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A review by jlkenneth
Babel by R.F. Kuang
5.0
”But what is the opposite of fidelity? Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
Turns out the hype is well-deserved; this book is truly a masterpiece.
I’ve just finished this towering and ambitious work by R. F. Kuang, and I must say, whatever expectations I had for this novel have been utterly blown out of the picture (which is saying a lot, considering this was my most highly anticipated release of 2022). Kuang has taken disparate threads and somehow woven them together to create something truly astounding, heartrending, and unlike anything I’ve read before.
This is also the only book I’ve read as an adult that has replicated the feeling of reading Harry Potter at age 12.
This novel is a phenomenal exploration of the forces of power, greed, and inequality that drive the machinery of Empire, and yet manages to be intimate, poignant, and emotive even as it tackles grand themes like colonialism, slavery, and race. It also somehow manages to be historical fiction, fantasy, and dark academia all at the same time, which is also quite a feat in my eyes.
Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution (yes, that’s actually the title) is set in an alternate version 19th-century England. Though the novel is technically speculative fiction, most of the political and historical landscape of the book is dominated by real events, with one significant change: England has mastered the magical art of silver-working, a form of magic which has allowed the British Empire to enjoy great luxuries and technological advances. Silver-working, however, hinges on the ability to translate languages - not merely out of a dictionary, but by a native speaker, one so familiar with a language that they can think and dream it. The Royal Translation Institute, (or Babel, as it’s most often referred to) therefore is the wealthiest and most important of the colleges at Oxford, and is the center of the book’s unfolding plot.
The actual magic of silver-working is FASCINATING. As far as magic systems go, this is a thoroughly executed one, filled with nuance, difficulty, and quite a few limits to what’s possible. Interestingly enough, much of this book focuses not on the work of translating, but on what translation can’t do: ”We capture what is lost in translation - for there is always something lost in translation - and the bar manifests it into being.” Reading Babel as a language nerd was an absolute DREAM.
Our protagonist, Robin Swift (a name he chooses because of his love for Gulliver’s Travels), is Chinese-born, taken in as the ward of an Oxford linguist after his family dies of cholera. His childhood after his immigration to England is essentially preparation for higher education, and when he finds himself a student at Babel, it’s in a class of 3 other students of similar backgrounds: Ramy, a Muslim born in Calcutta but raised in England to become a translator; Victoire, a black Haitian immigrant specializing in French; and Letty, the only British girl among their cohort, but who nevertheless has to struggle against expectations of women in her day. The bond which forms between these four shapes the tone and texture of the entire novel, and is in many ways the vessel by which Babel explores its deeper themes.
“‘I think,’ said Ramy, 'it's because when I speak, you listen…Because you're a good translator.' Ramy leaned back on his elbows. ‘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.’”
The friendships which grew between these characters were where this book really got its teeth into me - certain sections of Kuang’s prose had me alternating between choking back tears or on the edge of my seat. In many ways, this section of the novel reminded me of The Secret History, yet Kuang manages to highlight the deeper differences and nuances of these characters and their histories that Tartt’s novel never fully succeeded at, for me at least. Take this, for example:
”Later, when everything went sideways and the world broke in half, Robin would think back to this day, to this hour at this table, and wonder why they had been so quick, so carelessly eager to trust one another. Why had they refused to see the myriad ways they could hurt each other? Why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side? But the answer was obvious - that they were all four of them drowning in the unfamiliar, and they saw in each other a raft, and clinging to one another was the only way to stay afloat.”
This brings me to what really struck home most about this book: the utter complexity and nuance with which Kuang is able to write about the historical atrocities of colonialism and imperialism. One of the critiques I’ve seen about this book is that it’s heavy-handed, which I find an odd judgement given how many perspectives are given on the realities of these people in the book. Don’t get me wrong, the reality of race and colonialism is discussed FREQUENTLY, but in my mind it takes more than merely revisiting an argument to make it heavy-handed. Kuang presents the entire problem of empire in such a multifaceted light, and we watch the characters struggle to love what Oxford gives them even as they hate the impacts of the British Empire on their motherlands. Take these two accounts as an example:
This first, from a Brit realizing her complicit actions in oppressing others: ”It builds up, doesn't it? It doesn't just disappear. And one day you start prodding at what you've suppressed. And it's a mass of black rot, and its endless, horrifying, and you can't look away.”
And the second, from a colonized student, imagining living alongside white Brits as equals: “Doesn't it kill you? Knowing what they've done? Seeing their faces? I can't imagine a world where we coexist with them. Doesn't it split you apart?”
Kuang’s writing manages to be equal parts scathing and tender, emotional and intellectual, and that is the real strength of this novel.
And then there’s the plot. THE PLOT!! This is one of the most tensely-plotted novels I’ve read in a long time. Chekhov’s gun appears in at least 3 different contexts I can think of within the first 150 pages, and each time you simply know that you’ll be seeing it fire later on. And oh my WORD when those revelations do come it is simply so incredibly gratifying. GAH it’s so good!!!
There are truly just so many things I could say about this novel. And at the end of the day the great irony is that words fail. That’s why they’re powerful; this book helped me explore the greater societal and global impacts of what I mean when I say that words have power. But there are also things words cannot do, and in keeping with that notion, I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes from the book.
”But what struck him most just then was the beauty. The bars were singing, shaking; trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves, which was that translation was impossible, that the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known, that the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception. For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made him laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French, that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation - a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.”
