Book Review: Babel by R. F. Kuang

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?
Synopsis and picture sourced from Goodreads

A hefty 542 pages and heavily sprinkled with footnotes, Babel reads like a mammoth research journal; something Kuang has copped some negative criticisms for. Initially reluctant to relive my university days, I gradually appreciated the supporting information provided in a way that wouldn’t convolute the main part of the story (besides, can you expect anything else from someone who has multiple Masters’ degrees?). 
The author could also be forgiven for the initial slow pace of the book as she set up the magnificent world-building that was the Royal Institute of Translation and the breadth of languages spoken by the students in it. Once you persevere through the history ‘slog’ making up the first third of the book, however, the rest of the book picks up and becomes un-putdown-able.

Told almost entirely from Robin’s perspective, Kuang takes the time to shine the spotlight on three of his fellow cohort.
Ramiz Rafi “Ramy” Mirza, who quickly became Robin’s best friend, was a Muslim Indian student from Calcutta. Like Robin, his admission into Oxford was sponsored by a wealthy British man.
Victoire Desgraves was a black Haitian whom had fled to France with her mother. She forged her letter of recommendation to Oxford from her mother’s late employer.
Letitia “Letty” Price was the daughter of a British former admiral. Successfully gaining admission into Oxford after her brother died in an accident, she craved for approval and recognition.

Though I have dabbled, and enjoyed reading historical fiction before, at first glance, a speculative/historical fantasy isn’t a genre I’m familiar, or usually interested in. Highly recommended by my niece, there has been times throughout reading this book I wasn’t sure whether to thank her, curse her, or throttle her (endearingly, of course) 😜!

What constitutes a good book? To me, it’s the ability to elicit strong responses from the reader. An opening line that hooks you, perhaps; a few sentences or paragraphs describing heartbreak so precisely it brings a tear or two to your eyes; a whole section dedicated to detailing how a villain with no redeemable qualities you have hated all throughout the book is served justice, withering to a slow, torturous death administered by the main character you have been rooting for; anything but the overwhelming desire to snap shut the book and toss it to the other end of the room in sheer frustration because you’re half-way through and something is yet to take place.

Never before has words on a page affected me the way Babel did. As though imbued with some magical powers, the book possessed hands that were able to reach deep into my soul, yank it out of me and pull it apart. Just like one attempting to glue back the pieces of a broken cup, it had taken me several days post-finishing reading the book to fully recover from the enormity of the experience. Almost five months on since I read the very last word on the last page, attempting to write this review remains a highly daunting task, for fear that I might not give the book the justice it truly deserves.

As a POC immigrant, I could more than relate to the feeling of disassociation Robin had felt when he was plucked out of the only home he knew and expected to land on his own two feet soon after he was thrust into a foreign country. As a linguist enthusiast whom had to learn and eventually become proficient in the English language (how come ‘door’ rhyme with ‘bore’ despite the slightly different spelling, but different to the way you pronounce ‘book’ or ‘poor’ despite the same number of ‘o’s?), Robin, Ramy and Victoire’s constant struggle between mastering a language of a country you live in whilst also maintaining the fluency of your native tongue resonated oh-so-strongly. Reading the incident of Robin and Ramy’s casual-turned-hostile encounter with a group of fellow Caucasian students upon realising that Ramy was a man of colour whom shouldn’t be wearing Oxford scholar gown was an echo of the racism I had been subjected to during my childhood and early teenage years.

“I’ve always just tried to blend in,” said Robin.
“But that’s impossible for me,” said Ramy.
A sobering and painful reminder that racism has levels of severity, this was one of the very first heartbreaks I experienced, so early into the book. I was reminded, once again, of the fight-or-flight tendencies gripping every POC when faced with prejudice/discrimination/racism. Do you tone down your otherness, keep your head down and walk away from potential altercation like Robin and Victoire, for it increases the likelihood of your survival? What part of yourself (however miniscule) are you willing to sacrifice for the sake of assimilating to the majority? Or do you adopt Ramy’s philosophy of having “had no choice but to stand out… decided he might as well dazzle”?

The character with the least common ground, I could, to a certain extent, sympathise with Letty. Sure, compared to her fellow cohort, she came from a cushy, more privileged background. Just as Robin, Ramy and Victoire were discriminated based on their race, being one of the few women scholars in the whole of Babel, Letty (and Victoire) received discrimination purely because of her gender. Amongst her POC friends, she was the minority, failing to comprehend her friends’ struggles that consequently shape their actions.

Whilst giving away any spoiler is frowned upon when writing a book review, when Robin realises that “The university tells us we are special, chosen, selected, when really we are severed from our motherlands and raised within spitting distance of a class we can never truly become a part of…”, a revolt against the system that has exploited him and other students recruited into Babel in the first place is insinuated. With the alternate title of the book being ‘The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution’, the ending is, literally, spelled out.

Not equipped to discuss the broader issues Kuang tries to address in the book – namely British imperialism, colonisation and capitalism – with the same amount of passion, I will just leave the following quote here, which perfectly sums up my thought on the subject.
“Never, Robin thought, would he understand these men, who talked of the world and its movements like a grand chess game, where countries and peoples were pieces to be moved and manipulated at will.”

Jam-packed with memorable, thought-provoking quotes, here are a handful that continue to haunt me.

“The Oxford-to-Paddington railway line was not laid until 1844, but here it was constructed several years earlier for two reasons… because I needed to get my characters to London a bit faster.”
“If you find any other inconsistencies, feel free to remind yourself this is a work of fiction.”
~R.F. Kuang on ‘bending’ the facts to accommodate for the set up of her book.

“They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men.”

“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?”
A foreshadowing paragraph at its best!

“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.”

“English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”

“Translation means doing violence upon the original, it means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes.”

“… an act of translation is always an act of betrayal.”

“Would you let someone come in and tell you what words in your own language mean?”

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

“Anger was a chokehold. Anger did not empower you. It sat on your chest; it squeezed your ribs until you felt trapped, suffocated, out of options. Anger simmered, then exploded. Anger was constriction, and the consequent rage a desperate attempt to breathe.”

“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.”

“History isn’t a premade tapestry that we’ve got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.”

And lastly…
“You fly no one’s flag. You’re free to seek your own harbour.”
Hands down the best two sentences I have ever come across to date. Uttered to further drill down the notion that gratitude, obligation and servitudes aren’t warranted when a saviour’s motive in providing you with a so-called better life is more about advancing his own agenda (and little to nothing to do with the goodness of his heart), I continue to unpack the full impact and power of this sentiment to this very day.