I bought this little gem in 2021 for the oddest of reasons: I saw a Tweet from Wakefield Press that the English language rights were reverting and that the book would soon no longer be available in English translation. From a quick search now, it seems to be true: it's out-of-print everywhere, and a second-hand copy at AbeBooks costs a whopping $99.00. I don't remember what I paid for it, but I am so pleased to have my copy because it is such thought-provoking reading. I only wish I'd been able to read it before I stood before Brueghel's painting in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, in 2001 in Vienna.

Juan Benet (1927-1993) was a Spanish novelist, dramatist, essayist and civil engineer who began writing to pass the long nights alone when he was working on construction projects. It was because he was an engineer that this essay explains why 'The Tower of Babel' is not the simple painting of a Biblical myth that is neatly summarised at Wikipedia.

The Tower of Babel is an origin myth and parable in the Book of Genesis meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages.

According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and migrating eastward, comes to the land of Shinar. There they agree to build a city and a tower with its top in the sky. Yahweh, observing their city and tower, confounds their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world. [Lightly edited, mainly to remove unnecessary links).

Well, according to Benet, construction workers don't need to understand each other anyway.

A large number of construction projects — I speak from experience — can be brought to completion in silence, and an equal number are carried out according to the specifications of a written plan rather than a voice. In construction, chaos arises when there is neither voice nor order nor plan. (p.18)

Indeed he goes so far as to say that if Noah's descendants failed to bring the tower's construction to a close at the moment when their language was lost, the blame would lie with personal quarrels and disputes concerning rank. For it could not be said that each individual builder [...] was no longer aware of what must be done.

Through his examination of the tiers, archways, pillars, windows and the strange amphitheatre at the top, Benet makes the case that this is a painting of a doomed building, destined to fall into ruin and to vanish from the face of the earth. The chaos at its heart is architectural hubris and the madness of the original concept. A royal entourage inspects it, but is irrelevant. The subject of this painting is the desolation of the building and its interrupted construction.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/06/04/the-construction-of-the-tower-of-babel-1990-... ( )