It is nice to read a book that celebrates words. All books
celebrate words in some sense, but Babel by RF Kuang celebrates words for
word’s sake. Their origin, their interconnectedness, their power. Power. There is power in words, and power is what this story is about: Who has it, who
lacks it, who doesn’t want to lose it. Set mostly in England, mostly in Oxford
in the 1830’s, this is a fantasy and alternate history. There is magic in this
world. The magic runs on silver and those who can find the right words in the
right languages to use that silver. If you etch the right pair of words into a
bar of silver, you can make it do amazing things, sometimes mundane things like
making a carriage ride smoother, sometimes spectacular things like holding up a
bridge. But finding the right words with similar meanings but in different
languages requires translators.
Our protagonist, an orphan from Canton given the anglicized
name Robin Swift, is groomed by his guardian to join the famous translators
program at Oxford. Once there he is destined to study at the prestigious Babel
tower where all the mysteries of the words and their effect on silver are
explored.
It turns out the best translators are those from other lands
who have had to learn English. The masters of Babel, recruit people from China,
from India, from the Caribbean. This sets up a conflict because we have the
colonizers, seeking the aid of those who have been colonized. The translators
are promised a comfortable life, far more comfortable than if they had been
left in their own countries. But they do begin to wonder at what cost this
comfort is coming to them.
The full title of the book is Babel: An Arcane History.
Since this is a book about words, we should assume R.F. Kuang was deliberate in
her choice of word usage. We note that Webster defines “arcane” as “Known or
knowable only to the initiate: Secret. More broadly: mysterious, obscure.” It is
from the Latin “Arcanus” which meant hidden, but also meant intimate or
confidential, or also meant trustworthy. All the various shades of meaning of
an individual word are vital to the translators working at Oxford’s Babel tower
to keep the British empire running at full steam, to keep it the leader of the
world. Words do not translate directly from one language to another. Each
culture adds its own flavor. So when you translate you have to consider not
only the main meaning, but also the alternate meanings and the connotations
that come with the word. We have heard that the Inuit people have 50 different
words for snow. That claim is a bit overblown, but it is true that they have
more words for snow that we do. So, if you translate one of those words into
English as “snow”, what part of the meaning are you losing?
I do recommend this book. It is an interesting read as well
as an enjoyable one. Even though it is an alternate history, I did learn things
about the real history. And it does make you think about the consequences of colonization.
Comments
Post a Comment