Did you ever read one of those storybooks when you were younger that let you choose your own story and shape your own ending? I remember feeling so intense while reading those, like the decisions I made actually mattered––like my story was real. While reading two works of fiction this week, The Library of Babel and The Garden of Forking Paths (both by Jorge Luis Borges), I thought of those stories. Though Borges’s work is certainly targeted for an older audience than that of those children’s books––for me, the concept was the same. In The Library of Babel, he describes a truly infinite library which, somewhere in all its vastness, holds the secrets and knowledge to all things. In the beginning, the narrator says:
“When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. 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.”
Similarly, in The Garden of Forking Paths, Borges’s writes about a spy for Germany in WWI who reflects upon both the unfinished novel and elusive labyrinth that were created by his ancestor, a man who was murdered before his projects were complete. A new friend, Dr. Albert, helps him realize that the novel and the labyrinth are one and the same: a metaphor for a universe in which time is not linear and the outcomes of our choices are infinite––a universe that the author believes is our universe. In a moment of illustration and foreshadowing, the spy and the doctor say to one another:
“In every [timeline],” I pronounced, not without a tremble to my voice, “I am grateful to you and revere you for your re-creation of the garden of Ts’ui´Pên.”
“Not in all,” he murmured with a smile. “Time forks perpetually toward innumerable futures. In one of them I am your enemy.”
So, without completely retelling his stories (which are complex and involve a good bit of thinking), I’ll get to the theme I took from them: Our lives are not one-dimensional. We do not simply choose our path, we create it. The outcomes of the choices we make are limitless.
Now, in terms of modern day relevance and discussion (say, for a Multimedia English class or something) I suppose the ideas Borges throws out can be compared to technology, or the internet in particular. The web is a lot like the infinite timelines Borges speaks of. He creates a wonderful example of interactive fiction, whereas the internet also includes interactive non-fiction. Through searches and links (etc. etc. etc.) we create a storyline on the web that branches infinitely to other pages. We are creating a source of infinite knowledge.
Still, another thing that stuck with me was the seemingly tragic end to both stories. In Babel, humankind goes mad when faced with the reality of endless data. And in Forking Paths, the protagonist is forced to murder his new friend after his own enlightenment, and is then sentenced to death himself. Perhaps this is a warning to the dangers of creating something truly infinite. Perhaps the knowledge accessible to us should not be greater than what we can collectively understand. It should not be greater than us. Albert Einstein once said, “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe.” I hear that he was a pretty smart man.
