Babel

by R.F. Kuang

Language was always the companion of empire, and as such, together they begin, grow, and flourish. And later, together, they fall. ANTONIO DE NEBRIJA, Gramática de la lengua castellana

A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers.

The English made regular use of only two flavours – salty and not salty – and did not seem to recognize any of the others. For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, its citizens were violently averse to actually using them; in all his time in Hampstead, he never tasted a dish that could be properly described as ‘seasoned’, let alone ‘spicy’.

Inside, the heady wood-dust smell of freshly printed books was overwhelming. If tobacco smelled like this, Robin thought, he’d huff it every day.

Never, Robin thought, would he understand these men, who talked of the world and its movements like a grand chess game, where countries and peoples were pieces to be moved and manipulated at will.

There was the massive, imposing Ashmolean Museum, which housed the cabinet of curiosities donated by Elias Ashmole,

Bodleian – oh, the Bodleian, a national treasure in its own right: home of the largest collection of manuscripts in England (‘Cambridge has only got a hundred thousand titles,’ sniffed the clerk who admitted them, ‘and Edinburgh’s only got a paltry sixty-three’), whose collection only continued to expand under the proud leadership of the Reverend Doctor Bulkeley Bandinel, who had a book-buying budget of nearly £2,000 a year.

books are meant to be touched, otherwise they’re useless, so don’t be nervous.

it was difficult to disdain a man who so clearly adored the accumulation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake.

This was the first time they’d been out so late; they wanted to savour the city at night. They moved in silence, neither daring to break the spell.