes put it ” I have more memories in myself alone than all men have had sine the world was world…my memory, sir, is like a garbage disposal.”

[Isaias G.]

Funes, the Memorious
This story details Borges visit to Argentina and his three encounters with a peculiar person. To me, this story shows how cruel life can be. On the three encounters that Borges had with the young boy called Funes, we see a glimpse of what goes on in his head. The first time, his mind is shown to so sharp that he is able to tell time flawlessly without any aid. The second time, how observant he is. How active and alive his mind is despite he is not able to walk do to his injury. After their third encounter, Funes true wit is shown. His time spent in bed was not futile, but spent honing his mind. Sadly this all ended before Funes even had a chance to explore it in 1887, only three years after he died. Borges demonstrates this further, by the simple way he states Funes death, a single line, “Ireneo Funes died in 1889, of a pulmonary congestion.” Which is in juxtaposition to the vivid and inventive way, he describes Funes earlier in the story.

Tower of Babel.
This story shows an interpretation of how life is complex. There are so many books (people) that things are all jumbled up. The books are put in shelves, further put into cases, showing how everything in the world is grouped by an outside force, whether by choice or forcibly put there. Some books are deemed worth saving, while others are burned. This is an example of how there is a group of people, that feels the right to choose what group of people will live, what group will die. The word “Babel” means “.A confused noise, typically that made by a number of voices.” (dictionary.com) further shows the complexity of the meaning of this story. Quite possibly, this story has more than just one meaning to it.

[zhik]

Funes the memorious
The most important sentence in the story is “I remember him (I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb; only one man on earth deserved the right …” because it dictates the story. The main character Funes contains a massive amount of memories leading up to the point when he was paralyzed. He is so focused on reconstructing these memories in his head that he does not create new ones, but he creates memories in others. The story directly connects with the concept of archives because Funes himself has a archive of his life in explicit detail in his head. Funes’s connection to digital culture was his ability to capture pictures from his memory in detail like we would today with a digital camera. This story says that mind archives are very for our own use and wont be passed down through our thinking it will be passed through stories like this.
The Library of Babel
My interpretation of the title is that it relates to a holy existence that lays down the foundation of the understanding of life. The library of Babel organizes its books by codes the Brooklyn Historical Society organizes its archives by categories (letters, maps, pictures etc). The most significant phrase in the story is” The Library exists ab aeterno. This truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be placed in doubt by any reasonable mind.” Because it lays out the foundation of how this whole thing is put together and how complex it is to understand it.
These two stories relate to each other because they both model how important archives are and their importance.