The universe (others call it the Library) consists of an indefinite, and perhaps infinite, number of hexagonal galleries…El universo (que otros llaman la Biblioteca) se compone de un número indefinido, y tal vez infinito, de galerías hexagonales…
You are a librarian, born here. You have spent your life looking for one readable line. Nearly every book is noise. Open them anyway; when your eye finds a word, keep it. The story is about a library that holds every possible book, and the one line a reader finds.
Drag to look. Click the floor to walk there, a spine to open it, a word to keep it, a page edge to turn it. Esc shelves the book.
Touch: tap the floor, a spine or a word; swipe the page to turn it.
Passages are quoted from the Spanish original and translated for this page.
Were an eternal traveller to pass through it in any direction, he would confirm after centuries that the same volumes come round again in the same disorder (which, repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is cheered by that elegant hope.Si un eterno viajero la atravesara en cualquier dirección, comprobaría al cabo de los siglos que los mismos volúmenes se repiten en el mismo desorden (que, repetido, sería un orden: el Orden). Mi soledad se alegra con esa elegante esperanza.
As everyone knows: for every reasonable line or plain piece of news there are leagues of mindless cacophony, of verbal clutter and incoherence.Ya se sabe: por una línea razonable o una recta noticia hay leguas de insensatas cacofonías, de fárragos verbales y de incoherencias.
Another (much consulted in this region) is nothing but a labyrinth of letters, but its second-to-last page says O time your pyramids.Otro (muy consultado en esta zona) es un mero laberinto de letras, pero la página penúltima dice Oh tiempo tus pirámides.
The Library is a sphere whose true centre is any hexagon at all, and whose circumference cannot be reached.La Biblioteca es una esfera cuyo centro cabal es cualquier hexágono, cuya circunferencia es inaccesible.
I say it again: for a book to exist it is enough that it be possible.Lo repito: basta que un libro sea posible para que exista.
This useless and long-winded letter already exists in one of the thirty volumes on the five shelves of one of the countless hexagons, and so does its refutation.Esta epístola inútil y palabrera ya existe en uno de los treinta volúmenes de los cinco anaqueles de uno de los incontables hexágonos, y también su refutación.