Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Blurb:

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? 

Review:

Babel has been on my TBR since it was first announced. Not only was BookTube all gaga over it, but I even saw many Indian reviewers praise it highly. I’m pretty sure a few of my friends who don’t even read fantasy picked up a copy and rated it favorably.

What prompted me to finally pick it up was r/Fantasy’s bingo square for Dark Academia. But this book is so much more than just a fantasy story. 

What I liked:

I’m going to start by saying that I genuinely believe Babel is Kuang’s strongest book so far. I really liked The Poppy War (despite its pacing issues), but I had quite a few problems with The Dragon Republic (particularly the pacing issues). Haven’t read The Burning God or Yellowface yet, but I don’t think I’ll come to enjoy either as much as I did Babel. 

Right from the opening paragraphs, magic bleeds from the book, staining your hands and your mind with the profoundly tragic setting that makes up Robin’s world. The magic isn’t always overt, but faint traces of it continue to loom over you as you progress through the novel. Robin’s story starts off tragic, and despite the many upgrades to his life, it continues to haunt him, albeit passively. He is a foreigner. No matter how he dresses and how he speaks, he will never truly be an Englishman. The hardest pill to swallow here is how Robin’s life is turned upside down because of colonial powers, and they have the audacity to look down on him for the very conditions that they have manufactured to render his life as such.

The anti-colonial themes are very much overt here. There’s no subtlety to how they affect the characters and plot. And as someone who hails from a former British colony, they really hit home. Hell, even Ramy’s irritation about constantly being mistaken for a Hindu despite being of a different religion was very relevant to the current socio-political environment in India. The racism barely even scratches the surface of the deeper societal and economic scars that these characters have endured at the hands of their colonizers. And Kuang never lets us forget. While language and translation form the main narrative, really, they’re just one of the two pillars upon which Kuang has erected her oeuvre.

I’ve spoken of one pillar. Now let’s talk of the other. Kuang’s immense knowledge of languages shines brightly throughout the book. From tracing the etymology of simple terms, to dissecting the nuances between translated pairs, Kuang goes all out to display the complex beauty of human languages. And the very essence of these is what makes for Babel’s magic system. So, the info-dumps of etymology and linguistics serve a narrative purpose. If you love languages, or are simply fascinated by the origins of words, Babel has more than enough treats for you.

I won’t spoil the book in this review, because the ending is really special. Especially Books IV & V. The interludes also expand on the characters’ backstories, further realizing a world that’s already as real as our own. All I’ll say is that the way this story takes a turn in those last parts, and the way it ends is deeply moving. 

While the vast majority of the book is “Babel”, it’s these last two books that really justify the “Necessity of Violence”. Of course, it’s not so easily black and white, but that’s what makes the book a profound and compelling read.  

What I didn’t like:

If I’m being honest, pacing was an issue for this book as well. The entirety of the story takes place over the span of a couple of years. These timeframes aren’t exactly balanced, and that’s very evident in the first half of the book. The second half—especially books IV & V cruise through in an almost un-put-down-able pace. But the same isn’t true for the first three. In addition to that, some of the scenes didn’t resonate with me as much. I’ve never studied abroad, never lived in a boarding or university accommodation, so many of the character and setting scenes didn’t click with me. I found some boring, even in times when I could see why that scene was placed there.

Other than this, I can’t think of any other issues in the book. 

Conclusion:

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence is, in my opinion, R.F. Kuang’s best work to date. Moving, profound, and thought-provoking, this is one of my best reads of the year.

TL;DR:

WHAT I LIKED: Exploration of linguistics and anti-colonial themes

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE: Some pacing issues