The Infinite Library

by Kane X Faucher

  “Mr. Setzer—”

  “Call me Anton. My home is too small for formalities.”

  “Anton, I have to admit to feeling foolish harassing you in this way. I am not predisposed by nature to stalking people to their front door.”

  “Think nothing of it. I trust you are not… dangerous. I can tell curiousity from psychosis rather easily, although in our line of work that can sometimes be a very fine line.”

  “I have come seeking answers. You see, I am vastly troubled by this Library…”

  “And so you have come here. Let me guess: your mysterious employer will not yield straightforward answers, you think to go to his rival to attain satisfaction. I wish I could tell you that the matter you are inquiring about is not very difficult to translate into simpler, more direct terms. It demands the impossible upon the minds of men; namely, to conceive of the infinite. Anyone who contemplates the eternal and the infinite flirts with a very special kind of madness. Some, like our dear historical precedents among touched monks in the throes of medieval lore, have attained to the heights of ecstasy. Are you familiar with the state of ekstasis?”

  “Vaguely. It is a transportation up toward the divine.”

  “Something like that, but there is much more to it. Sometimes called the fourth, and highest, level of reading beyond the literal, metaphorical, and allegorical, it actually lifts the being out of time for a brief period. There is, in the ecstatic man, no sense of past or future, for it is all nested within the present… an infinite present where all things that have been or will be are happening simultaneously. It is not that ecstasy stops the clock, but that it is the clock with its hands pointing to every point along its diameter. A solid and complete temporality. Time as total. We who are cursed to drag the past across that thin splinter moment of the present with our eyes focused on the future are not capable of seeing time as a whole except the rare few of us, and even then just for a short time.”

  “If this state of ecstasy is achievable, then would not time be progressing in that exact same way?”

  “I don't quire follow.”

  “For the person who is in ecstasy, outside of time. I mean, would there not be a sense in oneself of a past and future as distinct from that present moment of ecstasy one experiences? For, if I were in that state of ecstasy, I'd be able to detect the forward motion of time in that total time space.”

  “Your conception of time is so commonly spatial. I'm sorry: that was rude of me. What I mean to say is that time is continuum and flow as much as it is already given as happened. The clocks on the wall, the calendar in the office, the day planner in your briefcase, the watch on your wrist, and the special events that mark the passing of otherwise arbitrary moments in time, are all just means of cutting time into understandable units for measurement and planning. Just so many ways that we try to carve the sea, and not what time really is.”

  “I don’t mean to sound impatient, but could you make the relation clear for me, what bearing this has on the Library?”

  “You will be impatient. It is the nature of hunger. You are famished for an answer, and so will want to eat the food before it is cooked. Very well. My point is that space and time are not so distinct or even similar as we would think they are. We ritually spatialize time or temporalize space… The angular degree on my clock suggests that it is nine hours after midday. It takes me five minutes to walk to the store and purchase fresh oranges. Einstein says that if we travel at the speed of light, time stops for us relative to everything that is moving slower in space. All of this is wrong. These are convenient ways to rationalize what cannot be apprehended by minds that are subject to the laws of space and time. The philosopher Kant was the closest in this regard before botching it all up when he said that space and time are the transcendental lenses with which we see the world. In a way, he was right. We are condemned by our weak rational faculties to see the world in this kludge of space and time. Space, like time, is infinite. The atomists knew this, and Nietzsche would later repeat that if time was infinite, and the purpose of the universe is to attain perfection, then it would have already happened ipso facto.”

  “So, if I understand rightly, the Library is an infinite place residing in infinite time which is whole because it is not past or future, but the total present. Is this right?”

  “You are getting warmer. But I must here toss in the real brain-twister: what of two spaces that are infinite?”

  “Well, if space is full and total in encompassing everything, and if it is infinite, how could there be a second space? That would suggest a second container, and something would have to contain them both. Would that be time?”

  “You are grasping. First you put forth the Aristotelian objection to infinite space, and then you mess it all up by adding another element you don’t understand to explain the first term you failed to comprehend. It is too often the case that the philosopher will attribute what cannot be understood to some convenient term that cannot be explained – like God, world, time, infinity – and declare his work done, at the terminus of explanation. This is a problem with the currency of philosophy: it doesn't exchange well even between two philosophers. All their words carry the affliction of ordinary language, which is highly particular and ambiguous.”

  I hardly wanted to get into a discussion of linguistic relativism. “But what of this idea of two infinite spaces?”

  “Well, there is a simple way of explaining that. If you believe a line is a space, for example, and you have two parallel lines extending infinitely, there you have two infinite spaces. But, I suppose you want something a little bit more relevant to the topic, more concrete as it pertains to the Library. It goes something like this: Castellemare does not hold a monopoly on the infinite. The infinite can be produced, even if it is allegedly prefigured in his vast Library. Come this way and I will show you.”

  Setzer led me down a dimly lit hallway and opened a large door to an impossibility.

  “Are you familiar with the term, ‘tesseract’?” he asked me.

  “No.”

  “In physics, it is an impossible space, a speculative thing. In essence, a tesseract is a space that is bigger than its container. I have been fortunate to create such a space. Follow me.”

