Sure, I see the comparison to THE SECRET HISTORY ... if that book were about a zillion times more interesting! ;) I loved this book. As someone who enjoys reading translated fiction, I am even more impressed by the art of translating literature after reading BABEL (which is not itself translated into English, but which features a group of translation students). The setting and characters were great, and though I found the plot to drag a bit for me at the end, I think the pacing was very realistic (and that's all I'll say about that to avoid spoilers). One of my favorite books of 2022.

This book is the best book I’ve read this year. It’s so beautifully crafted and the writing is phenomenal. I’m R.F. Kuangs ride or die and I simply can’t wait to see what she comes out with next.

R.F. Kuang has crafted a truly unique, culturally resonant story with Babel. Drawing on her love of historical resistance and her own experiences as a scholar of color at Oxford, this novel contemplates the legacy of language, power, trauma, empire, and identity.

In this alternate version of a burgeoning 1830s Britain, a young Cantonese orphan with the anglicized name of Robin Swift becomes the ward of a withdrawn Oxford translation professor. Raised on a steady stream of classical languages, he is destined to matriculate at Oxford's most prestigious college: an institute of translation studies that operates at the nexus of imperial power. Forced to acclimate to the expectations of elite academia, Robin learns the power at work in the college's central building, a glittering tower affectionately dubbed Babel. Inside, scholars from around the empire create endless combinations of transliterated words, etching them into silver bars that then spread across British society. These bars power railroads, create more efficient factory machinery, enhance drawing room decor, and cure illnesses, but they also reveal an inherent inequality -- their benefits disproportionately grace the wealthy, white Britons at the center of colonial expansion.

As Robin finds his footing at Oxford, reveling in the creature comforts of academia alongside his equally clever cohort, he begins to grapple with the reality of their work. When he stumbles into the mysterious Hermes Society -- an underground collective of anti-imperialist revolutionaries hellbent on taking down Babel and the British empire itself -- he finds himself torn between his past and present, struggling to reconcile his morals with his academic aspirations. As the stakes rise, Robin, and the rest of his cohort -- Victoire, Ramy, and Letty -- confront the legacies of imperialism and the shortcomings of non-violent resistance.

Babel is a remarkable novel that tackles so many themes: racism, diaspora, resistance, and the many forms that colonization takes. In Babel (as in real-life), it is not only tangible goods and physical spaces that are destroyed or co-opted for imperial gain, but entire cultures and languages. Kuang deftly explores the unsustainable burdens placed onto marginalized peoples in predominately white spaces (like the academy); the limitations of white feminism, the complicated reality of 'passing;' the slippery slope of revolutionary ethics.

5/5: Thought-provoking and richly detailed, Babel is a triumphant subversion of the popular 'dark academia' genre. In the end, it poses a question that still resonates: when does love -- for an institution, a friend, a way of life, -- [rightfully] curdle into something much more complicated?

I absolutely loved this latest book from Poppy wars author R.F. Kuang. It has everything I look for in a book. - well-written characters, a historical fantasy world that unfolds in the telling of the story and a wholly original magic/manufacturing/language system! (I guess it wasn't really magic, though it often seemed like it was. It was just the manipulation of language? But it was definitely something new, which is hard to find.)

She deftly wound politics into the storyline without allowing the story to falter into lecturing or preaching, which seems to be a difficult task for many authors.

And the ending! I would like to see more of what happens after... not sure if this is meant to be a stand alone, but I would like to see if the events of Babel had a lasting effect on Oxford and London as the main protagonist, Robin, hoped,...

ARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I am blown away. I just finished this book last night and it's all I can think about.

First things first, I received an advanced copy of this title and am providing my honest feedback. Thank you so much to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with this copy.

Down to business- this is a book that will stick with you. I am normally a fast reader and devour titles, but with Babel I really had to slow down. R.F. Kuang packs so much meaning into every paragraph, I spent a lot of time just sitting with what she wrote. I also think the greater message conveyed is something worth spending time sitting with and really unpacking.

