Ok, so confession: I wasn't going to read this book, but I kept hearing the buzz surrounding it and decided to give it a try.

To recap, Robin Swift, who is orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by Professor Lovel where 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.

So this is dark academia. Normally not my wheelhouse. I expected the book to be dense. And I was right. But the gift of the author is that it didn't feel like it was dragging.

Except a few places midway that drag a bit for those of us who are not scholars of linguistics, but it lays the groundwork for the rest of the book.

But even though much of the linguistics and etymology in Babel was above my head, it still managed to be interesting to me.

All this to say that this feels more like academic fiction rather than fantasy. It was well written, well researched and I actually cared about what happened.

But it wasn't my cup of tea.

Thanks for the Arc NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

TL;DR

Babel by R.F. Kuang tells the story of Robin Swift, a boy caught up in the games of empire. His journey is a moving tale of complicity. Does he continue to take the luxuries empire provides him – though it will never accept as fully human – or does he attempt to change the empire? Kuang’s story still haunts me. Highly recommended.

Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.

Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

Language is what makes us human. Words, sentences, paragraphs, etc. contain so much power to heal, to hurt, to change the world, to end a life, to start wars, to create peace. Language is a construct that we take for granted until it fails us or until we are confronted by a language not our own. The power of being able to make ourselves known by another human being is immense. It’s tough enough to do this in the language of our birth, but to convey meaning across two different languages is an incredible skill on its own. Words are symbols; they represent ideas. While we take for granted the definitions, it becomes apparent how fluid definitions are when learning another language. Finding the right word to convey meaning isn’t as simple as opening up a dictionary. There’s context and intent that can change meaning. Translation is an act that brings us together at the same time as it separates us. It conveys ideas in a manner to make one person understood by another, and in this conveyance, the translator chooses what is often the closest but not exact word(s). Something is always lost in translation. R.F. Kuang’s latest book, Babel, uses this loss as the basis for a magic system. Kuang writes elegantly of complex ideas regarding language while at the same commenting on the history of racism upon which the engine of Imperial Britain ran. At the end of reading this, you’ll be wondering about the history of the words you speak and of the privilege that builds empires.

Robin Swift is saved from death by cholera in Canton, China by a white man, who turns out to be his father. Saving Robin isn’t an act of generosity – the white man would never acknowledge Robin as a son – it as act that places Robin in the white man’s debt. It turns out that Robin’s father is a professor at the Institute of Translation at Oxford in Britain. Professor Lovell gives Robin a choice: come back to London and become a translator or be turned out as an orphan on the cholera stricken streets of Canton. Robin, a child, has no choice. He joins the professor back in London where six years of lessons in Latin and ancient Greek begin. Robin is afforded a luxury he couldn’t have imagined in Canton by a man for whom is simply a tool. At the end of his tutelage, he enrolls in Oxford. Specifically, Robin becomes a student of the Institute for Translation. He meets the cohort with whom he’ll be learning. There’s Ramy, Victoire, and Letty. Ramy is an Indian muslim, and Victoire is from Haiti. They’re the first people of color that Robin’s encountered in England. Letty is British born and bred, but she lacks the outright racism that the others find on British shores and in the very town of Oxford herself. If Letty were alive today, she’d consider herself ‘woke,’ which means for her racism is a personal not systemic reality. One she can’t understand and maybe won’t. The four become tight, the bestest of buds. They learn that not only will they be aiding the empire as translators, they’ll be magicians as well. Potentially, they’ll scribe silver bars, which creates magical effects based on the words and translations scribed into the metal. Silver magic is the most lucrative part of Oxford. It occupies the highest floor of the tower that houses the Institute of Translation. The tower, known as Babel, contains the knowledge of language, of magic, and of diplomacy. Robin and his cohort will study Latin, their birth language (except for Hetty who will study French), and a secondary language, in addition to the theory of translation. To remain at Babel, the cohort must study as if their lives depend upon it. For Robin, Ramy, and Victoire, it might. Failing could lead to banishment. Graduating could mean entrance into the highest tiers of British society. Well, not white society, but still up there. For ‘foreigners.’ One night, while walking alone, Robin sees a group of people running from the tower. One drops a bar of silver, and when Robin goes to pick it up, he finds himself staring into the eyes of a brother he didn’t know he had, a brother with ties to a subversive group whose goal is to counteract the harm that Babel perpetrates upon the world. This chance meeting awakens Robin to how intricately involved Babel is in the exploitation of other kids and of other nations. Babel may very well be the heart of the British Empire’s economy. Will Robin perpetuate Babel’s harms? Or will he follow in the footsteps of a brother he didn’t even know he had?

