Babel
Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
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4.3 • 844 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of The Poppy War
“Absolutely phenomenal. One of the most brilliant, razor-sharp books I've had the pleasure of reading that isn't just an alternative fantastical history, but an interrogative one; one that grabs colonial history and the Industrial Revolution, turns it over, and shakes it out.” -- Shannon Chakraborty, bestselling author of The City of Brass
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell 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.
Babel is 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 its knowledge 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?
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
We were awestruck by this stunning historical fantasy set in Victorian England. Young Robin Swift has such an innate gift for language that he’s being groomed by the British Crown to become a translator—and the stakes are high, as the meanings of words create a magical power that can be wielded to run a worldwide empire. But Robin soon discovers an underground network of linguists trying to undo the damage this magic has wrought. Author R. F. Kuang weaves fantasy and history together into an intricate story of love, loss, friendship, and family, all while exploring the complexities of language, culture, and colonialism. Narrator Chris Lew Kum Hoi brilliantly portrays Robin, while Billie Fulford-Brown chimes in to delightfully narrate the book’s many asides explaining linguistics and history. Engaging and poignant, Babel uses brilliant fantasy world-building to grapple with real events.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Kuang (the Poppy War trilogy) underwhelms with a didactic, unsubtle take on dark academia and imperialism. After the unnamed protagonist's mother dies in 1830s Canton, he dubs himself Robin Swift at the urging of professor Richard Lovell, an Oxford sinologist who tutors Mandarin-speaking Robin to become a student at Babel, Oxford's Royal Institute of Translation. Robin falls in love with Oxford and his cohort: witty Calcutta-born Ramiz Rafi Mirza; secretive Haitian-born Victorie Desgraves; and self-righteous Brighton-born Letitia Price. Together they learn the magical process of capturing in silver the linguistic nuances lost in translation—and along the way uncover the process's ties to imperialism. This brilliant, ambitious concept falters in execution, reading more like a postcolonial social history than a proper novel. The narrative is frequently interrupted by lectures on why imperialism is bad, not trusting the reader or the plot itself enough to know that this message will be clear from the events as they unfold. Kuang assumes an audience that disagrees with her, and the result keeps readers who are already aware of the evils of racism and empire at arm's length. The characters, meanwhile, often feel dubiously motivated. Readers will be drawn in by the fascinating, linguistic magic system and righteous stance, but many will come away frustrated.
Customer Reviews
Well done
An inventive, biting, melancholy tale. I’ll not soon forget it. Kuang’s writing is so self-assured. The pacing in this novel is slower than the poppy war trilogy but that seems by design.
A textbook
I have no doubt that RF is extremely intelligent and did a ludicrous amount of research for this book. For that, 5 stars.
But the sheer amount of straight-up linguistics lessons and etymology explanations is staggering for a fiction book. I would say that it removes you from the story, but there’s so many of them that it really is the story.
On top of that, Robin may just be the most boring yet somehow infuriating main character I’ve ever read. By the middle of the book I couldn’t care less what happened to him, I just hoped it would happen soon so I could be done reading his thoughts.
And then the end of the book, the only interesting part, happens so quickly it’s not even enjoyed.
Think of the least interesting person you know telling you about their homework for six hours and then saying something cool at the end seemingly by accident
Hate Fest
Babel is the story of four students in Oxford England in an alternate history of the beginning of the Great Enrichment during the 1830s.
The alternate part of the history is that nasty translation professors have found a way to improve productivity with magic and silver.
Strange economics, including a Trumpian balance of payments issue, lead the students down a path towards terrorism.
The author could make the story a little less grim with a little romance. Everyone is too busy studying and hating to have a romance.
It is a story of how academics leads to the “logical” extreme. How far will the decent into terrorism go? Does the evil of the professors justify it?