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Writer's picturemikeofthepalace

“Babel” by R.F. Kuang

Full title: Babel, or, The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.


I usually try to open my reviews with a TLDR, but I am completely unable to come up with any kind of a pithy blurb for this book. “It was excellent” is the best I can do for a review summary.


This is an alternate history book, set in the 1830s, and belongs firmly in the Dark Academia subgenre. The main character is a boy from Canton (more properly Guangzhou). He was orphaned by an illness that swept through the city, but a visiting Oxford professor decided to bring him to England as his ward and train him to enroll in Oxford’s prestigious (and fictional) Institute of Translation. He takes the name of Robin Swift, and we’re off.


The British Empire, after victory over Napoleon, is the giant of the world stage. In Rebecca Kuang’s version of things, Britain’s global dominance is in large part due to their dominance of “translation magic.” Spells inscribed on silver bars make British ships faster, British guns more accurate, British steam engines more efficient, and prop up a global empire. These spells require a deep, deep understanding of both English and a different language. The magical potential of the languages more familiar to the British (French, German, Latin, etc) have largely been tapped out. This is the reason Robin was brought to England and prepared for education at Oxford; his knowledge of Mandarin makes him a literal strategic asset to the British.


While at Oxford, Robin forms a very tightly knit relationship with the others of his cohort. Ramy (from Calcutta) and Victoire (from Haiti) have the same kind of personal history as Robin. The fourth of the cohort, Letty, is English, the daughter of an admiral. All four of them are non-traditional students at Oxford, but translation is too vital to the Empire to be fussed over little things like skin color or gender if the person in question is a talented linguist.


This book has a great deal to say about all the things one might expect when reading a book from the perspective of a minority living in 19th century Oxford. Imperialism, colonialism, racism, sexism, class: all of these things are pretty heavily covered in this book. All four of the principal characters face discrimination (though Robin and Ramy are male, Letty is English, and Robin can pass for white if one doesn’t look too closely. Victoire gets it from all sides). Historically, this takes place in the buildup towards the First Opium War, which is about as morally unambiguous a conflict as ever there was. (China won’t let the British sell narcotics? The audacity! How dare they!) Robin loves it at Oxford, but he is also faced with a growing awareness of what exactly the British Empire is, and the role he’s being groomed to play within it. There is, obviously, conflict.


There’s no romance at all in this, which I found kind of refreshing. I kept expecting it, because I’m as vulnerable as anyone to the “but you have to have a romance plotline!” assumption. The book absolutely does not need it, and is stronger for not having it shoehorned in.


This is very different from Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, which is much more high-fantasy. Magic is in the background, but it’s much more subtle. Central as it is to the Empire, it’s much less central to the story. Robin is no soldier like Rin; action scenes are few and far between. And though this deals with many of the same themes as the Poppy War, it’s certainly not grimdark. Some of the advance info compares it to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and that’s a reasonable comparison. The language isn’t as dense and Austen-esque as JS&MrN, but this is still a tome. Kuang spends a lot of time on the intricacies of language and translation; I’ve no doubt many will find it dull. If you didn’t like the Appendices to LotR or the footnotes to JS&MrN (Kuang also uses lots of footnotes, and they’re the best) you might find this challenging.


Where this is similar to the Poppy War is in the overall tone. This isn’t a happy book. Robin & company are very aware of just how unassailably powerful the British Empire is. I can also tell you that Kuang evidently likes her books to include a distinct “before” and “after” moment (if you’ve read book 1 of the Poppy War, you know precisely what I’m talking about). When the stakes and tone change, they change.


This book deserves to be a classic. It’s a masterpiece, and it comes out August 23rd.


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