A writer who is clearly capable of better, delivering a disappointing work. If she would trust the readers to understand her message, this would have been so much better.

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang was one of my most highly anticipated reads of the year. R.F. Kuang quickly became a favorite with The Poppy War series and I will read anything she cares to write. I just couldn't believe that I managed to get approved for it on NetGalley! Anyway, as far as I'm concerned this new novel is absolutely perfection and is easily one of the best books I've read all year long. It's 545 pages long and it's well worth the time it takes. Historical fantasy is one of my favorite genres and Kuang is marvelous at bringing her world and her characters to life. They could all walk right off the page and I felt like I could enter the world of the novel. Overall, I can't recommend this book enough, especially if you're a fan of dark academia.

I've been sitting on this review for over a week now and I've come to the conclusion that I will simply never feel prepared to write it. I'll never have the words to describe what a powerhouse of a book this is. It's the kind of book that I felt like I needed to take my time with. This was not the bedtime book or the catch-a-few-mins-here-and-there book. This was a commitment that demanded my full attention, which I was more than happy to provide, and I was richly rewarded for doing so.

To start, it's well-researched and masterfully written. I highlighted more memorable quotes while reading this book than anything I've ever read before. I constantly found myself circling back to experience a passage again because the hit was just so perfectly right.

Babel manages to feel massive and immersive as well as niche and intimate all at once. The characters feel so fully realized and my heart ached as I went along on this journey alongside them. I was completely swept up in the illusion Kuang so artfully crafted and I mourned as she tore it all down around me. I smiled, I gasped, I cried - the full range.

People aren't exaggerating when they say this book is brilliant. It's so smart and so carefully crafted. Every little piece of story, every meticulous word choice that connects to another clever piece of language feels so significant and intentional in a way that I've never experienced in a book. It's truly a masterpiece.

Babel is an artful and passionate look at colonialism, language, and power structure through an ambitious dark academia lens. It's hard hitting and nuanced and terribly beautiful to experience. I took away so much from this read, yet know I will take away so much more when I reread it again. In the meantime, I wish I were intellectual enough to talk about this book in the way it deserves. Highly recommend.

Extra special thanks to Harper Voyager for an ARC in exchange for review.

After becoming orphaned, Robin Swift was brought from China to England at a young age. He left everything Chinese behind, even his name, save for the language. At the wish of his wealthy benefactor, his whole reason for existing became to learn languages – and once he got to Oxford and its tower of Babel, to learn the magic of silver-working, fueled by translation. But not everyone is happy about Babel’s key role in British imperial dominance that its silver-working provides.

Babel is less bleak and brutal than the author’s Poppy War series, but not by much. This book is both beautiful and heartbreaking, in early times bursting with the love of found family but ultimately painful as those bonds twist into betrayal. Ultimately it exposes the cruelty, arrogance, and greed of the British imperialist age. In so doing it shines a light on modern society – the way things have changed, and the way things haven’t. If you’re a fan of the Poppy War, you’ll find that Babel has a lot of themes in common – racism, imperialistic subjugation and warfare, found family, and trying to “belong” in a world that will never stop reminding you that you don’t.

Representation: Chinese main character, other POC major characters, hints of queerness

CW: Racism (seriously, there is some hideously vicious racism in this story), sexism, violent child abuse and emotional neglect, imperialistic and colonialistic abuses, drug use, gore, suicide

Thank you to HCC Frenzy, Harper Collins Canada, and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

After he loses his entire family during a cholera epidemic in Canton, Robin Swift is brought to London by Professor Lovell and trained to be fluent in many languages in preparation for the day he will join Oxford’s prestigious Royal Institution of Translation, better known as Babel. As the center of the magical art of silver-working, Babel is at the heart of the British Empire’s power. But though Robin loves Oxford and his studies there, he begins to realize that all this pursuit of knowledge will inevitably be used in the service of the Empire, against his own homeland of China that he left so many years ago. Things come to a head when Britain plans to wage an unjust war with China and Robin must decide how far he is willing to go to bring down Babel and if violence is necessary to fight back against this corrupt and powerful institution.

