the cemetery of forgotten books
The Argentinian writer/philosopher Jorge Luis Borges once wrote an odd piece imaging all the knowledge of the world contained in a vast edifice he called The Library of Babel. Many, many people have attempted to describe or draw this construct, but I think Zafon’s Cemetery of Forgotten Books comes the closest in spirit.
“The man called Isaac nodded and invited us in. A blue-tinged gloom obscured the sinouscontours of a marble staircase and a gallery of frescoes peopled with angels and fabulous creatures. We followed our host through a palatial corridor and arrived at a sprawling round hall, a virtual basilica of shadows spiralling up uder a high glass dome, its dimness pierced by shafts of light that stabbed from above. A labyrinth of passageways and crammed bookshelved rose from base to pinnacle like a beehive woven with tunnels, steps, plaftorms, and bridges that presaged an immense library of simmingly impossible geometry. I looked at my father, stunned. He smiled at me and winked.
“Welcome to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, Danielâ€
–Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind