Going into my junior year, the number of books I read outside of school seemed to be perpetually stuck at zero. My ever-growing list of priorities put recreational reading on the back burner, saved for holiday breaks or long car rides. However, I was quite determined to get out of this reading slump, and R.F. Kuang’s Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution, or just Babel for short, was the perfect book to do it.
Upon receiving the book, I was nervous it would end up collecting dust on my shelf until summertime, but Kuang’s intricate worldbuilding and imperfect characters pulled me into 19th-century Oxford. While some argue that the first 300 or so pages read like a textbook, learning about Kuang’s fantastical additions to a real-world place reeled me in. The power Britain holds is powered through silver-working, where the translation of foreign languages into English is invoked on silver bars, infusing them with different capabilities. She clearly researched well, injecting fun tidbits in the footnotes, which I am a total sucker for in any book. In addition, understanding the imperialist network fuelled by the English language was essential to convey how deep the roots of colonialism are embedded into Babel’s English society. Moreover, translation’s dependence on foreign language speakers allows minorities to seize power, which may seem uncommon in real life, but makes sense in the book. The strengths of Oxford’s silver-driven society are revealed to be its very weakness, a brilliant twist by Kuang to progress the plot.
Moreover, Kuang creates beautifully nuanced characters, whose identities and pasts shape them to fit the story. Babel’s protagonist, Robin Swift, is forced to choose between China, his motherland, and Britain, the country that pulled him out of poverty and gave him everything. Originally, Robin, shielded by his oasis of Oxford, hoped to ignore England’s exploitation of their colonies and China. However, he is forced to make a decision when he sees what is truly happening to the Chinese as British merchants continue to smuggle in opium. His internal conflict and indecisiveness make him such a complex character, but no matter what he did, I always felt that I was rooting for him. Another member of his cohort, Letty, deals with a similar issue, however, it is due to her upbringing as a more privileged white woman that she experiences war within herself.
Next, I thought the way Kuang connected her themes to the silver trade, China’s opium struggle, and other colonial uprisings was clever. While her methods of conveying the themes of imperialism and the use of violence as a mechanism for change may be on the nose, they didn’t seem too direct when ingrained in the detailed plot of the book. When arguing the necessity of violence in rebellion, Kuang gracefully interweaves Robin’s descent from an almost pacifist mindset to an unwavering one when confronting the need for brutality in Babel. She also displays varying degrees of willingness to be a martyr when juxtaposing Victoire (a Haitian girl who wishes to live a happy life after the revolution) with Robin, who is at peace with dying for the cause. Kuang is able to link the historical events to the message while maintaining the story’s integrity. We are often predisposed to believe that most books have a happy ending, but Kuang enhances the tale of Babel by showing that death is a natural companion to rebellion, especially when the perpetrators are happy to ignore the systems of oppression.If you couldn’t tell by now, I really enjoyed reading Babel! However, after scrolling through online reviews, it is evident that the book is not for everyone. Some complain that Kuang is too bold in trying to get her point across, that the book is too slow in the beginning, or that the world-building is bad. The only thing I can say to that is to check it out yourself. It might surprise you!