Babel is a third person novel with a couple of first person interludes. Also, footnotes pepper the narrative. The pacing is uneven; I read the second 50% of the book in less than half the time I read the first portion. The first half focuses on the intellectual journey that Robin is on, and the prose aims mostly to stay in the realm of the mind. It’s slow, interesting, and shows how capitalism can entrap anyone into a comfort based on the suffering of others. The second half deals with the messy emotional side of Robin, and it’s wonderful. It’s fast-paced without losing the anger that fuels the first half of the narrative. The second half is brutal and has a high ‘attrition’ rate. Put together, the two halves make a moving, eloquent tale about resistance, its costs, and trying to be seen as fully human.

Robin

Robin is an interesting character. He was largely passive for most of the novel in a build up to being a hero, of a sort. He was plucked from the doors of death to be a tool by a man who didn’t care for him. He was given zero choices. (Though, of course, libertarians would disagree – as contrariness is their natural state – that Robin had a choice to die or go to England. Though rational people would say that’s no choice, libertarians would say it’s still his free will.) Professor Lovell surrounded Robin with luxury but not comfort. It was expected that Robin learn, that he stay on task, and if he dared have a thought of his own, Robin would be placed on the first ship back to Canton to fend for himself. Even when he finds his brother, he goes along with his brother’s ideology. But, to be clear, he’s not totally passive. It’s the moments that he tries, that he goes against the wishes of the professor or his brother, that Robin shines. He is passive, but he has his limits.

It’s an accident that brings out the leader in Robin. Whether he’s a good leader or not is a conversation for a different time, but we do see Robin come into his own. And it’s heartbreaking. He’s a talented, smart kid. He’s found friendship and kindred spirits at Babel. He has a purpose, and he’s good at it. Life is sweet for all too brief a moment. This is what college is for many of us. It’s a place to find ourselves, our crowds, and to live momentarily without the realities of adulthood crashing down. Yet even in higher education, not everyone has this privilege. But Robin finds it. He finds happiness and fulfillment for a brief shining moment. It’s all the more bittersweet for when the reality of his existence as Cantonese among the rabidly racist shows him that he would be and never was anything more than a tool. Those moments of happiness were built upon the suffering of people who look like him and his friends.

For these reasons and others, Robin is a character I will be thinking about for a while. He is flawed, yes. He is passive, yes. He is brilliant, yes. He is tragic.

Footnotes

The footnotes in Babel didn’t work for me. They were interesting, and some imparted worldbuilding explanation. Taken on their own, I liked them. However, they slow the pace down too much for me. Kuang has written a very tight story that reads like a novel, not a history. The subtitle says an arcane history, but it doesn’t read like a novel. The footnotes work in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell because the story is winding and prone to digressions. The footnotes in Babel are digressions, but no other part of the text are digressions. Kuang uses the main text of the novel to focus tightly on Robin’s story. So pursuing the footnote takes me out of the story.

Maybe the footnotes would have worked if I knew who they were for. Who, in world, was writing this history? I think I have an answer to this story, but it comes so late in the novel, I can’t be sure.

The footnotes do add to the story. I found many of them fascinating. Some, Kuang uses to provide the reader with a translation. As a person who struggles with one language and fumbles trying to learn a second, I have to say thank you.

The Horrors of Empire

Babel had a profound effect on me. I had to confront my own internal reactions to the text. Fantasy is a genre that I use to get away from the horrors of the world, but, here, Kuang put those horrors right in front of my face and dared me to look away. Sadly, I did turn my head on occasion, but on others, I didn’t. The following personal introspection is beyond the scope of this review. However, the fact that it made me reexamine my own reactions reminded me that fantasy, at least my reading list, has not pushed my experiences in the way my nonfiction reading has. It’s good to see a fantasy bring those historical issues to bear in an unflinching light. Kuang goes right to the heart of historical British attitudes. She doesn’t soften it; the ‘good’ white person still makes racist statements. Reading Babel was shocking to me, and that tells me that I need to look at my reading list. It was a reminder That good literature can also be good activism.

Conclusion

R.F. Kuang’s Babel blends intellectual interrogation of language with an unflinching display of the horrors of empire. This is a book I very much needed to read. The ending was perfect, emotionally resonant, and a reminder that our lives mean what we make them mean. Robin Swift got caught up in the games of empire, and when he tried to play, Babel was born. Kuang built a multi-layered book that I’ll have to return to. Highly recommended.

This book was fantastic! I love reading books that I know would have really impacted me when I was a teenager, and this definitely falls into that category, although it’s not strictly YA. There are some familiar elements here, as the story centers around a group of youngsters shipped off to a school who become fast friends and learn and grow together. But this book is so novel and inventive and Kuang does such great things with that setup that one really must read it. The first thing that sets it apart is the system of magic, which is unlike anything I’ve ever read. The magic, which centers around translation, is a fascinating and thoughtful experiment that plays with both the concept of language and the extractive, exploitative nature of colonialism. Secondly, the aforementioned friend group begins in a happy little bubble of their environment, where nothing can go wrong and they spend some halcyon years just being together. Of course, this is pretty typical of the boarding school novel, and it’s also expected that at some point the bubble will pop and the protagonists will have to contend with the real world. This book goes far beyond what I was expecting in introducing conflict, with Kuang not just popping their bubble but ripping apart their world. The conflicts towards the end of the book are both extreme, unlike anything I’ve ever read, and wholly logical evolutions of the world Kuang has created.

I’d readily recommend Babel to anyone, and I can’t wait to talk with people about it; I think it will be very, very popular.

Absolutely Incredible! I have been dying to read Babel and it fully lived up to all my expectations. I will forever read anything R. F. Kuang writes. I wouldn't really expect a book about linguistics set in the 1800s at Oxford to be so captivating, but it was. There was never a moment I wasn't fully invested in the story. The characters were complex, their stories heartbreaking. The writing, of course, was amazing. I just really loved every single thing about this book and will recommend it to everyone. Just be warned, it will break your heart.

Thank you Harper Voyager and Netgalley for providing and ARC of this book.

Earlier this year, I came up with my dream author panel: RF Kuang, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman, and Philip Pullman. When thinking through this, I wanted to know if anyone has ever had a fantasy author panel before, and I discovered that, indeed, Comic-Con has had fantasy author panels in the past.

Because I have learned that the worst people can say is no, I contacted Comic-Con, asking if I could host this fantasy author panel. They said sure but would give me no budget, so it was a non-starter.

However, my dreams never die. Eventually, I will either invite all of the authors to visit when I am properly book famous or I will team up with someone to do a Kickstarter. x

All that to say, I really think that RF Kuang is the future of fantasy. The Poppy War is an incredible book that I simply loved, and I have mad respect for her.

Now about Babel…….

The first 5% and the last 40% were very strong. However, from about the 5% mark to the 60% mark need some revision.

Recently, I have been reading Daemon Voices by Philip Pullman. It is a book about storytelling (which I highly, HIGHLY recommend). I’m going to paraphrase the gist of one of his thoughts, but Pullman is simply a master of writing. Authors or would-be authors need to practice the art of storytelling. Think of storytelling as a marketplace of sorts. Readers come into the marketplace with storytellers on every corner. Readers who are intrigued will linger, staying a few more minutes, but if they get bored, they will just pop on over to another corner to discover another storyteller.

Alright so what does this have to do with Babel or am I just delusional? Well I’ll let you be the judge of that.

What Didn’t Work

The storytelling needed improvement.

First, way too much time was covered in this book. Even in Harry Potter, they only cover one year in each book. This book covers way too many years. It would have been better if RK Kuang just focused on the first year at Oxford or broke up Babel into several different books.

Second, this book is too far in the weeds about language and etymology, the origin and history of English words. Certain sections of Babel were so technical that they reminded me of my tax classes (but I found those much more interesting because literally the rules save you real money or keep you out of prison).

Third, the story arc wasn’t clear until much, much later in the book. For a good portion of the time, I was like, “Um, where is this heading?”

Fourth, the ending is incredibly weak. Back to Pullman for a minute. In The Golden Compass, he has one of the best endings that I have ever read. I have never wanted to read the next book so badly. However, the ending in Babel is forgettable and lackluster.

