On Exactitude In Science: Borges' Pointed Story Is Also Serious Fun

"On Exactitude in Science" is a short story by Jorge Luis Borges that was first published in 1946. I discovered it in a 1971 Fall Winter Antioch Review where it was served up as one of six short literary hors d'oeuvre appetizers. The very first bite ("A Yellow Rose") was so tasty that I have been a Borges fan ever since.

This story is about an empire where the art of cartography has become so exact that maps are made on the same scale as the territory they represent. The story explores the relationship between reality and representation, and the limits of human knowledge.

In the very brief span of 154 words Borges shows how the pursuit of perfection can lead to absurdity. The empire in the story as set for itself the goal of creating a perfect map of its territory, but in doing so, it creates a map that is no longer useful. The outcome is comical. 

On Exactitude in Science
Jorge Luis Borges, Collected Fictions, translated by Andrew Hurley.

In that Empire, the Art of Cartography attained such Perfection that the map of a single Province occupied the entirety of a City, and the map of the Empire, the entirety of a Province. In time, those Unconscionable Maps no longer satisfied, and the Cartographers Guilds struck a Map of the Empire whose size was that of the Empire, and which coincided point for point with it. The following Generations, who were not so fond of the Study of Cartography as their Forebears had been, saw that that vast Map was Useless, and not without some Pitilessness was it, that they delivered it up to the Inclemencies of Sun and Winters. In the Deserts of the West, still today, there are Tattered Ruins of that Map, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in all the Land there is no other Relic of the Disciplines of Geography. 
—Suarez Miranda,Viajes devarones prudentes, Libro IV,Cap. XLV, Lerida, 1658

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For what it's worth, I have written a number of blog posts about Borges and his works. You will find links to many of these here. 

Do you have a favorite Borges story? Share it in the comments.