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

I’ve had my eye on this book for quite some time, and there’s been so much hype around it too. I haven’t read The Poppy Wars yet, but this sounded like something not to miss this summer. The timing to pick up this book could not have been more perfect for me, because much of it is set in Oxford where I actually visited literally last month, so I could visualize the buildings and streets described and follow along with the places Robin goes to – the ones that are real anyway. Babel is set in an alternative fantasy version of Oxford in a world where the art of silver-working, channeling the meaning of words through translation to magical effect, has not only taken over daily life in England, but has made the British Empire powerful beyond imagination. I’ll settle for calling this a fantastic work of art which is the best I could come up with because this book had me lost for words for several hours after I finished it, much less ones that would do it full justice. I myself speak multiple languages and I found the whole discussion of translation across languages and cultures and how the meanings of words change in the process to be not only fascinating but quite relatable.

“But what is the opposite of fidelity?…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?”

The world building was my favorite part and I loved the author’s descriptions of this Oxford of a fantasy world. Silver-working was extremely intriguing and the book went into so much detail about the whole process and the importance that translation has to it. The magic system such as it was, was described in such depth and I really enjoyed it – few books take the time to do so, and even fewer standalones. What I found most interesting however, was that despite this being a fantasy novel, the story at the heart of it wasn’t about the magic, but the effect it had on society, from silver worked enhancements to machines taking away the jobs of the working class, colonization and the slave trade, identities and ethnicities, racism and the complicated politics behind it all, with a lot of true history woven in, posing some thought provoking questions on morality to the reader. It has been a very long time since I came across a fantasy novel with such a complex plot and I would have binge read it had it not been so long.

The characters – I didn’t expect to like them as much as they did. The book is largely told from Robin’s perspective, and once at Oxford, he meets the other members of his cohort: Ramy, Victoire and Letty, who do get a couple of interludes as the story progresses. Robin’s character development and his arc were amazing, and I’m really impressed at how much the author had managed to fit in from this angle – and in so much detail – in a book that’s not even 600 pages. And the best part of it was that none of it ever felt forced – the events just flowed and Robin’s every reaction was natural, making him an easy character to sympathize with and connect to. His three friends, despite not having POVs, were equally significant figures in the plot, each with distinct personalities and from varied backgrounds which leads to them viewing the truth behind Babel from very different perspectives. I was equally invested in all four characters, and given that this is a standalone, that’s saying a lot.

This is usually the point in my reviews where I start getting into what I didn’t like about the book, but with this one, I’m drawing a complete blank. I suppose the pacing was kind of slow, but I was so caught up in the story that I barely even noticed it – I was just hoping the book wouldn’t end anytime soon because it was absolutely riveting.

After reading this book, The Poppy Wars has just moved to the top of my backlist! I can’t wait to read it and any future books by this author are sure to be on my TBR as well. Though this is a fantasy novel, it’s also dark academia and the themes discussed within will be of interest to readers of any genre. Babel is undoubtedly one of the finest standalone novels I’ve ever read. If there’s one book you read this year, make it Babel – I cannot recommend this book enough!

Kuang took dark academia, magic, and the battle of good vs evil and stripped it of all pretenses. She pointed those bitche$ out for what they are-racism, classism, oppression, exploitation, xenophobia, greed, etc. This isn’t Harry Potter. This isn’t the type of speculative fiction that you’re used to. Many times I had to remind myself that Babel wasn’t real, but unfortunately everything else it stood for was. This is based on the true ugliness of British imperialism and its race to become the most powerful country in the world by any means necessary.
As the kids these data say, “she ate and left no crumbs!”

READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK. READ THIS BOOK.

And if you need more convincing: this book is a dark academia novel about brilliant people of color studying linguistics at Oxford University while contending with their role in the British empire 🤯

Alright now that that’s been said: I really don’t know how to review this book y’all 😭 I’m glad I ordered two special edition copies (both pictured) because I think this is a modern classic. Mark my words: this book is going to be in English curriculums for years to come.

Okay so some of my chaotic thoughts:

📚This book broke down interracial friendships and connections PERFECTLY! Like…I need more books to talk about the awkwardness and lack of trust that can happen when friend groups pretend like they’re “all the same” even though they have different levels of access. This book was a great reminder to invest in checking my privilege in my friend groups while also calling in friends in when they’re not aware of their privilege.

📚 I loved how there was representation of different ways to resist systematic oppression. Sometimes you gotta choose your peace over the movement and that’s VALID✌🏾I think the point of community in social justice spaces is that when you need peace and space, others can take on the work for awhile. And that’s okay ❤️

📚 The cast is mostly POC (Black, South East Asian, and East Asian) and OMG RF Kuang does a great job of showing the differences these groups face depending on gender, colorism, class, and access to whiteness and oooof I have thoughts and feelings 😭

📚 Lastly- I’m sorry, but the way that this book spelled out how sometimes the well intentioned White people can be the ones who cause the most damage in movements for justice 😭 I don’t want to give spoilers but yo there were some hard moments here.

Brilliant. A masterpiece. Just… RF KUANG. How does she do it??

I'm really aware of the fact that R.F. Kuang's works are admired by many and I really wanted to be love this one because the premise sounds so interesting but unfortunately, this did not work for me.

I'm a patient person and I don't mind a slow-paced book but this one felt like it took way too long to get to the actual story. I know that there was a lot of explanation of what and why things were but I couldn't understand why it took 60% into the book for things to actually start happening.

I was bored and did not care too much for the characters, who I might add, lacked personaliies.

Have you heard about Rebecca Kuang's new book, Babel? Tune in to hear why it's more than your typical fantasy book and why Stephen and Josh recommend it without reservation!

YouTube:
https://youtu.be/i5242-zc5mI
Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/209-babel-an-arcane-history-by-r-f-kuang-non-spoiler/id1489097985?i=1000581389827&ls=1
Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2pQTiU8uahYPO4Dwhj5UfM?si=Vjgd-y2lSjeqG-848Idpyg&utm_source=copy-link

I’m a huge fan of R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War trilogy, so I was super excited to see she was coming out with a new book in 2022!

Set in the early 1800s, Babel is Robin Swift’s journey from a young orphaned boy in China, to becoming a translation student at Oxford University’s Royal Institute of Translation, to becoming a revolutionary attempting to disrupt the British Empire’s colonization of his motherland of China.

Babel starts off very strong. Robin is saved from an early demise from a Cholera outbreak in his small village in China by the mysterious Professor Lovell. Lovell begins Robin’s training in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Chinese in preparation for enrollment in Oxford, where Lovell is a professor in the Royal Institute of Translation. The reader quickly recognizes Robin’s intelligence, cleverness, and determination during these early years, making him an easy main character to root for.

After years of preparation, Robin is admitted to Babel and sets off to begin his academic career at Oxford. Once at Oxford, Robin meets his fellow translation students Ramy, Victoire, and Letty. We follow their friendship through their joys and struggles throughout their years as young Babel students. This group endured their arduous academic workload through their bond forged by necessity. As Robin and his comrades progress through Babel, it begins to become clear that academia has a darker side in which they must decide where their loyalties lie…

While Babel is considered to be fantasy, I would classify it as more of a historical fiction with fantasy elements. The world is very much rooted in reality with the focus of the story being on the historical components. Kuang has this way of crafting ambitious stories inspired by history with unique fantasy elements. Themes readers will see throughout the story include racism, academia, colonialism, revolution, grief, and identity.

