Contrary to popular belief, it was not caused through linguistic cacophony—at least not the audible kind. The men of Shinar labored many years without speaking because the ether was much too thin to bear the burden of conversation. The story goes that Nimrod glimpsed the light of the heavenly mantle and could not keep his silence at the sight of such splendor. His voice, however, failed to drift to the ears of the men, instead plummeting down with the weight of stones into the surrounding void. But the ether was not so easily satisfied, drawing from him the exhalation of a lifetime, words struggling in vain the fill the empty spaces, until Nimrod finally vanished into the vapor.
At the loss of their leader, the men could no longer contain themselves and rushed down the tower to where the air was again willing to accept what they had to say. But the road from Heaven was long and they descended so rapidly that their thoughts failed to recompress by the time they reached the bottom. Their voices wavered, floating back into the clouds or else becoming planted within the soil so that the villagers could not grasp the scattered fragments and the men themselves no longer recognized what they related.
The tower had no voice of its own to deny the levity of its characterization and in its time became a palace, a poor house, a bath house, a brothel, a mountain, and a molehill until it was so worn from a protean existence that no meaning could be ascribed. Thus, like a tree that falls unheard in the forest, the tower became the shadow of a forgotten artifact, a specter to haunt the dreams that no one can remember. That is, of course, if you believe such babble.
I really enjoyed your choice in story; the Tower of Babble is such a complex and enigmatic piece of religious literature. Nice line describing the tower's demise: "in its time became a palace, a poor house, a bath house, a brothel, a mountain, and a molehil." You illustrated the denigration of buildings and their values interestingly.
ReplyDeleteReally cool. I love how you dig into the classic story. Nice button at the end.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I read this it made absolutely no sense to me; the second time I read it I'd just finished reading an essay on linguistics and it made perfect sense. Which is kind of cool.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to say that this piece plays with the concept of "babble," signifiers without signifieds. I like how linguistic value (am I being jargon-y? I hope I'm not being jargon-y; it's kind of hard to tell) has agency in this piece, and a physical presence; it can float into clouds and be planted in soil. And this means the linguistic value can "decay" over time, which I guess is a way of expressing how languages and symbols can lose their semiotic content when no one is alive to interpret them. This is a very tentative interpretation, but it's what I got out of this piece.
I actually think you could get away with less allusion to the actual tower of Babel, if you wanted. You've got a nice allegorical foundation going here.
A retelling of a fable in the language of myth and fable, this is fine and good but unsurprising until the third paragraph, and though I'm not sure how to read "the levity of its characterization," I like the turn toward the uses to which the tower is put after the fall. Palace is perhaps too easy, mountain and molehill clichéd and implausible. But the Babel Poor House/Bath House/Brothel? Now you're onto something. Start there and tell us the story of Nimrod working the door.
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