I don’t know if I have the words to do this book justice, but I can say without a doubt that R.F. Kuang is a master of prose and plot. Babel is an exploration of British colonialism while also exploring the ties of found family and the ties that individuals have to their countries and history. It is a novel that weaves the historical truths we must face with the fantasy that words can truly hold power (in this case, magic). It is dark academia, historical fiction, and overall just a captivating blend of fiction and non-fiction. Babel is intricate and is far from a cozy fantasy. It features violence, revolution, betrayal, and pain. While we are given an ending, it is in some ways left open for the reader’s interpretation. As with the reality of colonialism and revolution, readers are not left with a true happy ending, but with a bittersweet ending. Babel forced me to truly think about the power of words and made my heart hurt. I strongly recommend this novel!

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There is so much that has been said about Babel it's feels a little needless to say more - but here we go. Babel is the story of Robin Swift as he's lifted from his home in China by his 'guardian' and raised to be sent to Babel, the premiere translation institute in Britain that allows the country to have seemingly almost complete control of the world.

My thoughts are a little mixed on this. I think it's a solid book, by no means perfect. The first half is engaging in a day by day of Robin and his cohort's work in Oxford. Slowly Robin starts to see the cracks and flaws of the university. The destruction of languages, the slow conquest that Britain is enacting across the globe and you see how easy it seems for him to turn a blind eye even as his own homeland is targeted. Then on the half way mark the book takes a sharp turn, moving into a revolution, a revolt. Things speed up and the world crumbles around Robin.

This book is angry, and it is vocal in it's message. There is little subtlety here, and while I whole-heartedly agree with the core messages Kuang is sharing, I wish there had been more subtlety. We are told the message, over and over to the determinant of our characters and world building. Characters that are set up to be engaging and nuanced fall flat and eventually even are killed off in some cases as the plot drives towards it's ultimate grim conclusion. That ending is also another big problem I had with the book, in that I think death is the ultimate loss. A conversation is had in the book about martyrdom, about sacrificing yourself and how it isn't the answer but in the end the book contradicts that.

Overall it's a book I enjoyed, and I'll definitely continue to read Kuang's work. I think she has a lot of skill and talent and she has amazing space to grow. This wasn't perfect, but it was very good. If it seems like something you're interested in and you are one of the five other people besides myself who hasn't read this, it's worth reading!

4 out of 5 silver bars

4 stars

R.F. Kuang is officially my number one heartbreaker. First the Poppy War trilogy and now this?? I simply cannot handle this kind of heartbreak. Let me tell you, I cried so damn hard when I was finishing this book.
It was a really sad ending but also I loved every moment of it. Okay, well not every moment because A CERTAIN SOMETHING SHOULDN'T HAVE HAPPENED. No spoilers obviously.

I have seen countless reviews for this book calling it boring and I am sorry, did we read the same book? Because there is no way this was boring. I was invested from the first page. Kuang knows how to tell a damn good story. Sweet Robin Swift is officially one of my all time favorite characters.

I will say I loved this book but I also felt like I knew exactly how the book was going to end. It was very similar The Poppy War. And while I don't mind the similarities, I do wish it was a bit different. Just a tiny bit different you know? But the writing was fantastic, I truly felt I was there at Babel studying along with this crew of outsiders. And that is how you know the writing is fantastic, when you feel like you are there.

I need everyone to read this book and while they are at it, to read the Poppy War as well. Just add R.F. Kuang to your auto buy list at this point.

INCREDIBLE.

i took the concept of savouring to a new level with this book but WOW was it worth it. rf kuang is a genius and this is potentially one of the best books i've ever read?? i think this is one i will return to again and again, especially as i embark on a masters and career in translation.

savouring babel meant that i spent several months with these characters, getting to know and love them. and so, as the novel reached its climax and the characters their breaking point, i felt the devastation keenly. i loved the time spent with robin as he grew up and fell in love with languages and oxford; those early pages worked perfectly to make the emotional blows later on all that more powerful. i'll miss these characters tremendously.

rf kuang is undoubtedly an incredible writer. this is apparent in the characters, the slow building yet enthralling plot, the themes explored and the fact that the book was unfalteringly engaging, despite much of it comprising of etymology, philosophy and history lectures. babel touches on much of my own studies: namely language, translation and colonialism, which perhaps explains why i enjoyed its themes so much. language and translation as tools of colonial oppression particularly interest me and i adored what rf kuang did with this theme in babel. it honestly has me thinking about my masters dissertation two years before i'll even write it.

i had worried before starting that i would find babel dense and difficult to read, especially as rf kuang spoke about emulating a dickensian narrative. but rest assured, babel is sharp and engaging, and at no point did it ever feel like a slog. it is not a book to race through, however, rather to slowly savour (though perhaps not quite as slowly as me!)

i could not more highly recommend babel. it is worth every single glowing review and award it has received. rf kuang is a talent forever on my favourite authors list (yellowface is also spectacular! i'm excited to read the poppy war trilogy soon!).