Fifth, the sections on the characters need to be rewritten. The sections on Ramy, Victoire, and Letty were not as strong as they should have been. If I was editor of this book, I would have focused on one key moment in that character’s life and really focused on “showing, not telling”, really going through one moment which would move my readers’ very soul. Telling these characters’ life stories in one chapter is just too much to take in.

Sixth, I didn’t find Robin’s first day at Oxford very believable. Why would anyone risk everything without a safety net for a cause and a person that they only met 5 seconds ago?

Seventh, there is one death that had too much foreshadowing. Dune is one of my favorite books, and one of the reasons is that a character was killed off that I never saw coming. In Babel, I would have been really surprised when this character was killed off, but I wasn’t surprised when we were warned right before it happened.

What Worked

First, the beginning is really strong and interesting.

Second, RF Kuang has a very good grasp of readability. For example, she doesn’t have massive paragraphs and massive sentences. She has also modernized the language for 1828. There are no thees or thous.

Third, the fantasy is easy to understand and isn’t overwhelming.

Fourth, Babel addresses some important topics. Especially in today’s political climate, we have a choice: we can either work to change the system or we can refuse to engage. It really reminded me of all of the heat that Sheryl Sandberg received for writing Lean In, a book with tips about how women can succeed in the workforce. The criticism is that Sandberg offers how to succeed in the current atmosphere instead of advocating for changing the system. However, is it easier to change yourself or the entire system? That will be a question for your book club.

Conclusion

Overall, this book did turn around at the end, but it took too long to get there. However, I’m not giving up on RF Kuang just yet. If anything, it just proves that I definitely need to put together this fantasy author panel.

*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.

Myth: 5/5

Babel was so unique. It sucked you in, right along with Robin to the magic of the tower, the excitement in learning and the power in knowing your skills, your work is rare and valuable. Just as Robin learned, you’re also pulled along on his journey to understand the impacts of the application of his skills. An outsider, a foreigner in 1830’s Oxford, I can’t describe how powerful Robin’s struggle was. To love learning and translating so wholeheartedly, but to know that he will never truly be accepted, and his skills are used to further that unaccepting empire.

The internal struggle, the careful mental gymnastics to keep things separated, all captured so eloquently and sharply on the page.

Magic: 5/5

I truly loved everything about the magic. It didn’t just fit perfectly with the story, it was also one of the most clever magic systems I’ve ever read. A full on linguistic nerd out, and the footnotes and explanations were such that it was really just fun to learn some of the random etymology as I read.

Overall: 5/5

Inserting the silver and translation trade into the historical world of England and the British Empire in the 1800’s was masterfully done. The language plays were brilliant, the character’s captured an incredibly complex internal mental battle clearly and thoughtfully. I highly recommend it.

“Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence.”

This dark academia/historical fantasy read was intelligent, thought provoking and engaging. But with that being said, it was a slow, slow, slow burn. It will not be for everyone- but if you like dark academia then you will probably love this one!

This story revolves around Babel, the translation hub, at Oxford University in 1828. Centering around a group of very select students accepted into the translation program - the main characters being Robin and his 3 fellow first year scholars. An exploration into the power of words, the difficult process of translating passages into different languages without losing the “feel” of the work and the ways in which language forms the world around us.

Here, words are used to power silver bars which are used throughout Britain to automate and simplify different processes. The cost of the bars is prohibitive and the use of silver for automation is a detriment to the labor force. Herein lies the overarching theme of this story- power in the hands of a select group of white men.

This book deals with inequality, racism, colonization, sexism, friendship and loyalty. The deep exploration of words and their origins (entomology) was interesting, yet also a tad burdensome. A very cerebral read is how I would characterize this one. And it will definitely have its audience.

There is a lot more to this story (it’s a long one) and way too much to discuss in this review. The story was original and different from any other book I’ve read. For that I rounded this one up from 3.5 stars to 4. Recommend to the right reader.

Thank you to @netgalley, @avonbooks and @harpervoyagerus for the ARC to read and review.

Robin Swift is brought to England by the mysterious Professor Lowell after his mother dies of illness. He has left Canton behind, but carries language with him wherever he goes. And that is what interests Professor Lowell- training Robin in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Chinese. Robin is destined for Babel, the translation center that powers England. Babel uses silver bars and other country’s languages to activate them. As Robin grows older, he is contacted by the shadowy Hermes Society, who aims to take down Babel once and for all. When Robin learns of a manipulative conspiracy to spark war with China, he must choose whose side he is truly on.

