Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Babel

Buddy read with Sharron Joy. ^^

Where do I begin. This was perfection in a novel... Bold words, I know.

This straight away reminded me of a recent read, being Jonathan strange and Mr norrel in tone, but I would say more accessible, which is funny because one of the main things I loved about this novel was how academic this was. I've always liked the idea of dark academia but always thought I'd struggle to understand the information, (probably why I leaned away from this for so long), but it was so reader friendly in its prose and so fascinating that I couldn't help pour over every word. It was so surprisingly easy to read that I barely minded the lack of consistent short chapters.
As well as being visceral in the vibe of the genre, it wasn't shy on having substance.

The plot was thick and intricate, with threads of conspiracies and beautiful detailing on the science behind silver-working (the magic system in this world). The conversations on interpretation, colonialism, building into a corrupt Empire was just so powerful to read about.

The victorian setting was lush, filled with jaw dropping descriptions of an imagined Oxford in what you could call this alternate history, and the early tour of the Institue of Language itself was fascinating.

Speaking of language, the etymology was so thorough, fascinating and deep. I loved seeing how different languages connected, and in this case, paired together to create something quite magical, yet equally dangerous in the wrong (and of course, powerful) hands.

Our characters..Oh what can I say that hasn'y been said before?
I Ioved the friendship demonstrated here, especially between Robin and Ramy. Seeing our main four characters explore Babel from their varying and diverse perspectives and as novice scholars of language was such a delight.
I appreciated getting interludes of the other threes upbringing and history, because the story is mainly told from Robin's perspective, so it was nice to change it up a bit and appreciate a bit more of the other characters. Even if we didn't have that, I could never accuse Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty of being flat characters. They felt real.

The whole time, pacing was brilliant. This was especially noticed at times when I was listening to the audio.

I feel like I learned so much during my time in this world. I'm left heartbroken and in awe at the sheer aduacity of excellence R.F. Kuang had in crafting this whole piece together. Coming into this as the first novel I've read from this author, I now understand that all the praise is well deserved and I look forward to trying out her other novels.

A note on the audio - the voices and accents the narrator could flit between was so impressive. He sounded like a BBC news reporter for the first time, but this was quite endearing as time went on.
I loved blended reading this one (physical and audio). It felt like my own little match-pair.

Content Warnings

cardboard's review against another edition

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emotional inspiring 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? Yes

4.0

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butterfly_seraph's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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lauragarabedian's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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maddiebusick's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

4.75

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marissasa's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

Babel rocked me to my core, and left me reading for 5 hours straight until 2am because I couldn't stop and just needed to finish it. R. F. Kuang is a brilliant literary genius and I don't know how she could break my heart this many times in one book and then set it on fire with the flames of revolution and expect me to be okay at the end. Everything about this story enraptured me. The immense amounts of research that you can feel went into it, the incredibly detailed magic and world-building that still closely mimics real life, the nuance and depth of colonial discourse and how it feels to actively participate and benefit from it as a person of color, the setting of academia and ways in which research and higher education contributes and sustains imperial power, the layered and flawed and beautiful realness of the characters, the academic writing and footnotes that make you feel like you are actually reading a history book, and the devastating plot moments that will leave hauntingly gorgeous quotes stuck in your head for days. This is a new all-time favorite book for me, it is truly amazing how much Kuang captured in one book and how this story left me both broken and emotionally devastated as well as completely awed and profoundly satisfied. What a stunning piece of literature, I have truly read nothing else like it.

"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."

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lara_lez's review against another edition

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informative inspiring reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Content Warnings

just_one_more_paige's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring 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

5.0

This was one of the most "no brainer" books I have ever read. After reading and loving Kuang's debut series (The Poppy War, The Dragon Republic, The Burning God) she officially put herself on my list of favorite authors. And so just knowing this was another historical fiction-fantasy style read, I was hype. And as I watched review after review say that this was a masterpiece of literature, my excitement kept growing and growing and growing. This past week, I finally found myself in the right combination of reading mood, a few days off, and having both the audiobook and physical copy in hand. And it was...everything I had built my hopes for it to be.

