Tower and Town, February 2024

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A Good Read

When publishers’ sales reps are trying to convince me to buy a novel (“it’s going to be huge ….serialisation in the Sunday papers ….TV rights….Radio 4 Book of the Week..”) they drop lists of hyperbolic adjectives. Stunning. Erudite. Moving. Provocative. I end up asking, crossly, “Yes, yes, but what is it about??” Which isn’t actually any more helpful, because what a book is about and what the story is and how it unfolds are often very different things.

Take my current read, Babel by R F Kuang. If asked what it's about I'd say colonialism, power, loyalty and compromise, language and manipulation, institutions, elitism and friendship. Throw in racism and economics and it all sounds rather bleak and worthy. But it's such a good read. I've been on the sofa, wrapped up in the story, completely immersed. It tells of a boy drafted into an Oxford institution in an alternate reality England of the 1830s, in which languages are used in the creation of the magic which fuels the Empire. Anyone vaguely interested in etymology will enjoy the discussions about the imperfect nature of translation and interpretation. It's dense and compelling with 'real' history being highlighted and subtly altered, and an appealing and flawed central protagonist who is forced to make terrible yet understandable choices and compromises. Babel has been hugely popular – it's won prizes, and is selling furiously, yet people don't seem to be asking for it, or saying they've heard about it or had it recommended to them. They just come into the shop, pick it up and bring it to the counter. I think I know why – it's because the jacket is silver coloured. If you read it, you'll understand why I think that.

Outside my usual reading range is Edible Economics by Ha-Joon Chang. Using various foodstuffs as a jumping-off point this is a series of essays explaining economic theories. What I know about economics amounts to pretty much zero, and while I'm aware there are lots of alternative theories, please don't feel obliged to share them with me. This is the first and might well be the only economics book I'll ever read, and I'm very much enjoying it, even if my sole takeaway is that the people of South Korea eat an eye-watering 7.5kg of garlic per person per year.

Finally, not a 'resolution', but an 'intention' for this year is to read Trollope's Palliser series. Not sure if I've still got the stamina for dense C19th novels, but we'll see...

Debby Guest