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?

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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]

  

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

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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[I rated it a 4 star]

Well I just read it for the last 5 hours straight, so maybe it deserves a 4.5? It took a fair while to hook me, when it came to getting the plot in motion, but there's enough in this that appealed immensely to my interests. Language, translation, etymology (wheee, lots of latin), anticolonialism, underground revolutionaries, pamphlets, more than a few Percy Shelley mentions and all.

All the dark academia touches felt a little Secret History-lite to me, though in this case the main set of characters were generally likeable. (Halfway through I said I loved Ramy to death and I'm not exaggerating.) It was also very Les-Mis-esque later on, Victor Hugo quote and barricades and all.

So I shed a tear or two and did get enormously invested as things progressed, but there were a few pitfalls that prevented me falling in absolute love with it... firstly, Kuang is at her best talking nerdy about language, obviously, but gets a little preachy on colonialism. The book really likes to beat you over the head with the implications of the British Empire, as if you can't possibly make those connections yourself, and, IDK, it took away some of the power of the message, for me.

Secondly, as a piece of quasi-historical fiction, it failed for me, because I never truly believed that it was set in the early 1800s? I am ALL for POC representation and anticolonialism and other "~modern opinions" in historical fiction, don't get me wrong, but the writing itself felt jarringly modern to me??? Like, if we're talking about translation here - particularly in character speech, the casual, almost millenial, conversations just didn't land right for me. The characters didn't feel from the era, and when the setting and their backgrounds are so important to what's going on that felt like a massive oversight to me. So, mixed feelings, but I am very fond of this book in spite of that, would still recommend!

  

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

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

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   Millie Potts

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

I would agree with MJ

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I'm not finished yet - only about chapter 5, but im finding it a little stylistically jarring.

There are moments that are paraphrasing of facebook tag groups - 'England robbed the world for spices they don't use' and there was another moment I can't think of- which I think is the 'millennial vibe' you're talking about MJ.

and then the style of the footnotes. If it's a straight third-person narrative then the footnotes are out of place, because they sometimes feel like irrelevant information that a reader with suspended belief doesn't really need to further the story.

But since it's meant to be a sort of pseudo history book, the footnotes don't read stylistically like a historian's footnote, so they stick out to me.

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.

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   Elias Grimstone

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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.

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   Philomena Sprout

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— Aldous walks with a cane and pronounced limp as the result of a splinching accident. —

— graphics by lady ❤ —

— 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.

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   Aldous Crouch, Philomena Sprout

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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.

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   Aldous Crouch, Faustus Prewett, Madeleine Backus, Millie Potts

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Beautiful Set by MJ ♡ !

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.

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   Elisabeth Champagne, Madeleine Backus, Philomena Sprout

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

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.

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   Elias Grimstone, Elisabeth Champagne, Philomena Sprout

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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.

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   Persephone Broadmoor

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Thank you Bee <3 Your magic has made Sisse bloom

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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'You've noticed by now, surely, that Babel alone among the Oxford faculties accepts students not of European origin. Nowhere else in this country will you find Hindus, Muslims, Africans, and Chinamen studying under the same roof. We accept you not despite, but because of your foreign backgrounds.' Professor Playfair emphasized this last part as if it was a matter of great pride. 'Because of your origins, you have the gift of languages those born in England cannot imitate. And you, like Psammetichus's boys, are the tongues that will speak this vision of global harmony into being.'

Reading this passage (p. 81) definitely brought something into sharp relief: I have benefitted from being white-passing enough that my first thought was: oh hey that is a little patronizing but overall actually a really nice sentiment, yay Babel! 

ONLY FOR THE OH-SHIT SHOE TO DROP BY THE END OF THE PAGE:

... he had read the relevant passage of Herodotus, and recalled that the Egyptian boys were nevertheless slaves ...

I take comfort in the fact that Robin, too, was lulled into a false sense of security.

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Nitpicking, but I don't think doppelganger (end of Book I) is ever shown to have a justifiable reason he knows that much info about Robin. His name? Sure. Literally any of the rest of it? Nope, not buying it.

BOOK TWO

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English did not just just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it thoguht an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.

Emphasis mine—the first part I'd encountered more or less on the internet before.

I just really like how Kuang expressed this idea. It gets straight to the point without sermonizing or needing to double own with footnotes, which was one of my complaints from earlier in the text.

BOOK THREE

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When Robin is caught, as an outside observer, you can really see how much Lovell is manipulating Robin, making him feel guilty and lucky to get to stay even though there is no way he would have put in half so much effort if Robin weren't immensely valuable to Babel. I think this is the first time that he is actually treated as such, and it's sad that he doesn't recognize it himself.

I also love that we got a glimpse into Ramy's background & headspace in this section! The contrast between his upbringing and Robin's is immediately evident, even though they both have English guardians who took them from their homelands—Ramy had more of an opportunity to bond with his family, to develop a sense of pride in who he is, and it was a really interesting interlude <3

Me at the end of the section after the CASUAL MURDER:



ALSO LOL THIS QUOTE (p. 289) KILLED ME:

'The problem is that the Chinese have convinced themselves that they're the most superior nation in the world,' [Lovell] said.

It's you. Hi. You're the problem. It's you.

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   Elias Grimstone, Elisabeth Champagne, Philomena Sprout

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do you know what happened that night?

— mj makes glorious sets! —

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-

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   Aldous Crouch

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❧ Welcome to Evergardens ❧

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.

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   Greta Gillenwater

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Thank you Bee <3 Your magic has made Sisse bloom

BOOK TWO

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English did not just just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it thoguht an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.

Emphasis mine—the first part I'd encountered more or less on the internet before.

I just really like how Kuang expressed this idea. It gets straight to the point without sermonizing or needing to double own with footnotes, which was one of my complaints from earlier in the text.

Okay I also loved that line but it reminded me so much of this very relevant Horrible Histories song. xD

  

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look ANOTHER beautiful bee!set <3

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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“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.”

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   Aldous Crouch, Elias Grimstone

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Beautiful Set by MJ ♡ !

I'm just done.

Book 3 ENDING SPOILER DO NOT OPEN IF NOT FINISHED

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So the ending! I cried like a crazy person on the train - knew it was coming, thought it was the only way out for Robin at least


Again its a testament to the quality and depth of Kuang's research into colonial uprisings but the response rang true. I doubt the things referenced are exclusive to Ireland - but they tallied beat for beat. I recently read a book about the 1916 Rising in Ireland that had so many parrel 'moments' to book 3 - from the rationale, the reaction, the general feeling, and the inevitability of the ending mirrors that found in letters from the leaders of the rising - there is a line the Irish leader Pearse's letter to his mother 'You must not grieve for all this. We have preserved Ireland’s honour and our own' -that was an echo or something Robin said near the end.


Kuanh is to be commended for, in a way, honoring those who have in real life fought and died resisting colonial oppression and the effort she has gone to to be true to the real lived experience is actually wonderful.

What I would LOVE now is another book about Victoire because I want more of her story but it's also artistically satisfying knowing that Victoire's future is unknown.

I think it's better that it ends where it does but I also very much want more! It would be a brilliant plot for here, but I don't know how it would work.

  

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