Babel by R.F. Kuang
Book title:
Babel
Author:
R.F. Kuang
Genre:
Historical fantasy
Published: August
23, 2022
544 pages
“That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.”
Robin Swift, an orphaned Chinese boy, is brought to London by his new mysterious ward Professor Lovell. After training years in Latin, ancient Greek, and Chinese, he enrolls in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, also known as Babel. Besides being the world’s center for translation, it is also the center for silver-working, a magical way of manifesting the meanings lost in translation. This makes Babel the principal assistant in the British Empire’s quest for colonization. As a Chinese man raised in Britain, Robin soon realizes that serving Babel means betraying his motherland. But can a student stand against an empire?
Babel is a dark academia historical fantasy about colonialism, oppression, and colonial resistance. The themes this book tackles are hugely important, and Kuang does a great job exploring the complex intersecting identities of her main characters. Unfortunately, this is one of those books where I feel the literary merit of the book was higher than my enjoyment of it.
There were parts of this book that I loved, mostly the parts that were more fast paced and where Robin and his friends were actively doing stuff. But there were also long sections in this book where almost nothing happened, and the main characters were just being lectured to about translation theory and etymology. And I’m someone who loves translation theory and etymology! However, the exposition sections of this book dragged on too long, and I didn’t feel like I was learning anything new.
Babel uses an omniscient third person narration that is mostly focalized through Robin’s eyes, but we never get a deep insight into Robin. When he changes from a diffident boy willing to take a beating into a vengeful revolutionary who wants to destroy the British Empire, I found myself wanting more explicit character motivation. I understand why this change might happen, but it didn’t feel inevitable and organic for Robin’s character.
Another thing that I found jarring in the choice of the narration was that several times the reader was told what had happened before the event was described in detail. The narrator also resorted to countless explanations, often in footnotes, on how the obviously racist actions and expressions were, in fact, racist. That made the exploration of the themes of racism and colonialism rather repetitive and heavy-handed.
I also found the fantasy worldbuilding very shallow. The fantasy in this book is limited to silver-working, a practice where translators working in Babel engrave words in different languages in silver bars, giving the bars magical abilities to make ships travel faster and carriages be safer, for example. However, the fantasy element felt superfluous. It is mentioned that silver working was invented in the Roman Empire, yet we’re supposed to believe that it had no impact on the whole European and world history until the early 19th century? It seemed that the fantasy world of Babel was exactly the same after two thousand years of silver-working as our world is (or was) without it. Because the fantasy elements are so shallow, the same story could have been told without any of the silver work. I might have enjoyed this book more if it had either been a purely (alternative) historical fiction or if the fantasy elements had influenced the world more.
For literary merit, this book deserves five stars, but if I rate it purely based on my enjoyment of it, I’d give it four stars. Combine those ratings, and I ended up giving Babel four and a half stars. If you like dark academia with slight fantasy elements that tackles the themes of colonialism and oppression, definitely read this book.
No comments:
Post a Comment