R. F. Kuang weaves a compelling and unputdownable tale of dark academia and colonialism. The characters are lovable and it is impossible not to be filled with fury at the injustices and discrimination that they experience at Oxford. Sadly, this is not a matter of fiction and instead a reality. I particularly loved Robin, Rami, and Victoire. Kuang’s prose is elegant and witty; I highlighted so many fantastic quotes while I read. The humor is dry and unforgiving, which I loved. Kuang has filled this book with history and anecdotes; I frequently found myself researching more about the real-life people and facts presented in footnote form.

The concept of silver-working was such a well-designed and insidious magic system. The system requires a native language speaker to create and use the bars. In this way, language is stolen and used against the people it belongs to. Kuang highlights real-world issues in academia such as racism, discrimination, and the effects of colonialism. She builds the story to an incredible and heartbreaking climax. I can’t wait to get my hard copy and reread everything; I know this is one of the books that will only gain deeper meaning and detail with every reread. Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution is unquestionably a masterpiece. I couldn’t put it down! I would highly recommend it to anyone. Kuang is such a talented writer and I can’t wait to see what she writes next. Thank you so much to R. F. Kuang, Harper Voyager, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, Wordpress blog, and Barnes & Noble etc

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an e-arc of this book in exchange for an honest review. I’m glad that I stuck with this book until the end, because I often wanted to stop reading it for the first 60% or so. RF Kuang has created a dazzling magic system in Babel. In this version of 19th century England, there is an industrial revolution built not with electricity and steam, but with magic silver bars that derive their power from linguistic genius instead of engineering prowess. Translators are the hidden backbone of the empire, and the story follows the brilliant and diverse scholars of Babel as they come to realize that they’ve been trained to help England systematically pillage and destroy their homelands. Kuang is clearly a genius herself — the breadth and depth of her linguistic and literary knowledge is on full display here, and it’s very impressive. The problem is that more than half the book is painfully boring and so, so didactic.

I requested this book because it was advertised as a “tonal retort” to Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which may be my favorite book of all time. I *have* to read any book that is compared to it. Unfortunately, the comparison made this book fall extremely short for me. While the blend of magic and language is fascinating, there is none of the transporting imagery or sheer creativity with magic that captivated me so much about JS&MN. I would classify the magic here as “hard” or at least harder compared to that of Clarke’s work. I prefer softer magic, but that doesn’t mean others won’t love what Kuang had created.

Where the book really shines is the blend of Kuang’s magic system with her skill in depicting political and military intrigue — once a crucial murder occurs, revealing in the process a conspiracy to incite war for profit, the plot FINALLY gets going. Revolution and violence comes for the scholars of Babel. They lose beloved friends, gain new allies, and are forced to make agonizing choices to realize their goals. This last section of the book riveted me and left me with no easy answers. It also gave me a clue as to why Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, which I haven’t read, is so popular. I wish the first part of the book had been as good!

The reason the first half of the book dragged so much for me was the characters. The beginning of the book gives us a wonderful promise — a group of four friends who we will get to see grow up together; a found family with all sorts of interesting dynamics to observe and delight in as readers. However, that promise isn’t kept. While we DO spend hundreds upon hundreds of pages with Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty, we somehow learn almost nothing about them and their relationships. Ramy’s the most social and friendly, though he has a mean streak; Robin is sweeter and more reserved; Letty is annoying; and Victoire is nice and smart, I guess. These characterizations are repeated over and over again, yet there are no specifics, no scenes that take us deeper and reveal more layers to their personalities and interactions. Instead we get about one million descriptions of what they’re studying and many paragraphs glossing over long periods of time. It baffles me that so many pages of a massive book passed in this way, and yet it happened!

I felt Victoire was the character worst served in this book. The main quad group of the book is diverse in race and gender — Ramy is Indian, Robin is mixed Chinese and white, Letty is white, and Victoire is Black. Victoire is pretty much the perfect character throughout the book, to the point where we know almost nothing about her. She is frequently the victim of racism, though which we see Letty’s negligent indifference — deepening Letty’s character for the reader, but not Victoire’s. We barely see Victoire’s reaction to the racism she experiences, beyond that she occasionally gets quiet or cries. She is a foil to Robin in the last part of the book, answering his growing fatalism with hope and calls for mercy — again, we see her more as way to shade Robin’s character than as a character in her own right. I wanted her to have a flaw at some point, just to see something interesting about her. But it never really came.

