flashboy dot org

The great Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges was obsessed with the perfection of meaning in words – one of the strongest repeated themes throughout his work is of crafting words so precise in meaning that they encompass infinities; and related to that, of the illusions of meaning that are produced by mental groupings and classifications that lie behind all allusion and evocation (see ‘Funes the Memorious’). As such, it is fairly clear that the common work of the translator – of interpreting not just words, but words in cultural contexts and in the light of author’s experiences – is utterly inappropriate for Borges; indeed, it’s implicitly parodied in ‘Pierre Menard, Author of The Quixote’.

It is clear therefore that the only correct manner in which to translate Borges is for it to be done without any attempt to read intention into his writing, without the slightest possibility of subconscious correction for cultural or personal mores. To be explicit, it must be done by a machine.

Therefore, as a tribute to the late master and as a result of being bored yesterday afternoon, allow me to present the first definitive English langauge translation of ‘The Library of Babel’ (as translated by BabelFish).

I think you will agree that the ominous poetry, and the perception of simultaneous familiarity and alienation, that stems from the new readings of lines like

“One allows to sleep of foot; another one, to satisfy the final necessities. That way it passes the stairs spiral, that abisma and rises towards the remote thing.”

or

“Visibly, nobody delay to discover nothing.”

posesses a degree of power and truth not found in any previous translations, or possibly even in the original text.