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book.

I am so unbelievably mad that it took me so long to read this book, given that it is about so many of my interests. Having read this immediately after reading Yellowface, I was hit face-first with the fact that R.F. Kuang really, really has range. Sure, it's dense and a bit full of academia, but once you get into it, Babel is such a wild ride. A truly incredible exploration of British colonialism and the ways in which language takes part in it.

BABEL was one of the most popular/hyped books of 2022 but since I’m perpetually late to the game, I’ve only just gotten to it. This a historical urban fantasy novel set in an alternate 1800s Britain, as it traces the experiences of four students from various parts of the world as they come to study at Babel, Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation.

I know this book is really well loved (and R.F. Kuang in general), but there were a few things that held me back from loving BABEL. I think part of this is the uneven pacing (it took me over a month to get through this since I lost a lot of momentum 3/4th of the way through), and at times I felt like the themes and characterizations were a bit… on the nose? Perhaps it’s this lack of subtlety that made BABEL feel more young-adult in tone than what I thought the themes (race, colonialism, capitalism) would suggest. Overall I respect the ideas behind Babel, but I almost think a piece of nonfiction with similar commentary/themes might have worked better for me.

I got a free e-ARC of this book from Netgalley and Penguin Books!

This was extremely slow and I got bored very fast. I've been trying to read this for months and had to force myself through the book but truly it felt like I was attending one of my university lectures and had to read a textbook... it's a very sad thought considering I've ADORED this author's previous works for The Poppy War, but sadly this book is just not for me :(

Believe the hype!!! I have read all of Kuang's bills up to this point and they never disappoint. You've probably seen Babel all over TikTok and other places and for good reason. It's an epic read that introduces a world you'll never want to leave!

Where do I even start...

Rarely do I start a book I loved with such a phrase, but Babel has left me at a loss for words. Not to mention that far more insightful and eloquent reviewers than I have read this book a lot faster and given it all the praise it deserves, so it's hard to know where to begin. I intended to be among them, as Babel was my most anticipated read of last year and the twelve (yes, twelve) copies I own can attest to that. But all that aside, I finally vanquished this novel- or rather, it completely conquered me and I will never be the same.

Set in the early 1800s alongside our own history, Babel follows Robin Swift, an orphan who is taken from his home in Canton to London by Professor Lovell, who appears mysteriously and suddenly and just as suddenly begins to train him in Latin, Greek, and Chinese to prepare him for Oxford University, home of Babel, which is in turn the home of the Royal Institute of Translation and the heart of the British Empire, where enchanted silver bars powered by loss in translation keep everything moving. The fairytale of a gleaming city and a bright cohort begins to crumble as Robin tangles with the Hermes Society, which wants to sabotage Babel's work, and neither he, his past, nor his future are what they seem.

Babel is exactly what comes to mind when I think of a tour de force. The care and research R.F. Kuang brings to each novel she works on has never been more evident, down to the sentence structure. I was amazed but not surprised to learn Kuang had done "vocal training" while drafting. The way Babel reads is much like a novel of the era it's set in, something I found delightful in the midst of being emotionally devastated.

I don't think this is a book everyone will love. For some, it will be difficult to challenge what they think they know about the world, and for others, they might just not enjoy the old-timey cadence or pacing, which happens. But I absolutely think this is a book everyone needs to try to read at least once. Babel is, I truly believe, one of the best books that has ever been written, and living in the same time period as R.F. Kuang is truly a gift.

"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."

Babel takes us quite literally into the ivory tower. Robin Swift is told to choose an English name when the father who won't claim him whisks him from Canton to London as a child. His whole family in China is dead, and now Professor Lovell determines the time has come for Robin to get the intense language tutelage needed to eventually enter Oxford's elite translation center at the tower of Babel. The story follows Robin and his cohort at Oxford as they not only wrestle with translations but also the role of colonialism in bringing them to England and using their labor to maintain its empire. Translators identify distortions of meaning in translation to fuel the magic of silver-working, a resource hoarded and lorded by the British Empire. Ironically, magic would not be possible without the languages and minds of people deemed inferior in the colonialist framework.