Turns out the hype is well-deserved; this book is truly a masterpiece.
I’ve just finished this towering and ambitious work by R. F. Kuang, and I must say, whatever expectations I had for this novel have been utterly blown out of the picture (which is saying a lot, considering this was my most highly anticipated release of 2022). Kuang has taken disparate threads and somehow woven them together to create something truly astounding, heartrending, and unlike anything I’ve read before.
This is also the only book I’ve read as an adult that has replicated the feeling of reading Harry Potter at age 12.
This novel is a phenomenal exploration of the forces of power, greed, and inequality that drive the machinery of Empire, and yet manages to be intimate, poignant, and emotive even as it tackles grand themes like colonialism, slavery, and race. It also somehow manages to be historical fiction, fantasy, and dark academia all at the same time, which is also quite a feat in my eyes.
Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translator’s Revolution (yes, that’s actually the title) is set in an alternate version 19th-century England. Though the novel is technically speculative fiction, most of the political and historical landscape of the book is dominated by real events, with one significant change: England has mastered the magical art of silver-working, a form of magic which has allowed the British Empire to enjoy great luxuries and technological advances. Silver-working, however, hinges on the ability to translate languages - not merely out of a dictionary, but by a native speaker, one so familiar with a language that they can think and dream it. The Royal Translation Institute, (or Babel, as it’s most often referred to) therefore is the wealthiest and most important of the colleges at Oxford, and is the center of the book’s unfolding plot.
The actual magic of silver-working is FASCINATING. As far as magic systems go, this is a thoroughly executed one, filled with nuance, difficulty, and quite a few limits to what’s possible. Interestingly enough, much of this book focuses not on the work of translating, but on what translation can’t do: ”We capture what is lost in translation - for there is always something lost in translation - and the bar manifests it into being.” Reading Babel as a language nerd was an absolute DREAM.
Our protagonist, Robin Swift (a name he chooses because of his love for Gulliver’s Travels), is Chinese-born, taken in as the ward of an Oxford linguist after his family dies of cholera. His childhood after his immigration to England is essentially preparation for higher education, and when he finds himself a student at Babel, it’s in a class of 3 other students of similar backgrounds: Ramy, a Muslim born in Calcutta but raised in England to become a translator; Victoire, a black Haitian immigrant specializing in French; and Letty, the only British girl among their cohort, but who nevertheless has to struggle against expectations of women in her day. The bond which forms between these four shapes the tone and texture of the entire novel, and is in many ways the vessel by which Babel explores its deeper themes.
“‘I think,’ said Ramy, 'it's because when I speak, you listen…Because you're a good translator.' Ramy leaned back on his elbows. ‘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.’”
The friendships which grew between these characters were where this book really got its teeth into me - certain sections of Kuang’s prose had me alternating between choking back tears or on the edge of my seat. In many ways, this section of the novel reminded me of The Secret History, yet Kuang manages to highlight the deeper differences and nuances of these characters and their histories that Tartt’s novel never fully succeeded at, for me at least. Take this, for example:
”Later, when everything went sideways and the world broke in half, Robin would think back to this day, to this hour at this table, and wonder why they had been so quick, so carelessly eager to trust one another. Why had they refused to see the myriad ways they could hurt each other? Why had they not paused to interrogate their differences in birth, in raising, that meant they were not and could never be on the same side? But the answer was obvious - that they were all four of them drowning in the unfamiliar, and they saw in each other a raft, and clinging to one another was the only way to stay afloat.”
This brings me to what really struck home most about this book: the utter complexity and nuance with which Kuang is able to write about the historical atrocities of colonialism and imperialism. One of the critiques I’ve seen about this book is that it’s heavy-handed, which I find an odd judgement given how many perspectives are given on the realities of these people in the book. Don’t get me wrong, the reality of race and colonialism is discussed FREQUENTLY, but in my mind it takes more than merely revisiting an argument to make it heavy-handed. Kuang presents the entire problem of empire in such a multifaceted light, and we watch the characters struggle to love what Oxford gives them even as they hate the impacts of the British Empire on their motherlands. Take these two accounts as an example:
This first, from a Brit realizing her complicit actions in oppressing others: ”It builds up, doesn't it? It doesn't just disappear. And one day you start prodding at what you've suppressed. And it's a mass of black rot, and its endless, horrifying, and you can't look away.”
And the second, from a colonized student, imagining living alongside white Brits as equals: “Doesn't it kill you? Knowing what they've done? Seeing their faces? I can't imagine a world where we coexist with them. Doesn't it split you apart?”
Kuang’s writing manages to be equal parts scathing and tender, emotional and intellectual, and that is the real strength of this novel.
And then there’s the plot. THE PLOT!! This is one of the most tensely-plotted novels I’ve read in a long time. Chekhov’s gun appears in at least 3 different contexts I can think of within the first 150 pages, and each time you simply know that you’ll be seeing it fire later on. And oh my WORD when those revelations do come it is simply so incredibly gratifying. GAH it’s so good!!!
There are truly just so many things I could say about this novel. And at the end of the day the great irony is that words fail. That’s why they’re powerful; this book helped me explore the greater societal and global impacts of what I mean when I say that words have power. But there are also things words cannot do, and in keeping with that notion, I’ll close with one of my favorite quotes from the book.
”But what struck him most just then was the beauty. The bars were singing, shaking; trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves, which was that translation was impossible, that the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known, that the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception. For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made him laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French, that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation - a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.”