The Library of Babel as a Search for Meaning

    Who is the narrator in "The Library of Babel" and why is he writing this note? It seems that he has traveled far and wide searching for meaning in the library, and wants to pass on all he has learned in the hope of someone in the future finding meaning. His large exploration of the library and inquiry into its nature for meaning shows that he is very concerned with the meaning of life and the universe (although there is not much else for him to do, it seems). But why would Borges consider such a strange setting to give this tale? I think it is because the absurd nature of the universe in the story, and especially its randomness, is meant to convey that our universe is chaotic in nature and that learning anything from its very structure is not necessarily possible. The books, after all, are not necessarily written by a person, but rather are simply a component of the universe and do not convey much information. Why should we expect that they contain any information other than the fact that they are books, which could be mere coincidence? Additionally, many of the propositions given by other librarians on how to go about finding knowledge from the books are merely nonsense. For instance, one librarian suggests that in order to find one book, you could consult another book, and to find that one, another book--infinitely. But this infinite recursion makes no sense because there is no base case; there is no where to start unless you already started an infinite period of time in the past, which is nonsense. These elements imply that the librarians are obsessed with finding meaning to the point that they will create it even if it does not exist.

     It seems to me that the meaning of the story is simply that everyone will create their own meanings from the inherent structure of the world, but that none of them are necessarily correct or can be proven. The narrator is of the belief that the library is infinite and periodic, but others disagree, and there seems to be no hard evidence in the story to support his claim. Even if he is correct, I do not see how this would allow a person to gain information about the library by traversing this vast distance. After all, they would just see the same books they had already seen. The only hope he can have is that they will find some kind of "order", with the additional, small requirement that this be an "eternal voyager".