The book has dark academia vibes for days, and the academia is hard-hitting. It calls up my memories of grad school with its exquisite, painful descriptions-- the youthful energy of debating both minutiae and deep theory, the stress and mind-bending of heavy studying, the victorious satisfaction of work completed, and the tense scurrying of those at the bottom of an academic ladder that doesn't answer to you or even care much about you. It's competitive, it's challenging, but it can also bring out the warmth of camaraderie. Found family vibes are strong as Robin's cohort bonds over their shared circumstances. They occupy this narrow world together, one laser-focused on translation and Babel's academic, social milieu. I found it a beautiful description of how studying the humanities (and I would argue, social sciences) changes your entire worldview once you take a deep dive. Even more so, it calls up the dark foundations that underlie and sustain the entire system of academia-- who can participate, what research is published and valued, who can benefit from said research, and how you must contort yourself and your values to survive, let alone thrive, in its web.

Babel's an example of that magical type of historical fantasy where the world-building enhances the historical narrative rather than existing as its own entity. By weaving political and linguistic elements into the magic system, it feels like a natural, almost obvious, extension of the social framework of the 1830s. An informative narrator sometimes takes readers out of a scene to flesh out the bigger picture in a tone of academic storytelling that suits the mood perfectly, another layer on the illusion of historical fact. Footnotes and specific literary or academic references only add to the mystique, weaving together fiction and non-fiction in a way that is yet another callback to a scholar's approach.

The characters are as intricately designed as their various backgrounds and experiences would suggest. Our main cast includes Robin, who is not only Chinese and English but queer, as well, Remy, a Muslim man from India, Victoire, a Haitian woman, and Letty, a white, upper-class woman from merry old England. There is deep pain and fierce joy. There are misunderstandings and mistakes. There's loyalty and revenge, sometimes misplaced but always complicated.

And it's not an entirely satisfying ending by design-- a bit open-ended, and certainly not a happily ever after. Because how could going up against empire and inequality be a happy endeavor? It features violence and martyrdom, revolution and pain. It's a thoughtful end that feels in some ways inevitable and in others out of reach. I will be sitting with this book and all it represents for quite some time. Thanks to Harper Voyager for my copy to read and review!

Babel by R.F. Kuang is a slow read but I also couldn't put it down! Kuang weaves a story of magic, academia, and British colonialism magnificently. I love an academic setting and this one did not disappoint. I found the magic system to be incredibly interesting and am always a fan of a system that requires years of study and work. My only complaint is that it's a standalone book.

Thanks so much to Netgalley for the e-arc!

There's nothing I could possibly say about "Babel" that would capture how much I adore this book. As a massive fan of Kuang's Poppy War Trilogy, I was incredibly to see what she would do next, but it's obvious now that "Babel" is her true masterpiece. Kuang performs a magic trick, intersecting translation theory, 18th-century silver working, and British Imperial history into a riveting and utterly accessible fantasy novel. I went into "Babel" with a background in translation studies, but that's absolutely not necessary to appreciate the book as Kuang introduces the necessary knowledge without ever detracting from the plot or talking down to the reader. And the plot is well and truly excellent. Well-paced with beautifully fleshed out characters, "Babel" is a masterpiece of a novel!

Absolutely loved this book. It requires the reader to think and really consider their role in society. A group of linguistic students in an alternative 1800s history find that life at Babel is not everything they expected it to be. They have to decide if they will compromise their morals and countries of origin, or will they fight back against the oppressive system. Enjoyed the twists in the story and the development of the story. The author does not hesitate to make the reader think and work to understand the concepts be did it.

This book was intense! I don't think it will be for everyone and that's okay, not every book is meant for everyone. But boy for those people that it does work for it will be magnificent. The working of languages tied to the magic of this world coinciding with the colonization of other countries for that resource, brilliantly done. I can't recommend this book enough.

Babel is one of those books that is powerful enough any review I write will be insufficient. I firmly believe that all people in academic institutions should read and try to absorb the messages of this book. Really, all people should but particularly people working in academia. It was nuanced, well-written, and a great story. In short, reading this was *chef's kiss*.

So far this is my favorite book of the year. It did take a long time to get through the book but that was mainly because I was making so many notes and marking down so many passages on language and history. This is definitely a slower read and not one that you'd want to binge in a weekend because there is so much information and insights into language and how it's been used throughout the world for good and bad. I've read almost all of Kuang's catalog at this point, I only have the last book in the Poppy War series left but she has solidified a place as one of my favorite authors for sure.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Harper Voyager, and R.F. Kuang for an advanced copy of this book.
It may be an overused expression but this book really did change me. All the characters are exquisite in their own way; developed and flawed. Each has a motive and even if you don't agree with it you understand why they see the world that way. This book is all in grays and presents both sides honestly and while it is clear what the ultimate good and bad are even the hero uses means that are not morally good. I absolutely eat up characters like that! Maybe I should go over each character but I'm not going to waste your time and take time away from when you could be reading Babel.

