Babel Book Review
From Goodreads: 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.
Babel is 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 its knowledge 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?
First up, oh my goodness this Illumicrate edition! I do love an aesthetic book, and they truly knocked it out of the park with this one. When I heard that Babel would feature in the subscription box, I was excited, since I was planning on buying a copy anyways. While Kuang’s other series, The Poppy War was very dark and heavy to read, it was also very well-written and complex and beautiful. So while I’m a bit hesitant these days when it comes to Dark Academia books (every new DA book and it’s mother claims to be on par with The Secret History and it never is!) I just knew that this one would actually be what I would consider Dark Academia.
The exclusive Illumicrate letter at the start also cemented this feeling. Kuang studied at Oxford, and her letter touched upon how Dark Academia like The Secret History is both a love letter to university life, and a critique of some of the darker underbelly of elitism and nepotism and shady goings on that happen in elite institutions like this. It was one of the reasons I fell in love with Tartt’s novel, the fact that I was fascinated by Richard and his friends even as I thought they were repellent and awful people, and I guess it’s something I always want to see in DA genre books. A lot of the time, it feels like it’s missing. We get the bright and pretty side, but none of the darkness. Or the dark part of it is really glossed over and shallow. Kuang talked in her letter about feeling isolated at Oxford and like she didn’t always belong, because she wasn’t white. So I knew Babel would go beyond some of the surface level issues with universities and really delve into themes that don’t get explored enough.
I loved Babel. It was a dark book, and I would suggest that anyone who is not in the right mindset for a heavy book doesn’t pick it up until they’re in a different frame of mind. The book follows Robin, a Chinese boy whose father is almost certainly white (this gets explored but in the interests of being spoiler-free…) who is brought to London and promised a bright future at Oxford. Kuang doesn’t shy away from discussing racism and colourism in a way that’s incredibly nuanced. The themes of what it means to share a language and translate it, and what might be lost in the process, marry perfectly with this discussion of colonialism and racism. It’s clear that Kuang did a lot of research for the book, and honestly it has paid off.
Despite all of the horrors, it’s also a beautiful read. I cried several times throughout, and there were passages that kept me thinking about them for days. The characterisation was wonderful. We get almost everything from Robin’s POV and it’s heartbreaking to see his rage, grief, rejection, and kindness in every page. Ramy was my favourite though. From the first time Robin meets him, there’s this sort of dreaminess and sense of nostalgia that creeps into the writing? I don’t really know how to describe it, but Ramy makes everything better. Maybe I was just so keen for Robin to find a friend, someone who understood him and supported him.
“In the years to come, Robin would return so many times to this night. He was forever astonished by its mysterious alchemy, by how easily two badly socialized, restrictively raised strangers had transformed into kindred spirits in the span of minutes.”
There’s also just something about the writing style. As I said, it feels nostalgic and kind of haunting in places. The prose is beautiful, and while there’s passages that sound very academic, as you might expect from a DA book, Babel never ceases to be layered and moving.
Overall I’m giving Babel:
I don’t think I’ve begun to do this book justice with this review, but it’s honestly one of my favourite reads ever. It’s a novel that will stick with you long after you turn the last page, and as soon as I finished it I wanted to read it again. It’s a difficult read in places, because the subject matter is so heavy, and I’d advise anyone who is thinking of picking it up to look through the TWs for the novel before they start, but it’s a gorgeous and haunting read, and I think it’s one I’ll be recommending to so many friends.
Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What do you think about it? Let me know by joining in the discussion in the comments section down below! <3
