My 300th review on Goodreads (wow!), an epic number that can only be matched by an epic book—and Babel definitely fits that bill! A historical fantasy that reads like an epic for all of the content it spans, Babel not only explores the intricacy of friendship, but the intricacy of language, and the hand-in-hand role that colonialism and power play in the understanding and evolution of language and translation.
Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and the forthcoming Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. To learn more, you can find her online at rfkuang.com.
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 powers, 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?
Babel does so many things absolutely right, starting with the intense and detailed world building. While England in the mid-to-late 1800s existed, Kuang really makes you feel grounded in this historical yet fantastical world. She does so by layering what had to be hours of research on Oxford with completely plausible fantastical details of the silver and how translators are used for their silver-wielding abilities. This is definitely historical fiction at its finest. I absolutely trust the author's depiction of Oxford because she's been there (and it was really smart to include her author's note near the beginning), but there's also the sense of "this could all be real" related to the fantasy parts of the book. The writing is authentic and genuine related to the world building, and I felt like there absolutely could have been a dependency on silver and thus marginalized members of England's population to withhold this silver to keep the world running.
This book is definitely for fans of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, for a few reasons. The obvious one being that this takes place within academia, and that most of the story's focus is between the main character, Robin, and the friends he makes while in Oxford's program. This book is definitely for the fans of dark academia, but also the people who enjoy reading epics like The Priory of the Orange Tree. While not high fantasy like Samantha Shannon's sprawling novel, Babel tackles so many themes and spans so much time, one really feels like they're reading an epic novel. There is a lot of intrigue related to the fantasy of the world, and a lot of philosophical and relevant questions related to the history aspects—to the point where one really wonders, how much of this is even history after all?
That ending was absolutely insane, but since it's still early in this book's lifespan, I won't comment on that for now. Instead, I want to highlight how wonderfully Kuang builds up her characters. Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty all feel very distinct and genuine. For a historical fantasy, it's important that the characters feel like they are borne of that time period, while also making them feel like realistic participants in whatever the element of the fantasy is; and Kuang checks both boxes for each character. Each character makes surprising choices, which don't feel surprising after all once you think of their character. Kuang is just a master at creating characters and staying really true to who those characters are. What was really awesome about this was how we were able to get inside the heads of all of the characters at one point or another. While most of the chapters are narrated from Robin's point of view, it was super fun to jump to the interludes and learn more about the other main characters we might not have had a chance to learn more about otherwise.
I really enjoyed the language in this book—meaning, not just Kuang's writing style, which was superb, but also the literal language in the book. I loved the footnotes and how those explained more of what was in the text regarding the words from different languages. I loved how the footnotes felt incredibly relevant, and added to the story in fundamental ways. I loved the lectures from the professors about language and translation. I loved how each chapter started with a quote. I loved how much meaning was packed within this story of translation and power. I loved these meta elements. It really made this book feel like a book for book lovers, a book for language lovers. (My favorite footnotes included the one about Griffin and Sterling, and the one with newspaper clippings. I can't wait to talk about this with people who read the book!)
Lastly, I wanted to mention that I was obsessed with how many questions were layered into the fantasy, from the necessity of violence (it's in the subtitle!) to the discrepancies between a rich man and a poor man's lived experience, to the different experiences of the four main characters' and how that can be extrapolated into the larger experience of being part of England's Empire. The historical fantasy was really grounded in debates and questions and experiences we have today, which makes this an extremely relevant read, and not just an enthralling one.
I am so excited to hear what other people think about this book, and I can't wait to chat about it with my friends and to recommend it far and wide. This book will enrich the fantasy scene, and also provides relevant discourse about colonialism and power and language. For more from R. F. Kuang, find her online at rfkuang.com.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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