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Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Printable Version

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Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elias Grimstone - August 7, 2023

Babel

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire...

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, 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. The tower and its students are 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 the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?


A few people are already currently reading this, but the more the merrier! It's definitely an interesting one to discuss! Psst... If you post 3+ times in this month, it can count for a Camp Charming activity!

Some optional discussion questions as you go or for when you're done:
— What did you like about it? What did you dislike?
— If you have read any of Kuang's other works, how did you feel they compared?
— What are your Footnotes FeelingsTM?
— What is the most interesting etymology/linguistic fact you've read in it? Does it make you think about language differently?
— How do you feel about the "alternate history" worldbuilding and Oxford setting?
— What did you think of the characters? The plot?
— How did you find her treatment of important themes like imperialism, etc?
— Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?


This is a discussion thread for people who have read or are reading the book in question. With that in mind, there are likely to be spoilers throughout. However, in the event of major twists or “how it ends”, please wrap content in spoiler tags.

Code:
[spoiler]Surprise!content here[/spoiler]



RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elias Grimstone - August 7, 2023

I have already read this one, so I'm going to stick my general impressions aka my Goodreads review back from April in a spoiler below to start things off, but I'm interested to hear everyone else's thoughts as they progress and I'll come back to the discussion questions above in more detail later.

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RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elias Grimstone - August 7, 2023

Also okay this amuses me so much but the pronunciation of Babel okay xD

I know how it can be said in US English, Ba-bel but in the UK I have nearly always heard it said Bay-bel. Which. Which.... makes it SO FUNNY to me because it literally ruins the joke of calling the Babel students "Babblers". Like. I nearly didn't get it because of that xD

#JUSTLANGUAGETHINGS

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Madeleine Backus - August 7, 2023

I would agree with MJ
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I am however, enjoying it, I think the story is shaping up to be good but as I said on Discord it's sort of stylistically neither one nor the other for me - but its still solid.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Aldous Crouch - August 7, 2023

I am struggling with the footnotes. For me, they fall into one of three categories:

— Should have been in the actual text of the story
— emphasizing that colonialism is wrong/people are racist
— not at all relevant to the story

HOWEVER I do still enjoy what I’ve read of the book so far! I just think that while this is “An Arcane History” ostensibly, it’s actually (thus far) presented as a specific narrative so the footnotes are ehhhhh to me.

Interestingly, I read Yellowface (also by Kuang) earlier this year. One of the complaints about a characters writing in that book can also be applied, I think, to this, and I can’t help but wonder if that was intentional as YF was published later: beautiful turns of phrase and excellent research, but sometimes too much of one or the other and not enough to bring it all together.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Madeleine Backus - August 7, 2023

(August 7, 2023 – 6:38 PM)Aldous Crouch Wrote:  — Should have been in the actual text of the story
— emphasizing that colonialism is wrong/people are racist
— not at all relevant to the story

Pretty much exactly this.

Its very obviously wonderfully researched, by someone with a genuine love for the subject matter and an appreciation for it. Kuang clearly loves Oxford. There have been a few plot seeds that I think will be interesting and I'm curious to see how/if they pay off later in the novel.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elisabeth Champagne - August 8, 2023

I found the book to be so refreshing! I love historical fiction, but honestly? So many historical fiction pieces that get popularized enough to make it onto everyone's 'to be read' list are written by white people. It was so refreshing to see a period piece that called out the colonialism, trauma, and abuse that most period pieces gloss over or even glamorize because they weren't written by the people who's culture and history got destroyed in the first place. I know a lot of people think R. F. Kuang is preachy, but maybe it's just because they would rather ignore these important discussions rather than talk about it. We often hear the quote when engaging in love for historical based things, whether it be fashion, books, history - "Vintage aesthetic, not vintage values" but in order to fully understand that, we need to discuss what those values are and I'm so happy Kuang did and her book is popular enough it's discussed more.

I love how she clearly did her research and even when there were some parts where you could say she strayed a bit from reality, you still felt you could recognize parts and it wasn't nearly as improbable as it could have been if she hadn't done her research. I really loved the footnotes because it helped explain where Kuang's head was at and I felt there was quite a bit that I did learn. I don't think it took away from the story, in fact, I think it added to it, as it made me feel a bit like I was also one of the students in the book. I thought it was a powerful book and though the themes were perhaps more important than the characters, I found myself very attached to each one and it's probably one of the best books I've read all year.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elias Grimstone - August 8, 2023

Oh, I definitely agree that it's a refreshing book, author and subject, and I'm glad it's done so well! And maybe for some people all the extra commentary is the only way to hit it home for them, but on the whole I don't like feeling spoonfed. xD

This is not a Kuang-specific peeve, actually, this is a problem for me in a a lot of modern literature – but the plot of Babel speaks for itself. I wish it had been let to speak for itself! I won't go into the full plot before people have finished reading, but if you didn't know the British Empire was multifariously terrible before (I did), you should be able to have learned that through the events of the book without Kuang having to authorial-narrate-echo it in every paragraph after something bad happens. I would love if literature could go back to trusting readers to do the thinking.

If someone has never thought about the harm and suffering done by colonialism before, and this is just what they needed to have their eyes opened, I'm really glad! But for someone who has done a lot of that thought already, this would have been more powerful for me if it had been subtler and more nuanced sometimes.

On footnotes: If they had all been translations or interesting little linguistic facts, I would have been happy. Not sure if this is true but I feel like they get more sparse as the book goes along, so it feels like a conceit started with for authorial fun (I respect this, do what you want Kuang, tell me about your love/hate thing with Shelley again xD) and kind of falls away as the "arcane history" turned into something else...

