Babel: The Unnecessity of a Book

Posted On March 10, 2024

Hi Readers! If you follow me on Instagram, you know well enough about my tragedy of a journey of reading Babel since a month. One fine Sunday I just decided that I cannot let this book take more of my time. So, instead of DNFing it, I took the entire day to finish it. And, what a waste of time that was. I could have read two short books in that time. Or I could have read one good thick book in that time. Or I could have binge watched two series in that time. Or I could have gone on a long weekend trip in that time. Alas! I will know better next time… or will I?

Please note that this review contains spoilers. It was impossible to wreak my wrath over the book without writing unfiltered.

~~GOODREADS DESCRIPTION~~

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

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. The tower and its students are 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 the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, 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?

~~WHAT I LIKED~~

I am not a total monster. Even if I suffered through the book, there are a more than one (three) things that I liked. And, I won’t pretend otherwise. I loved how much effort was put into the quotes that started with every chapter. They were astute and gave us an inkling of an idea of what was to follow, without actually ruining the story. Such little things that authors do go straight to my soul. I mean, instead of just writing chapter 1, 2 and so on, we get to start each chapter with a hand-picked quote for that particular chapter? Yes, please! Make it a norm, in fact!

Secondly, I liked the concept. I mean, who wouldn’t? A big-ass book set in the 1830s Oxford where brilliant, foreign, language-obsessed, even though teenagers at that, are set to destroy systemic oppression, colonialism, capitalism that the country who gave them a life, breed from countries they were born in. Oh, wait. I am still supposed to tell you why I liked this, even though I slipped into the critic role. So, yes, the concept is fascinating. That’s all.

And lastly, I liked how white privilege was written. We have a cohort of four, where Robin born in China, Ramy born in India, a black woman Victoire born in France and a white woman Letty born in France. The struggles of Robin, Ramy and Victoire when conveyed to Letty are something that Letty is simply incapable to understand. Be it something as obvious as casual racism or as huge as systemic oppression of their birth countries. No matter how much they try to explain, she is entirely unable to grasp the concept because she never had to experience an iota of it because of her white privilege. Many books have such story lines, but they way it was written in Babel was perhaps the most powerful yet simple way I have ever read it.

~~WHAT I DID NOT LIKE~~

~~FANTASTY FICTION~~

I could perhaps write a thesis on this subject, but let me tell you a few major problems I had with Babel. First problem is that it’s pretentious.

I get that it’s fiction, but a Translation Institute responsible for an entire country’s finances and basic economic working sounds ridiculous. How can something as non-materialistic as translation could ever be paired with silver was beyond me. And, the more I read, the funnier it was, because it kept talking about how indispensable Babel was.

I also get that it’s fantasy fiction, but ‘silver-working’ to sustain something as basic as carts, horse carriages and as big as bridges was ridiculous as well.

I get that it’s a book that comes with social commentary, but the plotting of a war by translation professors was just dumb. I felt that the author herself must have never met professors or translators. The point of being an intellectual is just that. Never can it be about making money, plotting wars, destroying economies, because with intellectuals it’s always just about talking & studying about those things and never really doing them.

~~ACADEMIA~~

Moving on to the actual academia vibes. When I started the book, I felt like it was Donna Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’s long-lost sister. I had DNFed that one, mind you. So, that was a sure shot sign from the universe. Anyway, I initially liked the world building. It was crude, but it kind of reminded me of Harry Potter and Hogwarts. But, soon, the overpowering dissection of Greek, Latin, Chinese, Urdu, French, Kreyol, German and so on started to grate on me. It wasn’t enough that this ‘knowledge’ was provided in the most robotic of ways in the text, but also in the multitudes of footnotes. It was interesting at first, but soon I felt like I was reading a textbook for a subject I did not enrol for. But, of course, after Book 2 of 5, the academia repulsiveness bleared and a Robin Hood approach came into bright light.

~~ROBIN HOOD~~

A lot of the times, Babel felt like a glorified Robin Hood story. A secret society formed of ex-Babel and current Babel students looting from the Institute and giving back to their birth countries. On the very basic level, it raised the question of who does the adopted child be more truthful and grateful towards – birth parents or adoptive parents? Given that the cohort was picked from their nations by rich British intellectuals so they could on behalf of Babel translate something that would lead to the destruction of their nations. However, this should not have been a naïve as story as just that.

~~CHARACTERS~~

I liked the characters – Robin, Ramy, Victoire, Letty, Griffin, Professor Lovell. But, they were uni-dimensional. The cohort of four were tagged brilliant rebellious students. Griffin was the Hermes patriot for lost boys. Professor Lovell was the emotionless intellectual. Babel was all about being smart or enabling rich to stay richer and poor to stay poorer. Hermes was about destroying Babel. It’s like the characters’ and institutions’ agendas were written in stone and anything that could have made them more complicated human beings was not experimented. There was a natural conflict shown in Robin, but that was the bare minimum possible. When you write something in stone, it is obvious, one-layered and naïve. But, when you write in water, it is multi-faceted, deep, confusing and makes you uncomfortable in the right way. It will show you your mind’s reflection in the sense that each reader will have a different takeaway. In that sense, it was a big disappointment.

~~THE ENDING~~

I must say ‘The Necessity of Violence’ part of the book towards the end was as pleasurable to read as walking in Mumbai in the scorching summer heat of 40 degrees. When people started dying, I knew it would lead to a terrible ending. A lot of violence finally leading to multiple students and professors killing themselves was not what I wanted. It might have been a realistic way to end the book, but we were reading fiction. So, it was the worst possible ending imaginable.

~~TO READ OR NOT TO READ~~

Well, if you are still here and reading the review, I bet you might not feel like reading the book. But, I must say that my opinion on Babel is an unpopular opinion. Almost everyone has loved this book and swears by this author. So, if you have read and loved any books by R.F. Kuang, then you would probably like this book. R.F. Kuang’s writing is quite versatile. I mean, Babel, The Poppy War and Yellowface are all such different books set in different eras. I think that her concepts are always brilliant, but the execution isn’t always up to the mark. But, having said that, if you are looking to read something new and exciting, then you should read this book. I have rated Babel by R.F. Kuang at 1.5/5 stars.

Until next time,