So I have been to Oxford and was offered an opportunity to do a Masters there, to say I love that city and university would be an understatement. R. F. Kuang crafts the setting beautifully; honestly made me cry at a few points because I wasn't there and just that fact was sad. To love something you have to know the good and bad; Oxford doesn't have a perfect history and was greatly aided by British colonization. This is a major fact of the book and everything she writes is true and very important to learn. This book does a wonderful job of arguing why advancement off the back of colonization is not a good in the long or short term; it is NOT a necessary evil.

Oh yeah and the magic! OMG the magic system is incredible; the weaving of language with the philosophy of language and translation. It made learning Latin and how languages work in high school worth it. It just made me so happy and nerdy in the best way!

Just go read Babel!

One of the absolute best book I have ever read. The kind of book which has stays with you long after you have completed it. This book cements RF Kuang as one of my super favourite authors.

There are so many praises to sing about this book. RF Kuang’s prose remains as gripping as ever, even as she slowly builds tension and layers on nerdy academic teachings. I have always been interested in the dark academia genre but have yet to read many of the staples—but I feel completely satisfied with Babel. What else do I need when I have a book about the horrors of academia within the colonial empire, tackling the balance of life or death not just with the acts of individuals but those of an entire system?

Specifically, Babel shines for me in its investigation of language, a discipline by which I’ve always been fascinated. Especially after taking a linguistics course this semester (and recognizing so many things in the book that we covered in class!), I nerded out even more over the linguistic nuggets Kuang sprinkled throughout the pages. Kuang’s passion for linguistics and translation is so evident with each lecture and conversation, and it made me connect even more to the book. The magic system is genius: Languages will always come into contact with one another, but basing the magic system on how languages retain their diversity despite that contact sends such a powerful message. However, I would say that Babel is mainly historical fiction, using the magic system more as a vessel for the ideas Kuang wants to discuss rather than something that can stand independently. (In fact, the magic feels a bit out of place, only relevant for its connections to these themes.)

Mainly, though, Babel is about colonialism and revolution. Robin questions how he should live, whether he should focus on his own survival while at the heart of the colonial empire or resist. Both come at a personal cost: the weight of denial or the risk of his life. Kuang takes the reader along Robin’s realistic journey of realizing the necessity of resistance and violence to achieve decolonization. This book is most heartbreaking not in the parts related to death, but in the parts about hoping and hoping to one day belong and be valued in a place that does not see him as human—and the realization that it never will. Like with the Poppy War trilogy (and in my opinion, even more than TPW), I do think Kuang gets caught up with painting large thematic statements and subsequently leaves behind the characters. But I enjoy Kuang’s writing specifically for her themes, so I can’t exactly complain.

The biggest flaw of Babel for me is that the messages are not subtle. This is shaping up to be a trend in Kuang’s works, and while I don’t necessarily hate it, I don’t quite love it either. While I enjoyed some of the footnotes that gave us extra tidbits of historical information, others grated on me with their haughty “this is racist by the way, in case you didn’t know” remarks about things that were… obviously racist. I love all of the themes that Kuang so expertly explores, but I am smart enough to figure out for myself how x represents a symbol of oppression or x reveals an imperialist mindset—and I don’t need it repeated throughout the book either. Kuang is brilliant, certainly, and I think her commentary on and critique of whiteness and colonialism is, too. I just wish she would trust the reader a little more.

But… I guess I can’t really say that, because despite how too on-the-nose I thought Kuang’s messages to be, white people still manage to miss the memo! I sincerely hope that all the Lettys out there will read Babel and emerge a changed person, but I doubt it. So while it is not for me (someone who can read properly), the constant hammering on the head is clearly necessary for other people, and I can appreciate it for that function.

If, like me, you find yourself slightly peeved when authors lack trust in their readers, then Babel might grate on you at times. But it was not enough to make me dislike this book, because there truly are so many things to take away from Babel. This is real dark academia: true sinister atrocities brought to light and a bold questioning of what it means to make a change. After The Poppy War trilogy, I suspected that Kuang would forever remain a must-read, game-changing author. Babel cements that belief. She has the skill to make me forgive shortcomings that would normally ruin a book for me.