The Library of Babel

Though the consensus among librarians is that the Library is not infinite, it is nevertheless so vast that no one has ever located its boundaries. The librarian who writes the story finds the existence of such boundaries unimaginable, preferring instead to believe that the finite Library repeats itself infinitely. The concept of infinity is closely associated with the divine throughout the story: Because the Library’s actual dimensions are unknowable—and because even if it were infinite, this could never be proven—the tantalizing and terrifying possibility of infinity operates as a stand-in for God.

From the perspective of any individual inhabitant, the Library gives every appearance of being infinite: The spiral staircases extend upward and downward to the vanishing point, and the identical interlocking hexagonal chambers are so numerous that it’s possible to wander among them for entire lifetimes without ever reaching a boundary. Even the funeral practices of the librarians signify the theological status of the infinite: Bodies are ritually thrown over the railing to be slowly disintegrated by the wind in the course of their infinite (or only unfathomably long) fall. In this way, the shaft through which the body falls becomes a literalization of the void, the infinite non-being that follows death.