As a biracial person, a lot of the character's feelings really hit home to me. I won't give any spoilers because I think Kuang does an amazing job of guiding the readers through this very emotional journey, but it really resonated with me. I also think that her portrayal of certain characters really speaks to current events happening right now and how class, race, and gender all intersect in very complex ways. Absolutely amazing, I really can't recommend this more.

Babel, which obviously takes its theme from the legendary biblical Tower of Babel where all the world was split into different languages so none of us could understand each other, is a fantasy novel that’s light on the fantasy elements. Indeed, it might as well be viewed as a historical novel with some fantasy elements. It has a feel in some ways like a Dickens novel with a little orphan boy (or is he an orphan?) being its central character. It is brilliantly conceived and chock full of complex themes which I will attempt to unpeel a bit here.

As noted above, language, and more particularly translation, is at the heart of this novel. It is set in 1830’s Britain, in a Tower of Babel in Oxford, the Center Of earthly knowledge where translators are brought from the far corners of the British Empire to translate. Indeed, only a native speaker can truly understand a language. You have to think in a language to truly understand it. And, as the narrative points out, translation is more of an art than a science. The author has really thought about this subject and that often there are no direct word for word translations. Rather, different words are understood to mean different things in the contexts of the language. Of course, here we get the great questions about what faithfully translating means. Do you translate an ancient text in the manner it was written or do you make it accessible to modern readers?

Why is all this intellectual Mumbo jumbo important to a fantasy novel?

It’s because the fantasy element – run away if you would prefer to be surprised when you read the book – are silver bricks imbued with words of power, translated from one language to another. These pieces of silver can make things work better, ships go faster, bridges stay together, machines pump better. Sort of like the scrivenings in Robert Bennett’s Founders series.

Here, Kuang takes things a step further and postulates that these silver bricks are the cause of the success of the British Empire, which pulls these languages from the four corners of its empire, then the mightiest in the world, a metaphor indeed for the goods and riches gathered from the colonial world. But there are warnings. The translations are only powerful for so long and then one must search further and further afield for more powerful translations, ones that are imbued with meaning. Eventually though phrases from other languages become so part of English that translations are unnecessary and the translation bricks no longer have power.

Why does Kuang seat the power to run empires in a university? Here lies another theme which is that the ivory towers of knowledge are not necessarily independent, but are so often working hand in hand with the government and the military and are themselves engines by which the empire sucks in the colonial goods and processes them. This has important implications for how honest intellectual thought is at universities and begs the question of who they actually serve. Are they indeed independent or do they merely serve to continue to empower the elites?

Which brings us at long last to the main characters of the novel, four young students, three of whom are brought from the colonial China, India, and the West Indies, and raised to pursue the study of language and eventually serve the Tower of Babel, the silverworking heart of the British Empire. The story is told through the eyes of Cantonese-born Robin Swift, who is torn between the fate he was raised for – serving the Empire as a translator and the sense that the seating of all this power in Oxford is simply unfair and unjust. Robin, like his companions, is at once honored to be invited to Oxford yet also feels that he will always be an “other,” a foreigner never fully accepted into British society and being used to benefit the Empire. Here we get the themes of colonialism and revolution played out for us.

Although there are indeed fantasy elements present in this novel, it is unlike a sword and sorcery novel. Rather, it is a multi-layered, many-themed novel that makes the reader think. A tremendous accomplishment!

Babel was an excellent book and is a major contender for my favorite book of the year. I was pleasantly surprised. You would think a book surrounding a translation center would be a major snoozer, but Kuang found a way to not only make it tolerable, but actually interesting.

The story follows Robin Swift, a Chinese boy thrust into the life of the Oxford translation school, Babel. During his time there he learns silver working and gets drawn into the mysterious Hermes society.

The magic system of silver working is particularly interesting. It’s basis in language is unlike anything I’ve seen. This is mostly because it’s based in academics. Any scholar of language or the humanities will immediately resonate with this book. The book does do a good job of explaining the concepts it’s drawn off of, so those without the humanities background can still understand and enjoy the book.