  There was something “workshoppish” about the space. Old books lay upon modified sawhorses and benches in various states of binding repair... or so I assumed; either books were being mended or broken apart. It was an inconspicuous front for what would follow. He led me to a large alcove wherein were three recessed doors--one with a carved ‘A’ in bold Roman type, and the others ‘B’ and ‘C’.

  “What’s in here?” I asked.

  “Which?… Ah! These doors! Well, let me preface by saying that an infinite library must be in constant formation, infinite at both ends, infinite in its making and unmaking. Books are made here in room A,” he explained with animated hand gestures, in the whimsical mode of a lecturer enamoured with his own subject of discussion. He looked the part of a marionette of a mad god.

  “What kind of books?”

  “We have a veritable arsenal of machines - very sophisticated, you understand, and I wouldn’t want to bore you with details even I do not fully grasp since I leave that to my team of technicians. Anyhow, this room, which is quite vast, has the sole purpose of completing novels.”

  “So, it is a writing machine?”

  “Of sorts. You see, it finishes all the novels every author who has ever lived has ever abandoned due to indolence, neglect, or premature death. The machines are endowed with a kind of language parser that keeps the entire author’s corpus in its memory, and continues the literary thread. Every author has a kind of fingerprint which identifies him or her. Every author has a limitation on their vocabulary, will stylistically employ certain words in relation, and reiterate the same themes. Every author has but one megatext, and multiple works are just slices of it. So, here are the machines that finish every author's megatext. Spinning away! More tales!”

/>   “But if Castellemare’s Library is infinite, would it not already house those works in its infinite possibility?”

  “For sure, yes, of course! But… there is a different reason for this… Never mind! Did you know it also finishes books by authors who never lived? Okay, well, moving right along… room B… Beyond this door is an incalculably vast warehouse wherein are housed every novel that remained unfinished by readers. You never know what gem lies in those many novels you began, but never finished! I am not particularly fond of this room, however, since it says something awful about you people. So, finally, room C is my absolute favourite: it houses the most stupendous invention of all time… The Anonymizer!”

  “The name seems to announce its function.”

  “Doesn’t it?” he said with a face beaming with sallow, perspiring lunacy. There was now no trace of the mild and dusty man I had met only hours ago. Instead, he was being overtaken by rapid animation. “It’s a swell room! A conveyor belt feeds into this room from the library and into the Anonymizer to… make all the works anonymous.”

  “What purpose does that serve?”

  “I’m a bit hurt and perplexed by this seemingly dismissive and irreverent question. What library can call itself complete without anonymous works?”

  I was beginning to think better of questioning for what passed for Setzer’s logic. I could not grasp any real, single purpose to this entire enterprise. The more information I received about this brand of infinite library, the more the questions multiplied. He must have suffered a setback after being fired.

  As if reading my thoughts, “the bifurcation of the question is one of the most precious blooms of an infinite library. For what is knowledge - and non-knowledge, outright falsehoods, myths and facts - but that feeling of realizing more of what one does not know?”

  “But this place is not so much infinite as an attempt to construct the infinite through machinic artifice.”

  “Gimaldi, I would tell you my so-called master plan, but that would be to ask you to be disloyal to your employer. One cannot work for two masters. It simply is not done. I’ve already compromised myself considerably in showing you this much.”

  “I appreciate that. But now I must admit a ferocious curiousity for what you call your master plan.”

  “Ah, I am so weak to requests since I am accommodating by nature, to a fault. I suppose it would make no difference if Castellemare knew. He probably already does and sees it as no real threat. Simply put, I am in the process of overproduction. I know for every book produced here, it repeats in the infinite Library. I have a formula that proves these books do not already reside in his holdings. I have discovered the secret of creating the new. I know how to produce those things that exist outside totality. His Library will absorb these, and this will cause a violent displacement effect. Simply, it means that by bucking the logical apparatus of his Library, I push more of the books through that rift and into the real where people like you need to reacquire them. I’m overstuffing the machine beyond its capacity. I'm also ensuring that you'll always have work,” he added with a wink. “Besides, what is this talk of artifice? Against what? The natural? Be a bit more baroque and play with the border between the two a bit more.”

  “So you are trying to make things more difficult for Castellemare? Why?”

  “Because, my friend, it amuses me. Whereas I could have stayed mired in these terribly maddening questions of the infinite like yourself and feel that there is no point to production of any text, I have learned the hardest lesson: the need and importance of play. What can one do in the face of such an impossible infinity but laugh and find ways to tweak it, to have some degree of mastery? I restore control over the endless flux by following a deviant logic. To the domain of order I introduce the clinamen of chaos. Oh, it isn’t enough to collapse order, but I put it through its paces. Of what interest is a logic and a reality that goes untested? Yes, I am playing with Castellemare.”

  “Do you think he knows?”

  “He must. He can barely keep up with the number of texts that have been displaced. I am sure it gives him a headache. He is desperate for more reliable employees. That desperation makes him seek far and wide and lower the criteria. No offence, but you aren’t his ideal candidate.”

