Babel by R.F. Kuang [Fantasy Review]

Summary 💬

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. The tower and its students are 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 the arcane craft 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 . . .

Goodreads

Review ✍🏻

The time has finally come for me to review Babel. The first book I read this year, I remember being totally captivated and thinking “Wow, am I going to have a review to write for this one!” And now it’s September December. So this is no longer going to be a “Wow!” review, but I still want to share my thoughts, cobbled together from memory and iPhone notes. Please keep in mind that this is not a particularly thorough or critical or comprehensive review.

I finally read an R.F. Kuang book! The Poppy War never appealed to me (neither did Yellowface, but it hadn’t even been released at the time I read Babel). But Babel so many marks. Prose, reflection, historical fantasy, Oxford setting, translation, translation as MAGIC what a brilliant concept, tension, small folk acting on epic scale, incisive observations and critiques of empire/colonialism/identity, heavy and dark without being gory or gruesome. The magic element plays a smallish yet critical role. The rest of the storytelling, worldbuilding, and characterisation are so strong that I didn’t mind that the magic system isn’t as throughly explored.

Below you will find my hodgepodge of further thoughts, grouped into various topics. Spoilers abound below so read at your own risk!

**spoiler filled section ahead**

Translation

The concept of translation has fascinated me for years, springing from my love The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings where language in translation is a keystone. So I greatly enjoyed the bits that discussed the philosophy and practice of translation, though they are not as common as you might expect. I would have loved more on translation and the magic of translation, but that wasn’t the heart of the story.

Babel presents translation in a wholly different light – as a magical tool of colonialism. Certainly throughout history, translation has been used for colonialist purposes (the most obvious that comes to mind is missionaries engaged in translation) but in the world of Babel it is more overt than ever. When Robin asked if the purpose of translation “is to bring mankind closer together”, I choked a little, because we all know this is not that kind of story!

Professor Playfair looked baffled by this. But quickly his feature sreassembled into a sprightly beam. “Well, of course. Such is the project of empire – and why, therefore, we translate at the pleasure of the Crown.”

Babel, pg 108

Well, Robin has a different concept of what ‘brings mankind closer together’ than Professor Playfair does, as I’m sure the reader does.

Stepping away from the negative connotations for a moment – the magical concept is brilliant. As Professor Playfair explains it: “It’s all quite easy once you’ve grasped the basic principle. We capture what is lost in translation – for there is always something lost in translation – and the bar manifests it into being. Simple enough?” (pg 158). Yes, delightfully so! I loved this simple yet world-opening premise. The trick here is that you need a speaker fluent in at least two languages, so they can do the translation work and create the bars that capture that lost meaning.

Letty

It took him a moment to realize what it was that grated on him, and when he did, it would bother him constantly, now and thereafter; it would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort.

Babel, pg 357

I KNEW she was going to be a nuisance, a problem, because how could she not be. “Well-meaning” white woman…

For any white woman reading this book (IE me), Letty is a devastating character. You hope you would never behave like here. You know you would never behave like her. But… how can you be so certain until you end up in a similar situation? It is a terrifying thought. The chapter late in the novel from her perspective feels like it’s placed there for the benefit of any readers for whom Letty’s position wasn’t obvious:

There was no future down this path. She saw this now. She’d been duped – duped, strung along in this sickening charade, but this ended in only two ways: prison or the hangman. She was the only one there who wasn’t too mad to see it. And though it killed her, she had to act with resolve – for if she could not save her friends, she had at least to save herself

Babel, pg 440

AUGGGGGH HOW INFURIATING. I expected/hoped that to be the last we would hear of her, so I was surprised when she showed up 60 pages later waving a white flag.

Queer Rep

And, certainly, Letty could not have been aiming for his heart. That was also impossible. She loved him, she loved him almost like Robin loved him – she’d told him so, he rememered, and if that were true, then how could she look into Ramy’s eyes and shoot to kill?

Babel, pg 413

Gonna use the above quote to segue from Letty ino another topic – this is a further hint that Robin loves Ramy in a gay way? I stg there were like only one or two hints towards this point throughout the novel. Such as early on when they’re becoming friends before school starts: “Robin had the absurd impulse to place his hand against Ramy’s cheek; indeed, he’d half lifted up his arm before his mind caught up with his body.” (pg 56). There may have been a couple other points I didn’t pick up on – another reviewer mentioned that Robin finds both men and women beautiful. On the whole, I got the sense that the story had enough going on than to fully explore a storyline about two queer men of colour in the 1800s… A wee Google search suggests that the author confirmed in a talk that Robin is queer.

