Or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
English language
Published Dec. 23, 2022 by HarperCollins Publishers.
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell 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.
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 …
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell 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.
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?
Babel beats you over the head with how colonialism is bad. Not a bad take, far from it, but it's not the first book I've read on how such a practice is harmful for both ends of the arrangement. It's worth a read. It's entertaining and interesting, especially if you're interested in linguistics. But don't come in expecting a lot of subtly.
Terrible storytelling. 400+ pages before anything happened; before that it was all plodding tedium and navel-gazing.
Really, this is a set of essays pretending to be a story. There's an essay on colonialism, an essay on belonging, an essay on etymology; perhaps more. The reader is beat over the head repeatedly with the author's views, so that they get through to even the densest reader.
It's good to have this sort of thing existing in the world, I suppose, for the dunces in the back who don't get it. But I'm not sure they'll bother to read it. Indeed, I'm not sure who this book serves. Those who already get it don't need it.
I kept asking myself why I was still reading it, and I guess it boils down to social pressure because this is the first book in a new-to-me book club. Otherwise, it was too mediocre to …
Terrible storytelling. 400+ pages before anything happened; before that it was all plodding tedium and navel-gazing.
Really, this is a set of essays pretending to be a story. There's an essay on colonialism, an essay on belonging, an essay on etymology; perhaps more. The reader is beat over the head repeatedly with the author's views, so that they get through to even the densest reader.
It's good to have this sort of thing existing in the world, I suppose, for the dunces in the back who don't get it. But I'm not sure they'll bother to read it. Indeed, I'm not sure who this book serves. Those who already get it don't need it.
I kept asking myself why I was still reading it, and I guess it boils down to social pressure because this is the first book in a new-to-me book club. Otherwise, it was too mediocre to have bothered finishing.
Content warning: There are some upsetting scenes, just fyi. Abuse, death, and neglect feature heavily.
And then, after all that, there's no point to the story; no resolution.
What a waste of time. Don't bother with this one.
A truly amazing book. The voice is powerful, the vibe immaculate. I hate to compare a wonderful work of fantasy to Harry Potter, but it scratches an itch to have a British magical school story that is so well written. Also of note is the way she writes the main characters friendships, it is the most wholesome display of platonic devotion I've ever read. Between that and her descriptions of life on campus I feel like I lived the life of an academic, and experienced things second hand that I've never gotten the chance to before.
A long, heavy, beautifully written and very biting book about the ways in which colonialism coopts people and institutions, and the simultaneous difficulty and necessity of resisting that. Deeply and cleverly tied in with real 19th Century history of Britain and its empire, while also being a fantasy story with a very specific magic system that I enjoyed in itself.
I highly recommend this book, but it should also come with some content warnings: * Colonialism * Lots of depictions of racism * Abusive parenting * Abusive academia * Violence * Not afraid to kill important characters