I also think it was so they could market it as something akin to Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. Another "alternate history" with a scholarly bent – if you want an example of fictional footnotes done really, really well, I 100% recommend. Kuang probably read it herself tbh.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Madeleine Backus - August 8, 2023

I am from a colonised nation - I've had family - and friends killed as recently as 2019 as a result of colonial conflict - the over arching question as to the necessity of violence to deal with colonial aggression is one I feel is very relevant right now -especially as we deal with the prospect of potential reunification and what that would look like with respect to violence, given the recent history of my country.

I didn't find the text preachy - in fact I thought the part where Ramy talks about putting on a show of the stereotypes that colonisers have of him - and picking to be an Indian prince rather than a street rat was REALLY insightful - and spoke to British issues of class as well as race, but I did think the issue could have been more effective if it had been less explicitly stated - leading the reader to an 'Oh shit!' realisation moment, as they realise how problematic something is, rather than telling them where they should see the problems. Which is obviously easier for a reader to say a writer should do it, than it is for the writer to actually make it work!

My issue with the style is just that - the style - and its not at all unique to this book. I think because I read so much literature from the period, when people attempt to mimic it just stands out in a big way for me. Writing a perfect pastiche is almost impossible - and writing speculative fiction is very difficult - Kuang has given herself both challenges! She makes a great go of it - but there are moments that break the effect for me - just like how in Bridgerton novels - Violet referring to another house as being 'down the block' breaks it for me there - and Kuang I would say does a better than average job, and certainly a better job than Quinn - I think because her work is so clearly well and thoroughly researched.

I did a script writing class with Julian Fellows, who wrote Gsofrod Park and Downton - he talked extensively about how linguistic patterns can make or break faux period writing, and that it can be something American writers of period fiction set in England can struggle with because the upper class linguistic patterns of England of the preWWII period are so unique and specific that they are incredibly difficult to mimic, and require so much contextual knowledge that they are, as a class of writing, just less successful - now he won an oscar for writing English toffs, so he probably has a vested interest in believing that only upper class English people can write upper class english people - but I'm not convinced he's wrong.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Sisse Thompsett - August 8, 2023

I'm at 36% so I'm not reading discussions above yet. But so far I am enjoying it. The pace feels a bit weird to me, but it also feels like it's in for a long haul. I also love the footnotes added in that are fictional and nonfictional. And I do love some word geekiness so I'm enjoying that. Also I'm enjoying the character development.

Alright that's all for now as far as quick general impressions go.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Persephone Broadmoor - August 22, 2023

I have done something forbidden: I tiny-dog-eared the bottoms of the pages that had things I wanted to talk about, because I couldn't do this without a computer! shhh, don't tell the other books

GENERAL, SPOILER-FREE THOUGHTS:

First of all, I almost never read the title page inside the book—why should I? I already know the title!  But I glimpsed it by happenstance when I was on the plane home and, uh:

BABEL
or
THE NECESSITY OF VIOLENCE


This was not on the cover of my book. It does, however, 100% track xD

I am almost done the book. I found it really slow-going at first, almost "clunky", due in part to the sheer volume of footnotes (I've already discussed these) and because very little of note seemed to be happening. It wasn't bad, but it also wasn't gripping. I am very happy to say that it definitely picked up!

While I enjoy Kuang's writing style, I wish she had spent as much time developing her alternate version of the world as she did adding asides about the actual version of the world. The world-building, I think, was a weak point for her. Again, not bad, but not as comprehensive as I'd like; there were still a lot of "holes" that needed filling in.

Lastly, I spent some of the book wondering why we were "stuck" with Robin, who seems rather bland in comparison to his cohort. Once we started getting some chapters from other perspectives, though, I found I enjoyed these diversions but also appreciated Robin more <3


The rest I've divided up by the book that they appeared in so you can activate only as far as you've read <3

BOOK ONE
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BOOK TWO
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BOOK THREE
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RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Philomena Sprout - August 22, 2023

me, still not past the 3rd chapter so only reading some of the non-spoiler thoughts, popping to say I freaking love this discussion that is all -runs back to book-

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Sisse Thompsett - August 22, 2023

I'm popping in to say I think I finished Book 4 of it and it is finally starting to pick up. And wow. Just yeah. I must admit though, the footnotes are a bit... tough when you're listening to the audio version. I think I'd get more out of them if I were reading the book instead of listening.

RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elias Grimstone - August 22, 2023

(August 22, 2023 – 5:14 PM)Persephone Broadmoor Wrote:  BOOK TWO
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Okay I also loved that line but it reminded me so much of this very relevant Horrible Histories song. xD



RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Elisabeth Champagne - August 23, 2023

I don't want to quote post literally everyone here, but yes! All of this is so much fun to read.

Regarding the "Trust the reader" bit - I do agree to some extent; I do think that readers should be trusted to think for themselves, but at the same time, so many negative reviews I've read for this book are from people complaining about the "attack" on white Europeans that I wonder if they wouldn't get the point if they didn't have someone holding their hands. Of course, you could argue that those kind of people - it wouldn't matter if you made things simple for them or not. I think that maybe Kuang was afraid that if she didn't hold people's hands, she'd have more people not getting the point.

As Kayte points out, it's really nice to see in text, however, and not just in footnotes, characters making the points that Kuang is trying to get across. My favorite thing is what she points out in Book 1; that false sense of security that tricks even the readers into feeling one way until the casual xenophobia from some of the other characters metaphorically backhands us.

Sidenote; this quote is among my favorites because it really shows how beautiful language is:

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RE: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang - Benevolence Crouch - August 25, 2023

I'm just done.

Book 3 ENDING SPOILER DO NOT OPEN IF NOT FINISHED
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