When he is just a boy, the newly christened Robin Swift is brought from his homeland in Canton to London, where he spends years studying Latin, Ancient Greek and Chinese under the eye of his...benefactor...Professor Lovell. All this effort, to the exclusion of anything else, is in preparation for the day he'll enroll in the prestigious Royal Institute of Translation (aka Babel) at Oxford University. This is the center of the world, as far as the study of language and translation are concerned. And it's also the center for the study of silver-working, where the power of words and meaning are harnessed into magical silver bars that power basically everything in England. Robin falls in love with Oxford, Babel, and his cohort: Remy, Letty, and Victoire. But as time goes and he learns how much Britain's colonial machine is powered by silver, which is in turn powered by those same people that Britain is colonizing and looking down on, Robin is pulled into a secret society that is fighting against imperial expansion, and for the rights of people and places, like Robin and China, "foreigners" and "other lands" that England will never fully accept as their own. When things come to a head and Robin realizes that England is preparing to declare (a deeply unjust) war on China over opium and silver, Robin has to make some tough decisions about which side he is on, and how far he's willing to go for that side.

Alright, I literally could not stop listening, reading, highlighting passages, taking notes...overall I just couldn't step away from this novel. It is just as sweeping, breathtaking, impressive and immersive as promised. I'm even really sure how to express, in a cohesive way, all my reactions to this, so you're just gonna have to hang on through the following gushing and all-over-the-place review. First, I loved (and loved to...hate, I guess) every single character in these pages. While they were all an archetype or representation, they also all had fully nuanced stories of their own, which is a truly lovely way to demonstrate that that's what real life is like - we are all individual, and yet, we also likely fall into a number of character tropes. Victoire and Letty and Robin and Remy had such complex and *real* interpersonal relationships, based on a commonality of being outsiders, but with so much difference in the spaces between that similarity (that made watching their later, similarly nuanced, dissolution all the more difficult, for all its combined expectedness and, still because as a reader one cannot help but hope for something different, heartbreaking). This character development interpersonally was matched by the individual development each had, unfolding as the story progressed on their own and in conjunction. And of course, with Robin as the primary perspective, watching his slow (and then sudden) turn, within the bounds of the plot and information reveal, was so well done.

I also thought the gothic academia setting was phenomenal, some of the best I've ever read (The Secret History wishes it was Babel). The theory of translation - keeping faith with the original text versus making it relatable into the translated language/culture/time - is just fascinating. Is faithful translation across culture and time and space possible? Where is the line between the words and the spirit behind them, between fidelity and betrayal (and what power translators have in that space)? The discussions about etymology and how that was harnessed for the silver-working, was phenomenal (and really educational - I spent a lot of time Googling things while reading this). Just in general, the play with and study of language(s) is stunning, both in entertainment and insight value. And the commentary on how it’s used in colonialism in myriad ways was really mind-opening. As I'm sort of talking about the setting here, let me just say that Kuang brought it to life. The intertwining history of the Industrial Revolution and workers rights and public health and colonialism/immigrant racism with this historical fantasy reworking of it all as the Silver Industrial Revolution is masterfully done. And as a small detail that I deeply loved, the Babel tower was bigger on the inside! And the first had glimpses into academic life, the many ways that it is not at all above the political and economic powers it purports to be, and the construction of artificial scarcity in the field, was simply spot on.

Thematically, and this should hopefully already be clear based on the review so far, the primary topic (other than translation explored throughout this novel is colonialism and imperial empires. What a comprehensive look at the myriad ways colonialism is handled and/or experienced, from so many angles and perspectives. The commentary on how empires actually need, and would collapse without, those they subjugate, is spot on. Kuang illustrates the racism and colonialism of western institutions (especially the insidiousness of the one like "education organizations" that claim to be better/helping, but are just as complicit), and the way they treat both women and POC and the intersectionality there, in a way that sparks outrage, empathy, awakening and understanding. She makes it *so* clear how it pushes people to violence, but also causes others to retreat into the comfort of pretending it’s not true because that’s easier. There are not necessarily answers or "right" choices, here or IRL, but this book acts such a phenomenal fictional call to action, with a cutting precision I’ve not read anything like anywhere else.

