Babel is a profound piece of historical fiction set in 1830s England, about Robin, a young man of Chinese and English ancestry, removed from his homeland at the age of 11 and groomed for education at Oxford University’s – Royal Institute of Translation; in a world where linguistic cognition and “silver working” can accomplish magical (or repulsive) things for the benefit of the English empire.
It transitions from being informative and educational about the time period, to uncomfortable and unsettling when the characters encounter discrimination as they navigate an environment that desires their polyglot skills, while simultaneously demanding their unquestioning obedience; even when faced with decisions that make them feel like they are betraying their origins and ancestry.
This is the first book I’ve read by R.F. Kuang. I chose this over The Poppy War trilogy in order to get a sense of Kuang’s writing style before diving into a series. Her education and interest in history, literature, and translation, are strongly reflected in this novel. The rich detail creates an immersive, slow burn narrative that I really enjoyed.
Likes / Dislikes
The book is divided into five parts, and with the exception of three “Interlude” chapters, the entire story is told from the third-person perspective of Robin Swift.
I had a very difficult time relating to Robin, and that made getting through the story a struggle for about the first half of the book. I have a lot in common Robin, so I’m disappointed that it took me a long time to connect with him. I understand the conflicting duality of prejudicial praise like “you speak well for an Indian,” or “you’re one of the good ones” and the paralyzing uncertainty that comes with that. He grew up sheltered and academics played a major part in shaping his life. I was also book smart but worldly naive, and accustomed to being patronized by family, teachers, and peers. The authority figures surrounding him are secretive about their ambitions, they impose their own ideals on him without considering his feelings or opinions, and they are comfortable sharing their biases in front of him even though he comes from the same background they openly discriminate against.
It was so obvious that he was uncomfortable with things that happened throughout his life, but he put everything aside and continued focusing on school work, and that drove me insane.
There’s a passage early in the book, where 11-year-old Robin is beaten and degraded for being late for one of his lessons because he’s reading a fiction book. His face and lip are swollen, his body is sore, and he is sent to his lesson in that condition. This whole passage pissed me off so much, because no one, not the house keeper or his three instructors, make any comments about the state of his appearance, or attempt to help or comfort him in any way. As a child taken to a foreign land and lifestyle, with no family or home to return to, I understand why he didn’t consider running away and tried to make the best of his situation. But that’s where my sympathy ends and my frustration begins…
After six years in that environment, familiarizing himself with the neighbourhood, and gaining the academic understanding necessary to fulfill his guardian’s goal for his future, Robin is enrolled at Oxford. He begins living on his own (in student housing), his community broadens to include people of colour (both peers and professors), and there is another character involved in a movement – that I can’t mention too much without it being a spoiler – but in spite of all of these major changes and influences in his life, Robin continues to stagnate as a character. I did not get a sense that he was evolving or adapting.
He is faced with major conflicts about the path laid out before him, the larger implications of systemic oppression and racism, but continues to tread a middle path.
One did not spite one’s saviours.
His lack of commitment to either side, his lack of divulging information to his friends, and his continued complacency for the life laid out for him were incredibly frustrating for me to read. Books II and III dragged because I felt like there was no character development on Robin’s part. Reflections like this made it difficult for me to understand what his motivations were:
But the future, vague as it was frightening, was easily ignored for now; it paled so against the brilliance of the present.
It isn’t until Book IV, when the characters are returning to Oxford from their senior trip, that I started to relate to Robin. He was finally vocalizing the duality he was forced to live with and confronted Professor Lovell, which went about as well as I expected:
‘You would have lived and died in squalor and ignorance, never imagining the world of opportunities that I have afforded you. I lifted you from destitution. I gifted you the world.’
Professor Lovell
At the end of Book III, I went from hating Robin’s inaction to being unimpressed with his over-reaction, but at the same time it was riveting to read about his thoughts on his personal dichotomy:
He had become so good at holding two truths in his head at once. That he was an Englishman and not. [spoiler removed] That the Chinese were a stupid, backwards people, and that he was also one of them. That he hated Babel, and wanted to live forever in its embrace. He had danced for years on the razor’s edge of these truths, had remained there as a means of survival, a way to cope, unable to accept either side fully because an unflinching examination of the truth was so frightening that the contradictions threatened to break him.
By the time the strike / revolution is underway in Book V, I was mostly tired of Robin. I absolutely loved the overall story, and lines like this gave me a lot to think about:
‘This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.’
Ramy
Towards the end of Book V, I finally connected with Robin. He hadn’t really grown emotionally, but there was a sense of progress because of his convictions. He was finally acting instead of complaining and speculating. Book V really redeemed him in my eyes, and this ending line killed me:
She says his name.