I do feel that Babel suffers from some pacing issues, especially in the middle of the book, that bogged the story down a bit. I attribute this to the long paragraphs of text about the history of linguistics (info dumping) throughout the story in addition to the vast amount of time this novel spans.

Recommended to those who enjoy history, languages, and dark academia.

***Thank you to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review***

*ARC received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

R.F. Kuang is a genius. This work is astounding, all the research it must have entailed, the supporting sources, the footnotes! She is one of this generations leading authors.

Reading Babel felt like I was back in my MA program. The research, the academia, the linguistics. I loved it. It was very hard to read and focus, but it felt natural and necessary. The prestige and elevation of the novel really evoked the feeling of higher academia.

The plot was a little dragging, but I don’t think the plot was the point of the book. The message against colonization, racism, imperialism, all stood out and Kuang really knows how to pack the punch.

R.F. Kuang always writes a good book, but lord this took me forever to read (in a very good way.) A combination of alternate history and speculative fiction, Babel is a commentary on so many social and socioeconomic realities that were present during Britain's colonial period with magic added in. And like everything else in this book, the magic system is only slightly complex and very internally consistent.

While I'm unsure if this one will ever be a re-read for me, I enjoyed every single page and I can recommend it wholeheartedly.

Babel by R.F. Kuang is an adult historical fantasy where Robin Swift, an orphan from Canton, is brought to London by Professor Lovell to train to go to Oxford's Royal Institute of Translation better known as Babel. Babel is the center of translation and sliver working where both the original and translated words are carved on silver which embeds the sliver with a magical effect related to the word that enhances many things. Robin's cohort at Babel includes Ramy, who is Indian, Victoire, a black woman of Haitian decent, and Letty, a white woman. As the story progress Robin learns about the Hermes Society who are a group working to sabotage the sliver working to slow England's Imperial Expansion. When Britain is going to go to war with China Robin must seal with what is he willing to do or sacrifice to stop Babel.

This is a stand alone dark academia fantasy that grapples with different aspects of imperialism, colonialism, and racism that is embedded in the world and is still apart of academia today. This a an amazingly well researched book that at times can be heavy handed with the themes, it also fits with how the world works for these characters. As Robin gets used to the world of Babel as a reader you get comfortable with how this world work. However, when they go to China everything changes.

At a certain point you know things are not going to end well for these characters and the ending hurts but at the same time I'm not surprised with how it ended. For me it took quite a while to finish Babel but that is on me not the quality of the story or writing. I was already in a little bit of a slump when I started Babel and then I had a several month stint working at a museum with heavy material related to World War II. Personally after doing the work that I was doing I had trouble reading a book that deals with such heavy topics at the same time so I ended up putting Babel on hold. With that in mind I would recommend that if you plan to read Babel that you are in the right head space for the themes Babel deals with but overall I loved this book.

Thank you to the publisher for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

R. F. Kuang is back with a complicated political fantasy epic, this time involving students at Oxford University in the first half of the 19th century. The magic system involves complex translation work on silver, and this silver takes on attributes from "match pairs" that power London's infrastructure. Of course, this also has implications for the rest of the world whose resources are being mined yet who receive no tangible benefits. England's colonization efforts and monopoly on silver magic fuels many of the moral injustices taking place around the world. Thus Robin Swift, an orphan from Canton raised in England, must decide how much he is willing to risk and whether justice is worth the cost.

R.F. Kuang has done it again.

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution begins with Robin Swift, a young boy in Canton, dying of cholera. A British man named Professor Lovell shows up at the last moment and takes Robin away. (Note: Robin is not our protagonist's birth name. One of the earliest acts of violence in this book is forcing Robin to assimilate to British culture by taking an English-sounding name instead of keeping his real name.)

Robin spends years learning Latin, Ancient Greek, and perfecting his native tongue so he can enroll in the Oxford University Royal Institute of Translation, which is more casually known as Babel. Babel scholars work in translation, but they also use linguistics and silver bars to give the British Empire more power.