The book has the major themes of colonialism and its implications for an empire. This is shown through Robin’s role within Babel and Babel’s role within the empire. Many of these feelings seem personal towards the author. Perhaps it is reminiscent of her time at Oxford.

Overall Babel was an excellent book, I dare say Kuang’s best so far.

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.

i love the the dark academia genre. Babel is set in 1800s a great historical fantasy book. this was the first time i've read a book that has the theme of dark academia, historical, fantasy, and historical society themes such as racism, colonization and i was not disappointed. an incredible piece of literature, it was a little bit slow in the beginning, however things started to pick up shorting towards the middle.

i would be recommending this book to others. i believe this book might be in a book subscription box i am subscribed to .

I was really looking forward to this one since I really enjoyed The Poppy War trilogy. I’d say that it is one of my top fantasy series. It’s just that good! I knew that this book would be a bit different since it deals more with academia and language. Can’t say that I have read a book about language, but also haven’t really dabbled in the academia genre either. There were aspects that I liked about this new novel, but also parts that bogged it down. As an anticipated read I would say that it was a bit disappointing. I do have hopes for the sequel since this is just the beginning.

The book is told from multiple point-of-views but mostly the book is about Robin Swift. He has been given a chance to learn at Oxford, but most importantly Babel. It’s all about the languages. This chance of a lifetime does come at a price and it’s one Robin isn’t sure he wants to pay.

I did like learning about Robin because he has an interesting background of coming from nothing to living with the rich but also never feeling like he fitted in to high society. His new life isn’t what it is cracked up to be and neither is the professor he lives with. Can’t say that I ever liked that professor. Robin is a character who falls under the morally gray spectrum. He has good intentions but his means of doing things can be questionable. Not everyone agrees with the way he handles things. I will say that his actions felt very genuine and I could see him being a real character because of it.

There are a lot of characters in this book, some with bigger roles and other with a smaller one, but each one still adds to the plot in a way. I do have a few I liked more than others and I am actually quite curious who will show up in book two as well as what their plot lines will entail. Robin does find a found family and they each understand one another. I liked seeing them interact together and it’s also one of my favorite tropes.

Even though I liked a majority of the characters, I can’t say that the plot twists that involved a few were really shocking. I know I didn’t connect fully with the characters, no fault to them, and so maybe that is why.

The book’s plot does talk a lot about colonialism, racism, and xenophobia. I thought that the conversation was done really well and had me thinking a lot about how it relates to our own world. The things that some of these characters are told or have had done to them because of those things is just heartbreaking.

Now that I have mentioned the good, let’s get to the aspects I wasn’t a fan of. The beginning of the book did reel me in right away but it didn’t take long for it to slow down and kind of drag on with a lot of info-dumping. I understand why it had to be done since it is the beginning of a series as well as having an academic setting that involves language. There is a lot to discuss. I just wish it didn’t feel like a chore to get through at times. There are also some time jumps where they are just starting and then all of a sudden they are in their second or third year (can’t remember exactly). It wasn’t a terrible jump but I just wasn’t a fan of the transition.

Overall, it was a fine book. This author is a great writer and I will always enjoy that about her. I’m hoping that with a lot of the info-dump out of the way book two will be better when it comes to pacing. I am still curious and will continue to read on but with lower expectations. I know that others may not have the same issues as me and so I would say go ahead and read it to see if it is the right fit!

“You’re in the place where magic is made. It’s got all the trappings of a modern university, but at its heart, Babel isn’t so different from the alchemists’ lairs of old. But unlike the alchemists, we’ve actually figured out the key to the transformation of a thing. It’s not in the material substance. It’s in the name.”


“What’s in a name? The stuff that shapes societies and transforms the world around us.”


LISTEN, you all KNOW that my girl R.F. Kuang can do no wrong in my eyes but being as unbiased as I possibly can be, I have to say that Babel is without a doubt, one of the most magnificent books I’ve read. It’s been a month since I finished reading it but it’s one of those books that left my brain smoking from all the things I had to process, that it’s still been difficult to move on and read other things.

