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I was playing with Amazon.com’s new search-within-books function. The best part of this function is that it does exactly what what you want it to, give you access to resources outside that possible with simple keyword search on title, author, subject and the like.

A search for just the name “Borges” turned up a number of books. The first were the usual English translations. Soon on the list were works in the original Spanish mixed with some scholarly works and books from other authors with Borges-a-like names. The first true citation comes from Edward Said’s Orientalism. He compares a remarkably erudite scholar to a character Borges might have imagined.

While doing all this I noticed something interesting. The original search put me on a page with the first 1 - 10 of 127 entries. As I clicked I was looking at 11 - 20 of 276 entries. Another click and I was at 21 - 30 of 416 entries. I will not attempt to discern the mathematical expansion at work here. Ignorance will remain bliss.

So far, I’ve gone up to 51 - 60 of 834 entries. I fear ever going further. I’m Theseus without a rope.

What if the search never ends? What if it just continues on into infinity? What if the end lies with that selfsame Minotaur? Who can know the answer?

Somewhere, Jorges Luis Borges is smiling.

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