My last issue is the didacticism. We are TOLD so much in this book. Issues like white women’s tears, micro aggressions, dehumanization, etc are VERY explicitly explained and spelled out, to the point where it feels like the reader doesn’t have to do any work on their own. This made even worse by the footnotes, another way this book can be compared to JS&MN. Clarke’s footnotes were a way to add depth and history to her world though additional stories, but Kuang’s seem like a way to show off how smart she is and hammer her points home way more than they need to be. The few genuinely good footnotes are few and far between.

I think this book will be beloved by a certain kind of reader. The world is a fascinating mirror of our own, and the political and moral questions at the end of the book are brilliantly posed. It never gave me the sense of wonder that my favorite fantasy books do, but I don’t think that was its aim. I hope you like it more than I did.

Holy hell, what a book! So, I had high hopes for this but I’ve also had bad luck recently with another book I thought I would love, so I tempered my hopes a bit. Fortunately, this was everything I could have wanted and more. So much more.
In the heart of Oxford, there is a tower they call Babel. It’s the heart of the empire’s translation and silver-working magic, which has made them powerful beyond compare, crushing countries with less wealth and less silver-working power beneath their heels. The British empire consumes, and the Royal Institute of Translation spirits away children with the gift of languages from other countries to further the endless consumption of empire. One such child is Robin Swift (not his given name), who was taken to England by Professor Lovell when his family in Canton died from a fever that nearly took him as well. In England he’s brought up with no goal other than succeeding at Babel. His life would be considered idyllic if one could forget a dead family, could excuse the beatings, and disregard the constant reminders that should he fail, he is worthless.
When Robin finally makes his way to the Royal Institute of Translation, he joins a small cohort of new first year students. He immediately finds near brotherhood with Ramy, a young man from India who shares the strangeness of an upbringing outside his homeland. Then there’s Victoire and Letty, which is notable during a time when women weren’t often allowed in the halls of scholarship. Victoire is a black woman, born in Haiti but raised in France. Letty is a lovely English girl who is at Babel despite her father’s wishes and because of her brother’s failure. At first it’s easy to love this compelling cast of characters, but as the story goes along you begin to see that all is not picture perfect in this scholarly cohort. The influence of the Hermes Society, a secret group dedicated to funneling silver, knowledge, and supplies away from Babel, certainly makes Robin’s life tense at times.
It’s truly fascinating and at times heartbreaking to see these characters age and become wise to the world around them. And for Victoire, Robin, and Ramy to truly see what they are supporting and enabling when they work for the British Empire. Without their knowledge and skills, the empire wouldn’t have quite the hold over the world around them. And then to see Letty remain this idealistic girl, certain that her beloved Britain is more civilized and right than these other countries is quite heartbreaking. You can watch their friendships become more unstable as time progresses. The ending! Oh, what an ending R.F. Kuang wrote for this book! It will shatter your foundations as it shook the foundations of the British Empire.
This was truly a masterpiece, blending academia and revolution beautifully together. Babel will most certainly make it onto my Best Books of 2022 list and I’m really glad I splurged on two different special editions to add to my shelves. The synopsis sums up the themes and major questions broached in this book perfectly, so there’s no need for me to repeat them. I highly recommend this, particularly to those folks who can’t get enough of the dark academia theme and to those who like a scholarly bent to their fantasy.

As a quasi-academic and fan of Rebecca's earlier work, this book was perfect. Kuang really embraces her nerdiness from page one, with footnotes and linguistic and historical rabbit trails galore, and yet it fits and flows seamlessly with the stories and the spirit of the characters.

There's a darker side though: just as our elite academic and technical institutions were founded on exploitation and grow wealthy and powerful in the service of empire, the apparently-idyllic literal ivory tower is also the extractive foundation of global empire. This contradiction between the pure pursuit of knowledge and learning and the sources and applications of that knowledge, on the personal and geopolitical scales, forms the central conflict in Babel.

Don't worry, there is an actual story in addition to the study of academia! And this being Kuang, there will be tears.

