Even as science fiction authors became more daring in the 1960s, few found ways of reconciling the leading experimental tendencies of the day with the demands of genre fiction. In the world of literary fiction, novelists were stretching syntax and semantics, engaging in fanciful wordplay and moving beyond the time-honored conventions of narrative structure. In science fiction, in contrast, authors were enlivening their tales with more expansive plot lines— embracing sociological and religious themes and borrowing heavily from current thinking about mythology and psychology—yet the language of their stories still betrayed sci-fi's pulp fiction roots. The leading science fiction authors might construct elaborate spaceships or time machines….but were usually afraid to tinker with sentence structures.
Except for Samuel R. Delany. Delany had grand ambitions for science fiction. A prodigy who started writing in his teens, and had published seven sci-fi novels before the age of 25, Delany aimed not only to broaden the themes of genre lit but also its language. Sometimes his prose took on the fanciful qualities of poetry, at other times he wrote in a stream-of-consciousness style or even experimented with the way the words were presented on the page. Not all of his risk-taking paid off—his most famous novel, Dhalgren , is like Ulysses ' evil twin—but at his best, Delany was one of the great visionaries of sci-fi, taking genre fiction to places it had never been before.
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Babel-17 , written around the time of Delany's 23rd birthday, still stands out as one of the most successful attempts to mix the language games of modernists and postmodernists with a taut science fiction plot line. Delany achieves this by making linguistics a key part of his plot—an unusual move for any novelist, highbrow or lowbrow, but very much in keeping with sci-fi's absorption of the human sciences during this period. As a result, the unconventional sentences and page layouts that often seem gratuitous in other Delany books not only fit seamlessly here, but are even essential to the unfolding story.
Our chief protagonist, Rydra Wong is a poet, skilled linguist and intergalactic literary celebrity…and, yes, a starship captain in her spare time. Leading characters in Delany's stories often come across as extensions of the author, and like her creator, Wong is obsessed with the way meaning is conveyed in language. Because of her knack with words, Wong has been enlisted by the military to assist in breaking a code called Babel-17. This code has been detected on radio transmissions that are invariably timed to coincide with acts of sabotage at various parts of the galaxy.
Wong soon realizes that Babel-17 is not a code, but a language, and a peculiar one at that. Is it a kind of communicative music? Is it a more precise logical framework for concepts? Is it a type of computer language, but designed for people instead of machines? Is it a linguistic tool for brainwashing? Or is it simply an evolutionary dead-end, destroying those who use it too much? For once, Delany has a legitimate excuse to integrate his musings on words and extravagant phraseology into a sci-fi thriller, and though Chomsky might not approve of the theoretical orientation of this tale—which violates his theory of generative grammar at every turn—Delany both enlightens and entertains. The result is one of the landmarks of linguistic sci-fi, setting the foundation for later works such as Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice , China Miéville's Embassytown , Ted Chiang's "Understand" and Don DeLilllo's Ratner's Star .
If the idea of linguistic science fiction leaves you apprehensive, rest assured that Delany successfully integrates his story of language and translation into a fast-paced adventure story—not always a given with this author. In order to unravel the intricacies of Babel-17, Wong needs to set out in spaceship, where she is soon caught up in the ongoing galactic conflict between the Alliance and the Invaders. Over the course of this novel, Delany presents the full range of action scenarios, from hand-to-hand combat to full-scale spaceship battles. But even in the midst of combat, he finds a way to employ his experimental techniques. Delany's description of a terrorist attack at an official dinner is one of the strangest fight scenes in sci-fi history, with more attention lavished on the food than fighting. "The fruit platters were pushed aside by the emerging peacocks, cooked, dressed and reassembled with sugared heads, tail feathers swaying....Tureens of caldo verde crowded the wine basins….Fruit rolled over the edge." It's as if the NY Times had fired its war correspondents and replaced them with restaurant reviewers.
The same distinctive Delany-esqe mixture of combat and unusual language stands out in his big battle scene— here, for inexplicable reasons, the military commander relies on psychoanalytical jargon for all his strategizing and communications to the troops. I found this inspired bit of doggerel strangely appealing: "Neurotics advance. Maintain contact to avoid separation anxiety….Let the criminally insane schiz out….Neurotics proceed with delusions of grandeur….Stimulate severe depression, noncommunicative, with repressed hostility…. Commence the first psychotic episode…."
As such passages may suggest, readers need to make allowances for this author's eccentricities. And there are many quirks here, as you might expect from an author who proclaims Let the criminally insane schiz out . Be forewarned: If you are waiting for Delany to explain why he makes a soldier talk like Sigmund Freud or worries more about the food than the fatalities at a bloody banquet or has put some incongruous bit of poetry in the middle of his story…you will be waiting in vain. He forces you to construct with your own interpretation—if you can.
Almost every one of Delany’s novels could have been named Stranger in a Strange Book . But here the strangeness works. Even today many doubt that genre conventions can coexist with literary experimentation. Babel-17 is a corrective to that skepticism, an avant-garde space opera that sets its own terms of engagement and played a key role in reinventing science fiction during a period of transition and transgression. A half-century later, the tables have turned, and highbrow literary authors are now trying to assimilate aspects of genre fiction. It's to Delany’s credit that, even in this changed environment, this brash novel still can serve as a touchstone and role model.