I was so impressed by the amount of knowledge of languages & linguistics, etymology, translation, history, culture, psychology, colonialism, and the academic world that must have been required of bestie Kuang to write this masterpiece. There is so much linguistic prowess being flexed on every page, I am sure only a polyglot could truly understand, but I felt like I was sitting in classes next to Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty, learning alongside them in my own small way.

“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.”


Of all the things I admired about the way this story is told, one of the most compelling things was the way Babel confronts, on both a macro and a micro level, the ways that the colonial mindset and EMPIRE permeate every institution, every level of society, every socioeconomic position, and every individual consciousness. The way that academic institutions uphold the colonial project and reinforce the intentional inequity and power imbalances created by the colonial project is such a clear and aching pain in the side of this body of work.

The themes of empire-building, colonialism, translation & intellectual theft, racism, displacement of minority peoples, identity, and the necessity of violence loom large over the plot from start to finish. The ways that language is used to assert dominance is so flawlessly portrayed that it’s easy to forget this is an alternative history, and not something that really happened.

In true Kuang fashion, the readers (and the characters) are mercilessly crushed again and again by the weaponization of cultural knowledge (and identities) as tools for empire. Those who are most needed for this process of exploitation are most heavily controlled, silenced, and treated as though they are expendable. This story flaunts the despicable unobstructed institutionalized theft of intellectual property, of dignity, and of freedom from marginalized people in such ruthless ways, it could be quite difficult and painful to read.

“But that’s the great contradiction of colonialism…it’s built to destroy that which it prizes most.”


R. F. Kuang knows how to stir deep levels of discomfort in the ordinary, day-to-day racism/elitism of this time period that it is almost too frustrating to believe people could possibly have truly been this ignorant and horrible (spoiler: they actually were).

The core characters are diverse, brought together by their mutual other-ness, yet pulled apart in a myriad of ways by their distinctive differences. The character development that Robin Swift goes through, the evolution of his understandings of the world, are astonishingly well-done. You come to have this intimacy with the group, and with each individual within it, that sparked such empathy and heartbreak for each and every one of them as they make their choices on what is most important to them.

And OH, the heartbreak is SO REAL. Inescapable and unforgettable.

Friends, we were promised dark academia, magical realism, and the kind of story that rips your heart out of your chest halfway through and DEMANDS that you still hold on to the bitter end… AND WE GOT ALL OF THAT AND MORE. Babel stomped its way into a firm position as my favourite book I’ve read… ever. Truly cannot wait to hear what all my friends think of this one.

“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.”

I've been sitting on writing this review for a long time now. I started Babel immediately after getting approved for an arc. Babel was one of my most anticipated books for 2022. To say that I am devastated at having to give this 3 stars is an understatement. The good new is, it seems that my opinion is such an outlier. Babel has already received hundreds of glowing 4 and 5 star reviews pre-release so I highly recommend checking out those detailed reviews.

First things first.. the title and cover have my heart and soul. They are both utter dark academia perfection. I will be purchasing the book for my shelves. I hear there are going to be some amazing editions in the world.

Now, I think it's best to begin with the things that I loved because the elements that I did love, I really, really loved. Part of why I love dark academia so much is the attention and love to academia. Babel provides for us incredible lectures which are the heart of any good dark academia. The academic linguistic lectures were quite fascinating and interesting. I also loved the magic use, the magic system and the silver working with its creative use of translation.

This brings me to the parts I struggled with. I can't move past the ending. It felt so rushed and underwhelming. The pacing of the story didn't work for me either as the story dragged in too many areas. Another area was with the character voices - it's Oxford 1800s and yet they all sound like they are from modern day. It was one element that took me out of the story.

Overall, there were things I loved and things I didn't love. I'm rating this 3/3.5 stars so middle of the road for me. Thank you so much for an advance reader copy. I really appreciate having the opportunity to read and review early.

This book was a masterpiece! I almost struggle to consider this book "fantasy" because the alternate history it presents is so grounded in the truth. Yes, there's magic, but even that feels totally plausible. I was utterly riveted from start to finish!

