Inspired by Jorge Luis Borges’ story The Writing of the God, this book presents a collection of randomly generated sentences. Using the original text of Borges’ story as its foundation, each sentence follows a precise structure of fourteen words and forty syllables—reflecting the mysterious “Script of the God” described within the narrative.
It is a formula of fourteen random words (they appear random) and to utter it in a loud voice would suffice to make me all powerful. May the mystery lettered on the tigers die with me. Whoever has seen the universe, whoever has beheld the fiery designs of the universe, cannot think in terms of one man, of that man’s trivial fortunes or misfortunes, though he be that very man. That man has been he and now matters no more to him. What is the life of that other to him, the nation of that other to him, if he, now, is no one. This is why I do not pronounce the formula, why, lying here in the darkness, I let the days obliterate me.
In Borges’ tale, the protagonist believes that uttering a seemingly random, fourteen-word formula aloud would grant him omnipotence. Yet, he chooses silence, letting the mystery die with him, recognizing that personal power becomes irrelevant when one grasps the infinite designs of the universe. Likewise, this book invites readers to immerse themselves in the uncanny beauty of randomness and meaninglessness, mirroring Borges’ meditation on fate, identity, and insignificance in the grand scheme of things.
Like a literary experiment in chaos and order, each sentence offers a glimpse into a cosmic algorithm—nonsensical yet profound, arbitrary yet strangely intentional. The result is both a tribute to Borges and an exploration of randomness, as if the text were conjuring new meanings in every iteration, waiting to be discovered by the reader.
This work was made possible with thanks to Dr. Katerina Papadaki, Associate Professor of Management Science at the London School of Economics, whose expertise helped create the randomness algorithm that generated the text.