JLBorges

As usual in Eco’s novels, there is a display of erudition. The blind librarian Jorge from Burgos is a pun on Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges, a major influence on Eco. Borges was blind during his later years and was also director of Argentina’s national library; his short story “The Library of Babel” was a clear inspiration for the secret library in Eco’s book: “The Library is composed of an indefinite, perhaps infinite, number of hexagonal galleries, with enormous ventilation shafts in the middle, encircled by very low railings”. Another one of Borges’s stories, “The Secret Miracle”, features a blind librarian. In addition, a number of other themes drawn from various of Borges’s works are used throughout The Name of the Rose: labyrinths, mirrors, sects and obscure manuscripts and books.