In addition to addressing colonialism on a wider, societal impact, level, we also see a multitude of individual reactions to it, from those masterminding it to those perpetuating it (actively or unconsciously) to those at the receiving end. The way Robin, and others, struggle with the confluence of colonialism and creature comforts, how it's all in the abstract…until it isn’t, and then you can’t ignore it anymore, was magnificently rendered. The contradiction he faces, of despising colonizers and still wanting to be respected by them, resenting how he was treated versus wanting to be a part of it is so challenging to read him working through. This is compounded by the belonging one finds with a cohort, even within the larger scope of a place one doesn’t belong, that makes acknowledging reality even harder. The guilt of loving where one is and thriving in it, while still recognizing the unjust foundations it was built on, is a complex contradiction and cognitive dissonance to have to live with and decide on again each day. In trying to decide between personal happiness and greater injustice, when the only obstacle to a smooth life is one’s conscience and fear of breaking an illusion (and is survival too much to ask for in exchange for one’s morals, because it’s violent work that sustains the fantasy), Robin and his cohort learn that there was no straddling the line. You are either part of the institution, helping hold it up, or you are against it.

My one small complaint, and I know they are students and out of their depth so maybe it’s more annoyance than complaint, was how they tried to hide Lovell "situation" (trying to avoid spoilers). I feel like their choices actually caused more suspicion of them, versus other options which could have been more “taken care of” and closed-ended, in a way that allowed them to actually "get away with it." But otherwise, I want to mention a few final things I did really like that don't really fit with the last few paragraphs. Kuang's portrayal of the necessity of repressing memories of one’s past in order to survive a new life in a new land is a heartbreaking commentary on immigration. The universal connection of those all suffering from coercion and exploitation at the hands of the powerful is a strong vein throughout; if we can connect as the majority in that vein, there is such power. There was a really interesting exploration of the meaning and purpose of sacrifice, is it actually a meaningless gesture because while it makes one feel better and lets one off the hook, it does nothing to fix the actual root problem. The final end [of life] moments, and the memories one finds themself clinging to in that moment, were incredibly poignant. And OMG the ending and its circle back to the beginning - that was so long ago in the story I had mostly forgotten the details of - as a literary “closing” was perfection! And the even more amazing after that, the epilogue: of hope but like, with the realistic tiny gains made out of pure and endless effort but also always the possibility and potential exists. It is hopeful and hopeless simultaneously in a way I can’t put words to but is just a masterpiece.

Y'all. Holy shit. Kuang is a literary force and we honestly do not deserve her. This was maybe a bit didactic and repetitive at times, but to great effect as these are topics that are both deeply necessary to address and IRL overlooked because it's easier to survive (or thrive, depending on who you are) in the status quo and not reckon with them. Such astute, darkly humorous, and satirical observations and commentary, alongside fantastic atmospheric setting, intriguing and fully dimensional characters, and a page-turning and deeply satisfying (as far as calling out the bollocks - I'm bringing the contemporary British slang, yea?) plot. Over and over, Kuang just brings it in these pages. Extraordinary. Remarkable.

“It had not registered until now that he would not step foot on his native shore again for many years, if ever. […] The word loss was inadequate. Loos just meant a lack, meant something was missing, but it did not encompass the totality of this severance, this terrifying un-anchoring from all that he’d ever known.”

“A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers.”

“They needed each other because they had no one else.”

“Words have no meaning unless there is someone present who can understand them.”

“But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present.”

“A dangerous trap indeed, for a player to believe his own stories, to be blinded by the applause.”

“But that’s the great contradiction of colonialism. […] It’s built to destroy that which it prizes most.”

“A gun takes all the hard work out of murder, and makes it elegant. It shrinks the distance between resolve and action, you see?”

“Violence shows them how much we’re willing to give up […] Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock. You have no idea what you’re capable of, truly. You can’t imagine how the world might shift unless you pull the trigger.”

“Justice is exhausting.”

“…the obstacle was not the struggle, but the failure to imagine it was possible at all, the compulsion to cling to the safe, the survivable status quo.”

“Empire needed extraction. […] The hands of the Empire were tied, because it could not raze that from which it profited.”

“We have to die to get their pity […] We have to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. But, I don’t want to die…”

“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.”

“…revolution is, in fact, always unimaginable. It shatters the world you know. The future is unwritten, brimming with potential.”

“Victory is not assured. Victory may be in the portents, but it must be urged there by violence, by suffering, by martyrs, by blood. Victory is wrought by ingenuity, persistence, and sacrifice. Victory is a game of inches, of historical contingencies where everything goes right because they have made it go right.”

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