Review: Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang (2022)
A stunning examination of colonialism and language set in a magical alternate-history Oxford.
Babel: An Arcane History is an alternate-history novel set in 1830’s Oxford, with light fantastical elements. Like in our own early nineteenth century, Britain is the dominant colonial power on the planet—however in Babel, it is largely through the use of magic that they maintain this control. The magic is called silver-working, where the power of multiple languages is invoked on silver bars, imbuing them with different abilities.
Due to the linguistic requirement needed for silver-working, translators are in high demand. The most elite silver-working is done at Oxford, where skilled students attend the Royal Institute of Translation, housed in a mighty tower that looms over the campus: Babel. The book follows Robin, a young foreign-born student, and others in his cohort as they wrestle with the expectations Babel has of them and how silver-working is used to maintain the British Empire.
"You’re in the place where magic is made. It’s got all the trappings of a modern university, but at its heart, Babel isn’t so different from the alchemists’ lairs of old. But unlike the alchemists, we’ve actually figured out the key to the transformation of a thing. It’s not in the material substance. It’s in the name.”
Babel is magnificent. It’s a novel that pushes boundaries while embracing its themes to the fullest. It is at times raw, uncomfortable, and brutal—yet it never did so in a way that made me want to put it down. It’s also a book that shows a deep love for translation and language with such intensity that even academic lectures on the subject become riveting. By the end of it, I felt changed in some way—Babel taught me things, both about language and about colonialism, but also about how I feel about violence as a mechanism of change. It made me want to both pick up the Mandarin lessons I abandoned in college, and the biography on John Brown that’s been collecting dust on my bookshelf.
“But what is the opposite of fidelity?” asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of this dialectic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. “Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So, then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
There is much to be said about Kuang’s brilliance here. Babel is a novel that could only have been written by someone with a very particular skillset (or at the very least, a very particular set of obsessions). Kuang demonstrates her aptitudes in every chapter, as a fount of knowledge pours out to the reader. So much of the genius here lies in how she has carefully flipped weaknesses into strengths with the silver-working angle. For instance, translation’s inability to convert words between languages without losing some meaning becomes its biggest strength, powering the magic itself. Foreign-born colonial subjects of the British Empire are turned into some of its most valuable assets, due to the power of their mother tongues. This allows Kuang to focus deeply on the limitations of translation for her examinations, and sets a believable stage for a cast of minorities to be in a position of power in 1830’s Britain. Kuang centralizes the colonial struggle around Oxford itself: the stolen labor and culture of the colonies powers it, Britain reaps all the benefits, and the students are faced with the complexities of benefiting from the same machinations that exploit their homelands. It serves as a well-crafted synecdoche for colonialism as a whole, which Kuang uses elegantly.
“But what he felt was not as simple as revolutionary flame. What he felt in his heart was not conviction so much as doubt, resentment, and a deep confusion.
He hated this place. He loved it. He resented how it treated him. He still wanted to be a part of it—because it felt so good to be a part of it, to speak to its professors as an intellectual equal, to be in on the great game.”
Babel does not shy away from its themes. It has clear, overt messages about colonialism, racism, and the use of violence to bring about change—and they are opinionated messages. I admit, I was somewhat cautious of this book going in as I had heard from some others that the messaging is too direct, too inelegant, and too unsubtle. I could not disagree more. Yes, the messaging is clear—but it’s deep, and well-explored, and thoughtfully considered. A message being obvious does not make a message poorly delivered, and Babel goes the distance with each of its major themes, and spends the time necessary to make each one worthwhile. Readers will do well to remember that this is early nineteenth-century Britain—frequent instances of bigotry isn’t Kuang being heavy-handed in her messaging, it’s her accurately capturing history. It’s a critical snapshot of the culture at the time—a culture that cannot and should not be untangled from their colonialist actions. I am a very sensitive reader to poorly delivered messages, and Babel clears my bar handily. At the end of it, I was left examining my own stances and had developed some new ones, which is a clear sign that a novel has succeeded.
“This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.”
Somehow, Babel accomplishes all of this without being a bore. It reads more smoothly than it has any right to, and I found that a hundred pages melted away each time I picked it up. The plotting and pacing is commendable, and Kuang provides multiple climactic bursts throughout the novel, shattering my expectations of a slow build-up. Babel manages to build an inevitable dread as you start to read it, an understanding that everything is balanced on a pane of glass with a hairline fracture waiting to shatter—and you can’t quite peel yourself away from staring at it. The last 40% or so of the novel is a whirlwind, tempting you with read-just-one-more-chapter until it ends and you’re wiping tears from your eyes at 3am.
“A dream; this was an impossible dream, this fragile, lovely world in which, for the price of his convictions, he had been allowed to remain.”
Ultimately, Babel carries within it a profound amount of ambition and manages to meet it fully. I can easily see this winning the Hugo, and there’s a good chance that I’ll be voting for it. It is not a perfect book—sometimes I felt like it was slightly repetitive, and there were some character developments I wasn’t a fan of, but every quibble seems so unimportant in light of what it manages to achieve. Something about it feels like it may be a high-water mark for years to come. Babel is a true achievement.
“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.”
You should read Babel: An Arcane History if:
You want a deep exploration of colonialism and language.
You’re fine with your fantasy being alternate-history with a few magical tweaks.
You are alright with books being emotionally raw and brutal at times.
I appreciate that you put these thoughts into words because my dumb brain just says “book good”. Babel is one of the best books I think I’ve ever read, just a fascinating experience from start to finish.