Reviews

I found this book difficult to rate and critique. I finished it several days ago and had to let my jumble of thoughts coalesce into something I could summarize.

The story is based in early 19th century England. Scholars at Oxford University have become masters in using silver bars to harness the power of words. Specifically, the bars amplify the meaning that is lost when words are translated from one language to another. The word-magic has turned England into a global powerhouse. It’s deeply embedded in England’s economy, healthcare, infrastructure, and war machine. It makes things faster, stronger, more resilient, and deadlier! Finding the magical word-pairs requires people who speak, think, and dream in those languages. To sustain this magic industry, England must recruit linguistically talented foreigners. The author very clearly notes the irony that the rich white men who make money from the magic despise foreigners and even women trying to attend a prestigious university such as Oxford.

The book follows a cohort of four recruits through their years at Oxford’s translation center known as Babel. Robin is from Canton, China, Victoire’s originally from Haiti, Remy’s from India, and Letty is a multilingual white woman from a powerful British family with connections to Oxford. At first, life at Oxford seems like a dream come true. They develop very close friendships and dive into academics afforded to a privileged few. While they are very close, all is not perfect; fissures appear, especially in their relationships with Letty. They also become aware that the word-magic and activities of Babel are not completely benevolent. Babel takes from the colonies and other less developed countries, but gives little in return. As a result, Babel has enemies, especially an underground group known as The Hermes Society, aimed at eliminating these inequities. They know a lot about Robin and use injustices from his painful childhood in an attempt to lure him into the group. Robin’s decision whether to join the group is made all the more difficult when he learns the Chinese recruiter is his unknown half brother. They were both brought to England by Professor Lovell of Babel.

I thought the story would have been better if it included more history of Robin’s brother Griffin and his life with Professor Lovell. Lovell’s relocation of the boys from China to England was despicable and treated pretty lightly in the book. To be honest, all of the white men we meet in the story are despicable.

I enjoyed the history and etymology sprinkled through the book. It took me longer than usual to read it because I kept getting distracted and researching things.

There is a lot to learn about friendship in the book. We cannot truly know and understand our friends no matter how close we think we are. Despite how intimate the cohort was, they were betrayed by one of their own. It’s a story of friendships gone horribly wrong. I found the author very stingy in sharing how Robin, his cohort, and his brother Griffin truly felt about each other. There were obviously some very strong feelings between some of them, but every time the dialog reached a poignant moment, the author cut it off. It left me asking “what the hell just happened?”

I really enjoyed the first 400 or so pages. I liked all the buildup of Hermes, their global network, and the covert activities. I also liked the history of what happened to the previous cohort of which Griffin was a member. It seemed like Hermes had everything together and was capable of changing the world for the better. However, I found the ending of the story dreadful and boring. The actions left England worse off, nothing improved for the colonies, the poor were still poor, and working conditions for the unskilled and child laborers probably got worse. Of all the possible endings, I don’t understand why the author chose such a tragic one. Late in the book, she laments that “victory is a game of inches, of historical contingencies where everything goes right because they have made it go right.” She should have followed her own advice.

library_rift's review

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adventurous dark hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

tato_gremlin's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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