5 glorious, astounding stars

R.F. Kuang's Babel follows the life of Robin Swift and his friends as they become translation scholars at the historic, revered, infamous Babel Institute at Oxford University. The more Robin and company dive into the complexities of translation, of language, of the world, the more their eyes are opened to the injustices the British Empire is committing in the name of colonialism, capitalism, and expansionism. Babel is a critique of not only the history of the British Empire, but a critique of the way first world countries use others for their own gain. Through dense and academic prose, she paints a world where the English (and therefore, white people) only gain and grow by the exploitation of the very countries they are conquering and stealing from. Through the lens of language and translation, Kuang delves into the complexities that allow capitalism and colonialism to flourish while also paving the way for how to disrupt and change the course of history.

This story blew my mind again and again. Kuang's prose and sheer intellect is at its peak performance in this novel. The writing is dense and academic, definitely not for the faint of heart. The depth, research, time, and effort put into Babel cannot be overlooked. The topics Kuang explores are at times obvious and at others, very nuanced. She tackles capitalism, racism, colonialism, white privilege, internalized racism, the history of language, the necessity of translation, the necessity (when it comes down to it) of violence. It's the story of despair and hope, of slavery and freedom, of what is safe and comfortable versus what is dangerous and revolutionary. Kuang, again and again, forces home the point that no one can truly be free while others are in shackles, metaphorically or physically.

Whew. Where do I start? I already had high expectations with Babel, but it was MORE than I expected. When I say MORE is MORE. I can't even explain how much I enjoyed this book. Definitely my favorite read of this year.

In Babel, we follow the story of Robin Swift, orphaned by a cholera epidemic, is brought to London by Professor Lovell, where he trains in different languages such as Chinese, Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese with the purpose to prepare for the day he'll enroll in Oxford University's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation aka Babel. There, Robin finds himself between Babel and the Hermes Society, who dedicates to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion, when Britain pursues war with China, Robin's motherland. Which side Robin will choose? The institution dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge or the revolution that will bring it down?

There's a lot to unpack in this book. It deserved to be discussed and if you read it, just take your time because it got me hooked since the dedication of the author (R.F. Kuang, you did an amazing job). The world-building is fascinating, the magic system is exquisite, and the characters, oh, the characters, the translations, and footnotes, everything is so GOOD, and I can't wait to have my physical copy and the audiobook to read it again.

Huge thank you to Avon, Harper Voyager, and NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this masterpiece before it hit the shelves tomorrow August, 23rd.

BABEL is brilliant, devastating, and revolutionary on every level. Kuang has created an incredibly compelling alternative history of the British empire in the 1820s and 30s, enriched with a translation-based magical system and populated with characters and relationships that will stay with me for a long, long time. It’s both utterly original and a searing response to the white-dominated genre of dark academia, a love letter to the joys of learning in general and Oxford in particular and an evisceration of the vicious tangle of extractive colonialism, ruthless imperialism, and all-encompassing white supremacy that academia is built upon and perpetuates, an ingenious fantasy novel with fascinating magic and an intimate, tender, gut-wrenching story of four college friends. BABEL tackles questions of revolution, complicity, and the use of violence with nuance and unflinching honesty. Kuang’s narrative traverses the pathways from global to personal seamlessly, immersing us in alliances and betrayals both overwhelmingly large and achingly small. I still have not recovered from [redacted] and I sobbed though the last handful of chapters. Also, the footnotes! An absolute master class in writing. Truly an honor just to be alive in a time when this novel exists; please, read it. Thanks to Harper Voyager for the eARC; this book is out 8/23.

Content warnings: child abuse, loss of a family member/loved one, racism, xenophobia, colonialism, sexism/misogyny, slurs, bullying, attempted assault, illness, torture, imprisonment, murder, slavery, suicidal thoughts, martyrdom

I would like to thank Avon, Harper Voyager and NetGalley for the copy of this eARC.

After months of hearing people rave endlessly about Dark Academia, I apparently picked the absolutely best place to start. My mind is whirling, all I want is more more more, and I cannot contain how sad I am that this book is over.