Negatives

If I really wanted to pick out some flaws in Babel, I probably could. I have a fuzzy memory of it dragging a bit at the end? the middle? two thirds through? I can’t quite recall, lol. I saw another reviewer write that when the story reached the ‘necessity of violence’ part, their interest flagged. I would probably agree with that. Certainly one could charge Babel with didacticism, though I would debate whether that is truly a negative charge if pressed. But overall, I enjoyed Babel as an entertaining work of fiction, which can be enjoyed even if you don’t read it with a serious eye. This cloud looks so cute this little puff. [When I came back to working on this draft after a long break, I saw I had typed this sentence about a cloud. I can’t bring myself to delete it.]

Other Assorted Notes Including Several Longer Quotes that Exemplify Why I Love the Prose of This Book

[After being chased by other students] There was no question about what had happened. They were both shaken by the sudden realization that they did not belong in this place, that despite their affiliation with the Translation Institute and despite their gowns and pretensions, their bodies were not safe on the streets. They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men. But the enormity of this knowledge was so devastating, such a vicious antithesis to the three golden days they’d blindly enjoyed, that neither of them could say it out loud. (pg 68)

Babel, pg 68

One thing united them all – without Babel, they had nowhere in this country to go. They’d been chosen for privileges they couldn’t have ever imagined, funded by powerful and wealthy men whose motives they did not fully understand, and they were actuely aware these could be lost at any moment. That precariousness made them simultaneously bold and terrified. They had the keys to the kingdom; they did not want to give them back.

By the time they’d finished their tea, they were almost in love with each other – not quite, because true love took time and memories but as close to love as first impressions could take them. The days had not yet come when Ramy wore Victoire’s sloppily knitted scrves with pride, when Robin learned exactly how long Ramy liked his tea steeped so he could have it ready when he inevitably came to the Buttery late from his Arabic tutorial, or when they all knew Letty was about to come to cass with a paper bag full of lemon biscuits because it was a Wednesday morning and Taylor’s bakery put out lemon biscuits on Wednesdays. But that afternoon they could see with certainty the kind of friends they would be, and loving that vision was close enough.

Babel, pg 87-88

I love this kind of foreshadowing, and how it gives nuance to the characters and their relationships

[There’s a paragraph on the origin of the word anger, ends as follows:] …the consequent rage a deseprate attempt to breathe.

And rage, of course, came from madness. Afterwards, Robin wondered often if Professor Lovell had seen soemthing in his eyes, a fire he hadn’t known his son possessed, and whether that – his stratrtled realization that his lingutistic experiment had develoepd a will olf his own – had prompted Robin in turn to act. He would try desperately to justify what he’d done as self-defence, but such justification would rely on details he could hardly remember, details he wasn’t sure whether he’d made up to convince himself he had not really murdered his father in cold blood.

Over and over again he would ask himself who had moved first, and this would torture him for the rest of his days, for he truly did not know.

Babel, pg 321

I love this sort of stuff!! It takes a skilled writer to pull off a build of tension that takes your breath away.

• (around pg 170) That description of them starting their second year is dark academia to a tee.
• [Griffin discussing pushing in the right points, “If we create losses where the Empire can’t stand to suffer them”, making history fluid] For Robin, such abstract reasoning was a reason to divest from the world, to retreat into the safety of dead languages and books. For Griffin, it was a rallying call. (pg 177)
  • So far, it’s a relatively slow build setting the stafe of academia and translation. But the plot is truly simmering now!!
• [Wards shoot Robin after helping two Hermes operatives, pg 184]
  • GASP OH NO
• [Robin ‘thinks’ he sees Anthony in a shop, pg 226]
  • I KNEW Anthony was just on the inside. And Victoire knows something as well.
• A group murder is such a staple of dark academia, not sure why it surprised me!
• Robin trying to die, debating whether to collapse the bridge… (pg 496)
  • 50 pages from the end, now it is truly complex. Where’s the line? Is Robin truly in the wrong or is the reader to be sympathetic to his methods?
  • “This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistence is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstancfes that demanded it.” (pg 497)

The Bottom Line 💭

My first read of 2023 and probably my favourite read of 2023, pick up Babel if you love the concept of a historical chunkster which presents underrepresented perspectives with a fresh fantastical twist.

Further Reading 📰

🍂 Read an excerpt
🍂 Author website
🍂 Interview @ Fantasy Magazine
🍂 Reviews: Lili @ USOM, Harry @ Unsolicited Feedback, Shay @ Required Reading
🍂 Related: I cannot think of a single book I have reviewed that has similarities or can hold a candle to Babel.

What’s the best chunkster you’ve read this year?
Are you into the dark academia trend?

PS – Evergreen reminder to drop a coment if you would like a Bluesky invite. Always looking to find more book bloggers there!