R.F. Kuang must be commended for the sheer amount of detail and research that went into this book. Not only was this a deep dive into linguistics, but the way she handled the global politics of language and translation was masterful. Kuang’s depiction of life as an Oxford student and the complex love/hate relationship scholars have with academia was so well done I felt as though I’d been transformed into an 1800 Babel student. The four students we follow: Robin, Ramy, Victorie, and Letty, are each a victim of current social politics. Robin is bi-racial Chinese and English and white-passing, Ramy coming from a British colony understands how to survive as a foreigner in English society, Victorie originated from a liberated colony and struggles to reconcile the freedom of her home country with the violent stories she was subjected to growing up, and Letty, a white, English woman, simply can’t comprehend what it means to be a person of color and immigrant, and inaccurately equates it to her own struggle with gender roles. Each of these characters is well fleshed out and we get a strong sense of their dynamics and friendships, which makes their stories all the more heartbreaking. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of this story is that we are seeing the horrors of colonialism from a variety of perspectives – immigrants, the poor working class, and the wealthy upper class, and this is done in a respectful way that feels authentic, grounded, and emotional. The social commentary of how Robin, Ramy, and Victorie are all stuck between two worlds – their home country, which they were taken away from, and England, which allows them to enjoy the benefits of colonialism without allowing them to ever really be a part of society, was fascinating and exceptionally insightful. The one negative I have about this book is the pacing. The first third of the book took me weeks to get through as it is slow and at times repetitive. While I recognize that there was a lot of set up required, it did take me while to become immersed in this story. Overall, this book is well worth the read and is a true reflection of R.F. Kuang’s writing prowess. 4.5 stars.

Finishing R.F. Kuang’s, Babel, felt similar to when I first watched Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises. If you’re unfamiliar with the latter, it is an animated and admittedly fairly highly fictionalized biopic about Jiro Horikoshi, the chief engineer of numerous Imperial Japanese fighter plane designs…including the infamous Mitsubishi A6M Zero, which would earn its fearsome reputation in the US during the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941.

I suppose what I mean in this comparison is a kind of cognitive dissonance: sympathy I felt for the character of Horikoshi-san couldn’t help but be tempered by the knowledge of what it was his creations were going to do. While the film is ultimately a tale of a creative losing control over the use for his own creations – again, I said it was pretty highly fictionalized – and it is true that the engineer himself was opposed to Japan entering WWII, one has to remember what the consequences of this man’s creation were: furtherance of attempted imperial expansion through violence.

Reading Babel my dissonance and at times even discomfort came from the knowledge not that this sympathetic protagonist would eventually inflict violence upon the country in which I was born – though I would hardly call myself any kind of nationalist and am also not at all British – but instead that my own history and heritage contributed to the horror wreaked upon Kuang’s protagonist or his other BIPOC friends.

While studying abroad in London during my final year of uni, I was asked, “what are you?” by a professor…to which I responded “Greek, French, Belgian, Italian, and Irish” – this was before I learned there was a whole lot of secret Ashkenazi Jew in that Belgian, but I digress. This answer actually took him by surprise, as he later said that he had assumed I would respond, “American.”

What even does that mean? Too big a question, frankly, for me to be posing in a review. But I can say that I am at least in some areas of that cultural heritage, close in the line to the very people who emigrated from those countries of question to the US; perhaps that is why I answer in the way that I do. Heritage, in a strange way, holds an odd significance in my life as it pertains to my sense of self.

So what happens when that heritage – say, the French – had a history of imperial expansion and colonization? Of invading and decimating other so-called “savage” or “lesser” cultures and doing their utmost to obliterate them in the name of “civilizing” them? How do I feel when an author brilliantly lays imperialism, colonialism, and some of the most insidious aspects of inherent, ingrained, and institutionalized racism to bare across hundreds of pages of incomparable prose and visceral storytelling power?

Angry. Enraged. Ashamed. Horrified.

Shattered.