Although Robin finds comfort and solace in Babel, he soon realizes that blindly working for Babel means betraying his homeland. He is swiftly recruited by the Hermes Society, an underground organization determined to undermine the silver-working pursuits set forth by the British Empire. As Britain begins to pursue an unfair war against China, Robin is met with a dilemma: can he do this the quiet way and change Babel from within, or must he follow in the footsteps of someone he meets earlier in the book and commit acts of violence to make change?

I had high hopes for this book, but as I said at the beginning of this review, R.F. Kuang has done it again. Although the pacing of this book wasn't fast, it still fit the story being told. It's always nice to see when an author hasn't held back.

I know I'm going to think about Babel for years to come. It's a well-crafted balance between different genres that is every bit as heartbreaking as The Poppy War trilogy. I don't have a specific audience I'd recommend this book to... but that's because I'd like to say everybody should read this.

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

I rushed through reading this book because I found it so captivating and intense and extremely relatable to me, especially in regards to colonization and it's consequences. It also felt like a learning experience in itself - I was engrossed in the eccentricities of language, etymology, translation etc right along with Robin, Ramy and the others and it was enriching. I dont think I can capture in a review what I felt about this book except that it was amazing and brilliant and I think everyone should read it. And I hope I'll reread it soon, this time all ready to highlight and annotate it with care so that I can remember everything and appreciate the book even better.

I loved the Poppy War by R.F. Kuang and was so exited to read Babel. I want to preface by saying that this book is NOTHING like the Poppy War. This book will teach you so much but also make you think. This isn’t a fluffy bunny book and it’s not an easy read that you cruise through. I did find something similar in the development of the characters that Kuang writes and I would be interested to talk to others about it. I do recommend this book but expect to learn!

1/5 stars

I had such high hopes for this book and sadly, it disappointed. Comparing this book to The Secret History is a tall task. TSH has rich, complex characters, which Babel did not. Other than Robin, the rest of the characters felt like stand-ins for themes. Rami was the snarky Twitter guy who always had a zinger in his backpocket; Letty was your standard white feminist full of micro=aggression; and Victorie was practically nonexistent. It was basically like reading Ayn Rand, but with a more liberal, anti-colonial agenda (which I am here for!)

Which goes into my next point: the best thing about Babel were the themes. I LOVED the magical component of the silver bar, and I found the translation magic to be super interesting. However, the language lectures felt like being back in college, so if that's not your style, you'll find these scenes dry and boring.

All in all, Babel has potential. It's chockful of amazing themes + magic, but it failed to deliver in terms of plot + complex characters. RFK was an insta-buy author for me. Sadly, not anymore.

The less said about this the better, but if you are looking for an incisive critique of academia and institutions; if you are interested in examining the complicity of established pillars of education in imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, elitism; if you are looking for a speculative, historical fantasy that absolutely rips...

THIS IS THE ONE.

CW: child abuse, violence, racism, death

I freaking loved Babel and it just might be my favorite book of the year and I’m so happy I get the opportunity to ramble my face off about why it’s so good. 5 star reviews piled in on day 1. It’s at the top of all the bookseller charts, I’ve seen it trending on twitter and It only took me a few days to read it, it’s toppling at close to 600 pages and as a slower reader, that’s a feat especially because I was expecting to lightly cruise through this one, take my time with it but nope, I ate it up like stuffing cake in my face. My focus, my whole attention, the culture of my livelihood, my whole being for a week was about Babel. As someone who read the Tower of Babel series by Josiah Bancroft, twice I might add, the whole idea of this giant tower that is like a city full of all different kinds of people and stories, progressing through each level of this tower, to see it translated multiple times now is fascinating to me especially RF Kuangs version mixed with dark academia. Perfect for fall and Halloween, am I right? It really released at a significant time. The whole book makes you want to store it in a leather satchel as you walk around a historic building while wearing combat boots and kicking through big orange leaves on the sidewalk.
Full review on my YouTube channel.