But this book was still very good, and despite being incredibly dated in terms of future gadgets, succeeds well in producing a literate, intelligent, and memorable SF novel that mirrored the dramatic social changes happening at the time. Having read Nova only two months ago, I thought I had a handle on Delany’s more esoteric tendencies. It ‘programs’ a self-contained schizoid personality into the mind of whoever learns it, reinforced by self-hypnosis—which seems the sensible thing to do since everything else in the language is ‘right,’ whereas any other tongue seems so clumsy. Part of me wants to re-read it right away to figure out what things I may have missed the first time around. What impressed me about this one, what set this particular book apart for the language-nerdy daughter of a literature teacher was exactly the portrayal of language in it, the mystery of the highly analytical Babel-17, the allure and the power the language has over people, their perception of the world, even their own selves.

This novel, more than most, benefits greatly from the reader being able to hold the whole novel in its entirety in one’s head as an object to be contemplated once completed. An interesting note is that the beautiful and densely written extracts of poems that precede major sections were written by Marilyn Hacker, Delany’s wife at the time. However, even such an "advanced" viewpoint leaves something out: love as a relation between separate individuals, union without fusion. I figured out a big part of the conflict of the book rather early on, but it did not detract in the slightest from being fascinated and enthralled by it, and the fascination did not decrease at all during the reread.

E eu amei a força que dão para a linguagem nessa história, a poeta é uma das protagonistas, porque o protagonismo mesmo é dado para a linguagem. gets a little confused/confusing after the midway point, but delany's writing (at least on these early books) is so fast and fun and clear and smart, it's easy to overlook the flaws. I loved this book when I first read it as a teenager, funnily enough, translated into a different language than it was written in.

I usually don’t mind the way that older SF (this was published in ’66) is often full of temporal markers that give away the era in which it was written. Samuel Ray 'Chip' Delany, Jr was born in Harlem in 1942, and published his first novel at the age of just 20. For a start, one of his characters never speaks the letter ‘p’ which makes reading dialogue a pain in the neck.He arrives in civilian clothes and feels uncomfortable since he lacks the normal shield of his uniform. It’s no secret that I’ve had occasion to dispute the ‘Masterworks’ label of Gollancz’ famous reprint series, but when it comes to Delany you’ll get no argument from me. But when cryptographers are unable to decode the transmissions, they hand the recordings to a renowned poet, who soon learns that this is no code, but a language unlike any previously encountered .

So, this important work of mixing SF with linguistic motives was interesting 20 years after university. Back to the book, Delanys´work is dealing with controversial topics and demonstrating the importance of the use and meaning of language, speech, the interpretation of both, and the Saphir Whorf hypothesis, an amazing concept that questions much about identity and opens large range for interpretations and philosophizing. Then he turned directly to SFF as an amazing medium for re-envisioning the mind and the worlds it creates. Le Guin [ citation needed], Embassytown by China Miéville, "In Luna Bore Coda" by Joshua Nilles, and, more evidently, the short story " Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang [ citation needed].Empire Star is the "short side" of Babel-17, flip Babel-17 upside-down and over and there's Empire Star, ready to be read. Delany created a whirlwind of a plot that is delightful in its strangeness but at the same time allows for quiet scenes that capture and vibrate with longing and sadness. I’m pretty sure that when a French person and an American person think about pizza, we’re thinking of the same thing apart from the toppings. Something is struggling to be born in this damaged and inspiring world, and I believe science fiction and its speculative cousins are helping us figure out what it is.

At the time Babel-17 was published in 1966 (and won the Nebula Award), Linguistic relativity - in short: language structure forms the world-view - was considered to be a valid theory. Far from my favourite Delany novel, Babel-17 does confirm, I think, that I prefer his science fiction to his fantasy outings. Rydra Wong is a military veteran, linguist and popular poet — Delany includes poetry by his then-wife Marilyn Hacker as examples of some of Rydra’s work — who is approached by Alliance command for help in deciphering the Invaders’ communications cipher, Babel-17. At the beginning of the book, Rydra has already determined that Babel-17 isn’t a code, it’s a language. When Rydra awakens she, her crew and their ship have been taken on board another vessel, an Alliance-friendly pirate ship, under a Captain Tarik.While linguistic relativity and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remain somewhat controversial, depending on how you define them, their staying power is evident because we are just obsessed with language. It’s not at all a scientific science fiction book, but I enjoyed reading about how spaceship crews were formed and operated, as well as the various details about how this fictional future society itself operated. There are some interesting ideas in the narrative around language and the way that the structure of language profoundly influence the way we see and interact with the world but I found myself constantly distracted by elements of the story and its execution that didn’t gel for me.