Abstract

“Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them...well, I have others.”Groucho MarxWe  also  know  of  another  superstition  of  that  time:  that  of  the  Man  of  the  Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has  gone  through  it  and  he  is  analogous  to  a  god.  ...  How  could  one  locate  the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? 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.2

J.L. Borges, The Library of Babel