Spoilery Book Reviews

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Back of the book

"An act of translation is always an act of betrayal."

Oxford, 1836

The city of dreaming spires. It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world. And at its heart, Babel, Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation. The two from which all the power of the Empire flows.

Orphaned in Canton and Brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Robin Swift thought Babel a paradise.

Until it became a prison... But can a student stand against an empire?

My thoughts

I went into reading this book expecting it to be my next favourite, which it wasn't, but that's on me because it is still a great novel.

I feel I am not intelligent enough to grasp all that went on in this book. There were themes of racism, exploitation of cultures (languages), colonialism, discrimination against women and poorer classes. It didn't explore all of these topics equally, some were just background noise that set the tone of the book and historical society. The plays on words between languages was also wholly out of my grasp. I feel someone who is bilingual would get a lot more out of this novel, because they could pull their own comparisons from languages they know and better understand the "untranslatable". As someone who only knows one language, parts of this just made me feel dumb, inadequate. At first it was interesting, but the more foreign words that were littered through the text, I started to skip over. I wanted to completely understand the concepts broached in this novel but when a foreign language was involved I felt I was missing out despite the explanations.

The pacing was slow. Progressing though college became boring, lacklustre, with minimal events pushing the story along. Especially once Robin quit the Hermes society. The story felt like a recount, being told, instead of a lived experience, which added to the slow and detached feeling. The ending was fast and impactful, left me wondering why the rest of the novel had to meander so much. It took me a long time to realise this was another book where I should dread the ending. I really liked the ending and I couldn't imagine it ending any other way. It was also an easy way out for the writer not having to figure out how to solve the political mess it made.

I don't know how much of this novel was historically accurate versus made up for the novels' sake. I did a small Wikipedia search about the opium issue which was real. It seems the trading situation was similar but didn't have the magic silver involved to exacerbate things. Historical inaccuracy never bothered me because of my ignorance, but it certainly felt like it could be an accurate account of the society feelings at the time. The footnotes got a little annoying. Like the author couldn't find a good way to segue somewhat necessary information into the story so used the footnote as a cop out. Only one other book I've read had footnotes, An Abundance of Katherines, and it made sense in that context, but this one started to bother me. There was a litany of quotes throughout which felt like another piece of the novel going over my head because the quotes were unfamiliar and held no greater context for me.

I know this is a me problem, I kept forgetting whether it was Victoire or Letty who was black, which I know is an important part of the story for how they are treated and perceived. I never truly connected with these characters despite being interested in their story, due to how the story felt told, instead of a lived experience. Griffin was my favourite character although the ways which Robin changed made him very interesting. Robin Swift was a ridiculous name for the main character and did not suit him at all, but that may have been the point. I thought for a hazy moment I was getting gay vibes from Robin and Ramy but that was never fleshed out. I loved their friendship anyway.

I think I would enjoy this story more when reading it again, rather than the first time. The first time there are so many details to understand that I feel I only got a basic overview of the story and missed a lot of finer details. This book is not for the faint hearted. A very dark and grim ending but I loved it for that. This novel was a wonderful exploration of what pushes people to violence to solve their problems, so far that it seems justified, the only way to get things done. Robin descending into violence and understanding his brother Griffin was a beautiful family connection executed in the most horrific way. Perhaps a greater mind would make connections between the current desires for change and what Robin did to attempt to elicit meaningful change...but hopefully we can fight the climate crisis without becoming suicide bombers in protest.

TL:DR

A dark tale set in the past delving into issues of race and class, exploring language word plays and what pushes someone to disastrous violent actions.