Hello, death? It’s me.
Too Much / Not Enough
The world building is subtle and effective. It’s fantastic but believable. The tower supplanted at Oxford for the Royal Institute of Translation enhanced an already well-known location without diminishing it.
I would read a series focused purely on the dark academia of this historical fantasy world. The few lectures / lessons included in the book are phenomenal, and gave me so much to think about.
The dark undertones of translation are established early.
‘Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys to civilization. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.’
It’s not a hard magic system, and there are some constraints to it. Not anyone can recite the translations and cause the desired effect. The person activating the silver bar has to have a deep connection and understanding of the language, by being immersed in it, so it is closer to second nature.
‘That servile path thou nobly dost decline,’ Ramy recited, ‘of tracing word by word, and line by line.’
‘Those are the laboured births of slavish brains, not the effect of poetry, but pains,’ Professor Playfair finished. ‘John Denham. Very nice, Mr Mirza. So you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty – rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the author’s ideology and biases. After all, the Latin translatio means “to carry across”. Translation involves a spatial dimension – a literal transportation of texts across conquered territory, words delivered like spices from an alien land. Words mean something quite different when they journey from the palaces of Rome to the tearooms of today’s Britain.
There was not enough Ramy. I connected to his character instantly, and was very disappointed that there was not more focus on his journey and backstory.
‘What, you think I came to Babel because I want to be a translator for the Queen? Birdie, I hate it in this country. I hate the way they look at me, I hate being passed around at their wine parties like an animal on display. I hate knowing that my very presence at Oxford is a betrayal of my race and religion, because I’m becoming just that class of person Macaulay hoped to create.’
Ramy had the best dialogue:
‘We could escape to the New World,’ Ramy proposed. ‘Go to Canada.’
‘You don’t even speak French,’ Letty said.
‘It’s French, Letty.’ Ramy rolled his eyes. ‘Latin’s flimsiest daughter. How hard could it be?’
There were several times in the book where my own experiences with discrimination and systemic racism were captured so succinctly that I had to put the book down and digest it.
I hate how much I related to this passage, but I love the effectiveness of it. I have been in this exact situation:
It would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort.
For a book set roughly two hundred years ago, the micro aggressions and backwards remarks could be experienced by someone today. I have experienced things that happened in this book, and that sickens and saddens me, but I love that they were thoroughly explored in the story. It’s gritty and uncomfortable because that’s how being on the receiving end of racism feels.
The footnotes… I hated the footnotes… I will read a book cover to cover. Dedication to acknowledgements, and everything in between. I gave up reading the footnotes. Most of them had interesting historical information, citations, or translations, but there were also several narrative ones that were wholly out of place (e.g., Robin’s interaction with another child is expressed in a footnote after he arrives at Oxford, and it distracted from the timeline).
There were a few places where I wish there had been footnotes included so that I didn’t have to do my own fact checking. In Book V, a labourer named Abel mentions psychological (warfare) tactics when explaining barricades erected for the strike, and the conversation kicked me right out of the story because it seemed so out of place for the time period.
‘It’ll do a better job warding off troops than you think,’ said Abel. ‘It’s not just about the walls – though they’ll hold, you’ll see. It’s psychological. The barricades create the impression that there’s a real resistance going on, while the Army currently thinks they’ll be marching on the tower unopposed. And it emboldens our protestors – it creates a safe haven, a place to retreat.’
Psychology wasn’t founded until 1854 in Germany (20~ years after the events in Babel), and while psychological warfare as a tactic dates back centuries, the term wasn’t coined until 1944 by General Eisenhower. Why then, is a lay person using this language, in this time period?
There were only a handful of instances where I was distracted from the narrative, and while the subject matter was heavy and, at times difficult to get through, I still enjoyed the overall story. The further I got into it the less I expected a happy resolution, and the ending met my expectations.
Rating and Recommendation
I spent most of the book not being a fan of Robin, and hating the decisions he made to the point that it made me put the book down for hours at a time. There were footnotes that confused me and broke my concentration from reading. Yes, some of the subject matter was uncomfortable to read (even for indigenous me), but difficult topics are still important to discuss and I think Babel handled a lot of complex issues in a beautiful way.
I recommend this book with the caveat: be prepared to walk in someone else’s shoes, and try to do so compassionately.
I will be checking out The Poppy War (I have it further down my 2023 reading list), and I’m looking forward to it.
Photo: The cover of “Babel.” (Rebecca F. Kuang)
