LEADER 03468oam 22005174a 450 001 9910315235203321 005 20230621141352.0 010 $a1-947447-51-3 035 $a(CKB)4100000007823971 035 $a(OCoLC)1055396286 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse77037 035 $a(oapen)https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/38922 035 $a(oapen)doab38922 035 $a(EXLCZ)994100000007823971 100 $a20180123d2018 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurm|#---||||| 181 $ctxt$2rdacontent 182 $cc$2rdamedia 183 $acr$2rdacarrier 200 10$aTar for Mortar: "The Library of Babel" and the Dream of Totality$fJonathan Basile 205 $a1st edition. 210 $aBrooklyn, NY$cpunctum books$d2018 210 1$aSanta Barbara, CA :$cPunctum Books,$d2018. 210 4$dİ2018. 215 $a1 online resource (98 pages) $cillustrations; PDF, digital file(s) 311 08$aPrint version: 9781947447509 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references. 330 $aTar for Mortar offers an in-depth exploration of one of literature?s greatest tricksters, Jorge Luis Borges. His short story ?The Library of Babel? is a signature examplar of this playfulness, though not merely for the inverted world it imagines, where a library thought to contain all possible permutations of all letters and words and books is plumbed by pious librarians looking for divinely pre-fabricated truths. One must grapple as well with the irony of Borges?s narration, which undermines at every turn its narrator?s claims of the library?s universality, including the very possibility of exhausting meaning through combinatory processing. Borges directed readers to his non-fiction to discover the true author of the idea of the universal library. But his supposedly historical essays are notoriously riddled with false references and self-contradictions. Whether in truth or in fiction, Borges never reaches a stable conclusion about the atomic premises of the universal library ? is it possible to find a character set capable of expressing all possible meaning, or do these letters, like his stories and essays, divide from themselves in a restless incompletion? While many readers of Borges see him as presaging our digital technologies, they often give too much credit to our inventions in doing so. Those who elide the necessary incompletion of the Library of Babel compare it to the Internet on the assumption that both are total archives of all possible thought and expression. Though Borges?s imaginings lend themselves to digital creativity (libraryofbabel.info is certainly evidence of this), they do so by showing the necessary incompleteness of every totalizing project, no matter how technologically refined. Ultimately, Basile nudges readers toward the idea that a fictional/imaginary exposition can hold a certain power over technology. 606 $aLiterary studies: from c 1900 -$2bicssc 608 $aElectronic books. 610 $aLibrary of Babel 610 $aJorge Luis Borges 610 $atechnology 610 $alibrarianship 610 $adigital humanities 610 $aliterary studies 615 7$aLiterary studies: from c 1900 - 676 $a868.6209 700 $aBasile$b Jonathan$0886190 801 0$bMdBmJHUP 801 1$bMdBmJHUP 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910315235203321 996 $aTar for mortar$91978828 997 $aUNINA