But what I feel is, ultimately, unimportant. As a white person of predominantly western european heritage, I am more than aware of the fact that this book has the power to mean so much more to those who have actually suffered such indignities. I could speak to sexism, inside and outside academics, but that kind of racism? But the thought that a nation actively worked to erase my heritage and history and culture? And then wanted me to feel grateful for it?

It makes me sick – it’s supposed to make me sick. I think I’d be more concerned if it didn’t; I’m certainly concerned by anyone who doesn’t feel this novel’s gut-punch of an impact.

Babel is a scathing condemnation of imperialism and all the institutionalized racism that has coloured the world of academia as a result – both then and even now. The fact that in Kuang’s own words, the racism she experienced at Oxford inspired this novel, makes the emotions within even more raw, the observances all the more cutting. (Oh yeah, did I forget to mention she’s basically a bonafide genius with beyond enviable credentials?)

Kuang pulls no punches in this story, nor should she. Now that is not to say her writing lacks subtlety – far from it. I’d even lean towards labelling Babel’s writing style as a kind of pastiche of narrative nonfiction, footnotes and all, but the colour and depth it achieves bears all the hallmarks of masterwork fiction.

Could this novel be her magnum opus? I’d wager it’s a little too early in her career to start saying that, but I think even asking that question is a solid indication of just how good Babel is.

This novel challenges you; it dares you to look beyond the glitter and glam of “The Empire” and all the supposed “good it’s done.” It dares you to look at the way so-called “learned men” legitimize the great machine and its atrocities either actively or passively within the hallowed halls of world-class academic institutions like, say, Oxford University. Especially when you then stop to think about how and why such places were able to acquire and collect such vast amounts of information and resources – how they added all those items to their enviable collections.

Beyond that, this novel is also a love song to language and linguistics – all languages and all their splintering spiderwebs of dialects. Language is power unmatched, both in this novel and in the real world…and thus all should respect such power. Thus when it grows corrupted by men who seek to co-opt it and fashion themselves as new gods upon Earth?

Well…let’s just saw that Babel must fall.

Not “will” or “can” or “should.”

Must.

Babel must fall.

'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?'

Hoo boy. This is a gut punch of a book that will hit hard for book historians and linguists. It's a long book, but a short epic. I'll be thinking about the world and philosophy of this book for a long, long time, so it gets the very rare 5 stars from me.

BABEL was a heartbreaking but beautiful page-turner. As a POC with conflicting views on the UK, I loved how tough topics were touched on and spun. Despite the density of the book’s size, never once did R. F. Kuang lack with the plot. It was everything I wanted and more.

R. F. Kuang brings astonishing detail and insight into 1830’s Oxford in this brilliant standalone historical fantasy. Robin Swift, a Chinese student at the Royal Institute of Translation, better known as Babel, and his cohort of fellow students come of age among white scholars while they grapple with racism and the role their translation work plays in British imperialism. Babel is a stunning work of speculative fiction that features a compelling cast of characters, a critique of academia and language and their role in imperialism, and quotes that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading this book.

This dark academia speculative fiction set largely among Oxford is immensely, at many points compulsively, readable and well-written, traversing the balance between its academic content and storytelling with ease (for the most part). Themes of belonging, identity, survival, duty, love, sacrifice, morality, ethics, and, of course, its central theme of language and its power, its uses, its manipulations. This is a sweeping, ambitious project that manages to shine with achingly intimate moments and has the ability to hold different simultaneous meanings in all their paradox and complexity. RF Kuang labels it a "love letter and a break-up letter" in one, and that describes it best.

This was my first book of Kuang's. I have heard so much great reviews of her other series, so I was super excited to be able to get my hands on this arc. It blew my expectation out of the water and I'm still trying to unravel my thoughts, but I loved it!
My full review will be posted on goodreads soon!

The complexity of RF Kuang's histories impress me again! The story brings us in another world and we can only love its characters. I really loved the end, but now I need to know what comes after! The only thing I liked less is the really long introduction of the book, as it had too much details for my taste. But a great story overall!