  “None taken. I have no basis for comparison beyond Angelo. But don’t you worry that this will increase the chances that one of those dangerous texts may be discovered by those not familiar with the Library? Would that not cause untold chaos?”

  “A storm in a teacup. You scholars amuse me, amplifying the importance of your station and that of knowledge. The world will not be thrown on its ear if something is discovered. It may just be perceived as a fraud anyway, or relegated to the pile of so many other unsolved puzzles for the academic to dicker with. Do you really stand by the arrogant assumption that bizarre knowledge and contradiction actually means anything to the world? When two-thirds of the world does not have clean running water, I really don’t think a newly discovered version of Revelations is going to have any impact. At best, it will have people scratching their heads for a little while, and only a small percentage of them at that. The wars, famine, television shows, and the mass production of novelty key chains will continue unaffected. Keep all of this in its proper perspective. Reading is the domain of the shrinking few. You could tell a crowded bus station of people that Hitler died in 1965 in Stockholm after losing the Crimean War and you will barely find a small pocket of people who would disagree. Do you really think a book that would substantiate that view would make much of an impression on those that simply do not know history? And if it were written by some breast-enhanced celebrity, then it would be taken in without question.”

  “That’s a pretty cynical view.”

  “A dog’s bark is not as real as its bite. I like to think that this is the real view.”

  “Then I don’t really understand Castellemare’s desperation.”

  “He overworks himself. He makes the fallacious error of illicit importance. He is afflicted with the mania that comes with the position of Librarian. Books have a curious effect on those with certain predispositions to fall into obsession. I know what his affliction truly belies: the absolute meaninglessness of his entire Library. To have everything is to know nothing. Too much information is no information at all. Endless disputes, contradictions, and the like is a kind of truth, but never a solid and singular Truth. For all his infinite books, and mine, there may as well just be one: it is all chimera. The Truth is unattainable. It is constructed.”

  “Isn’t that a rather nihilistic viewpoint to hold?”

  “Submit to the view that truth is attainable and you suffer the worst kind of nihilism. When it comes to light that your found truth is so paltry, arbitrary, an infinitesimal piece of a puzzle of so many truths, and then you realize that your efforts were for naught. Embrace the reality that truth cannot be acquired by one or many hands, and you begin to feel… free, no longer chained to the ballast of a lone ship tossing restlessly upon a sea that knows or cares not for your version of truth. Even a sailor knows that the sea speaks the truth where the ship is but a small and inconsequential interloper enfolded within the force of waves and currents. I should stop speaking in nautical metaphors. Anyway, what is the value of all that 'information' in the Library?”

  I tried to crunch up a response, but he beat me to it: “Information that is immortal, eternal, is always present has no value whatsoever. The sum total of knowledge, especially if it is eternal, is zip. Remember that there is no past or future in ecstatic time: only all of time in the present. This means everything that is knowable exists in that state, and its value is nil. What would give information value? That is the next project! Information decay. But how is that possible if there is no past or future? Ah, but I lied! There is: the irreversible arrow of time! Anyway... I must allow you to make your departure; it is late for me and I feel fatigued. Thank you for stopping by. Hopefully I was able to shed some light on some of your
nagging problems. If not, well,” and he shrugged.

  Setzer escorted me from the workshop and to the front entrance. It seemed somewhat an abrupt ending for his giving forth on the topic of infinity and truth.

  “Remember, Gimaldi,” he said in parting. “All the books may as well be just one. All of it, chimera. Wisps of smoke. Fabulations and mirages. Safe journey. We may meet again, but I doubt it, and hopefully not too soon. Everything is a portent, a prognostic sign!”

  With that he closed his door and I was left numbly in the hallway pacing slowly away, processing all that I had heard and seen. But if what he said held true, and he was dedicated to displacing more books out of the Library, why was I not being tapped for more work? There was something unsettling about Setzer's answers to me. It seemed as though, in some way, he found the idea of an infinite Library a grotesque misunderstanding. In fact, there were shades of W.O. Quine in what he said, although Quine was far more coherent. In Quine's assessment of Borges' Library of Babel, he reasoned that the library was finite and could be reproduced in a matter of seconds by simply writing a dot on one page and a dash on the other, reproducing the entire contents by Morse code. But then couldn't the same be said of writing out the alphabet and simply saying that the rearrangement of the letters would produce every possible variation?

  The visit with Setzer was perplexing, and I had no reliable way of testing whether or not he was mad.

  6

  Shelving Duties

  Castellemare had sent me a plane ticket in my brief absence with a letter attached:

  Gimaldi,

  I promised long ago that you would also be serving in the Library, and I have been remiss to make good on my promise. I require you to meet me in Paris - that lovely city of intrigue and luxuriant living of the wondrous otium and rebellious streak - to assist me in the reshelving of books. It is a tiresome labour, I am afraid, and not as thrilling as going on the wild goose chase for slipped books, but I am sure you will find the task suitable to your taste. I will, of course, have to train you in the particulars of how the books are catalogued according to a rather strict and inflexible order. You may as well be apprised of the full range of your duties, and this is one of them.