#the word exchange

The Word Exchange: A Novel

Alena Graedon

I recently remembered a book that I read two years ago. I got it in my head that it was called The Language Exchange. A google search for The Language Exchange does not lead to any books, however, and my failed search struck me as so odd, I started to panic. Had I imagined this book? This book about language and technology? This book in which technology spreads a virus and erases language as we know it? It was part Stephen Vincent Benét’s “Nightmare Number 3” and part my worst fears manifest in a real experience. What if the book didn’t actually exist? Or worse, what if it did exist at one time, but was absorbed into the digital juggernaut and coopted as a takeover plan by the machines themselves?

Turns out, the book I was thinking of is actually called The Word Exchange. So we may be safe.

For now.

I didn’t write about The Word Exchange two years ago because I was abroad at the time, and speaking to kye in Orkney was the only version of blogging we had at our disposal. But the fact that I still remember it now convinces me that it is an excellent fable for our times.

The story, like all good stories, is a love affair with language. Ana, one of the few remaining wordsmiths, is compiling an archive of language while the world has turned their attentions to handheld Memes for communication, for entertainment, for, well, everything your iPhone is doing right now. Suddenly Ana’s father goes missing, leaving only a literary clue behind while the people of the world fall sick with a “word virus.” This concept is so creative and terrifying, I want to simultaneously share this book with the world and lock it securely away from readers’ vulnerable eyes.

If the word-lover premise doesn’t get you, consider it an ineluctable opportunity to learn new vocabulary. I actually liked vocab quizzes in high school and it was teaching me plenty of chestnuts I’d never even heard of before. Keep a dictionary handy.

It’s a little Steven Hall’s The Raw Shark Texts, a little All the Birds in the Sky, and a lot of Armageddon via the Tower of Babel.

Because what if, like a file on your computer, your language, your ability to communicate, your very relationship with the world, could be corrupted? What if it is already happening right now? lLorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.