Two genre's I cannot get enough of are Historical Fiction and Fantasy. Babel gave me both, but also gave grueling studies, comradery of classmates, and shows that often times the true villain is our academic world. Throughout the novel you continue to be prodded at with moments of anger due to the disadvantages given to the marginalized students and the cruelties seen. The book asks the question of how far do we have to go, how much do we have to do, to affect change into broken systems. There isn't specific key moment I can pluck out as "movie worthy", because the entirety of this novel demands to be read, heard, and seen.

The book starts off with Robin being brought to England, and within chapter one, before Robin embarks, we see how minorities are treated as lesser. The story quickly expands into how many of the students who are now in this foreign country being given such a large disadvantage and always seen as lacking. They are expected to fail, even if they lose their own self identity in the process to try to prove them wrong.

There are too many parallels to how I feel about society at the moment as to the reflections on history of the UK and I feel like there was no better time for this book to be published. R.F. Kaung did a amazing job blending history, fantasy and culture, and I cannot wait to read more of her work.

Robin Swift is taken from his home in Canton and brought to England to be groomed to enter the rarefied world of Oxford and particularly the translation institute, known as Babel. Magic worked with silver has made England wealthy and powerful, but to maintain that power England needs new lands and languages to exploit. Robin and his cohort at Babel are expected to help expand England's reach but become increasingly uncomfortable with what they are enabling. Dark Academia at its finest, Babel is easily one of the best books of the year. Robin's sense of isolation and anger mixed with his admiration for the scholarship at Oxford is engaging and relatable, while the racism and cruelty he faces at every step are sharply drawn. The love and divisions among the cohort are a beautiful example of that time on young adulthood when everything is both permanent and fleeting. Pick it up to find out what people will be raving about for the next several years.

Blown away! I had high hopes after The Poppy War, and R.F. Kuang did not disappoint. Kuang draws you in with fantastic writing and backs it up with world class plot. 5 stars!

Babel is an epic historical fantasy set in 1830s Oxford about a young Chinese man, Robin, who was brought to London by a mysterious benefactor, Professor Lovell, to train in languages at Oxford's prestigious Royal Institute of Translation, or "Babel." Babel is not only the center of language translation, in Oxford and the world, it is more importantly the center for the art of silver-working, the true power behind the unconquerable British Empire.

Knowledge is power, but power in unchecked hands is a dangerous thing. Robin must decide if his own pursuit of knowledge in the academic utopia is worth betraying his own homeland.

Billed as a mix of The Secret History and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. It's intentional storytelling and intricate world building is told through deliciously crafted prose. It's a decadent, rich dessert for lovers of dark academia.

"A dream; this was an impossible dream, this fragile, this lovely world in which, for the price of his convictions, he had been allowed to remain."

I wish I had the ability to write a review that could even come close to the wonder and achievement of this novel. There are so many brilliant layers to this story. It is a dark fantasy with a magic system based on silver, a love letter to language and etymology, and a poignant exploration of British colonialism and the use of translation to support the empire's exploitation of other cultures. I not only thoroughly enjoyed the story, but I learned about language and the historical events that are the backbone of the story. Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty are wonderful characters to experience the story through. They are complex, flawed people who learn, grow, change and realize they cannot escape the pull of world events. It is a marvelous story and that ending......oh my.

Thanks so much to Harper Voyager and Netgalley for the ARC.

Thank you to Harper Voyager and NetGalley for an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"Language was always the companion of empire, and as such, together they begin, grow, and flourish. And later, together, they fall."

R.F. Kuang is a GENIUS. The moment I finished this novel, my heart was heavy and empty and I felt so many emotions all at once. I was utterly devastated and at the same time I was not disappointed.

The writing style never ceases to amaze me. I could feel how much ambition, heart, and research has been put into the narrative. Even with long paragraphs about linguistics and etymology and lengthy descriptions of an alternative historical England, everything was so thorough, from the world-building and magic system (yep fantasy elements based on translation and silver), and I was devouring so much knowledge about historical events and an appreciation for languages as if I was a student attending.

The characters are distinct with their class, backgrounds, and motivations. Robin is the main character, yet the more I learned about the other characters and the actions they have done, I was emotionally invested for each of them and the internal struggles and tragedies they have faced as they hit close to home.

The topics range from colonialism, race, gender, how they devastatingly affect academia, identity, moral conflicts, and the start of a revolution in this book. Kuang has handled these topics delicately. If you like a character-driven dark academia, this is your stand-alone book to read.