Critical Review: "Babel: An Arcane History" by R. F. Kuang

Quick Summary

Type: Novel

Genre: Fantasy, historical fiction, dark academia

Back Cover: "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."

Read Time: 5 days

Rating: 2.25 stars

Review

The premise is interesting, and the start (Robin's second childhood in England) is interesting and easy to read. The racism is uncomfortable, of course, but again, that's the point.

However, 30% in, I have some issues. My first issue arose with the character of Ramy, a Muslim born in Calcutta who is (as he should be) defensive of his homeland and disgusted (as he should be) by the racism he faces at Oxford. This is not my problem with the character of Ramy. My issue is that the narrator asserts that people don't get Ramy's humor. Until this point, while I had understood Ramy, I hadn't found him funny in the least. The reason for this is because Ramy is not funny. What he says is not humorous. And yet the author asserts that he is. So my issue with Ramy is that there is a stark contradiction between who he is on the page and who the author says he is.

There's also some light foreshadowing early on that I suspect is going to ruin the emotional payout for me. Robin says that a certain moment of camaraderie is the first of many, then goes on to say that eventually it all goes to hell, he betrays them all, and the event that causes this is on the explosive side. I frankly could have done without that foreshadowing. No, I don't know exactly what will happen, but at about 15% in, I'm being told how I'll feel about it, and that's a little frustrating because now that I know how I'll feel about it, the moment is kind of ruined.

Now onto the story itself. The beginning (Robin's second childhood) is interesting enough. But as soon as he arrives at Oxford, things slow down a lot. Occasionally, something exciting will happen - they'll be harassed by some drunk racists, Robin encounters his brother the thief, they'll have a moment of camaraderie - but it's punctuated by long, tedious lectures about translation. Now, I actually studied translation (English to French, primarily) for my minor degree in university. Naturally, I had to learn many of the same translation theories that are brought up in this book. And at university, I found these theories fascinating. The debate on faithfulness to the source is always interesting. Do you capture the overall feeling of the text, thus taking several liberties in your writing, or do you try to stay faithful to the meaning of individual words and sentences, thus taking less liberties? It's a battle, and I wish the author had treated it as such in her book. Rather than the lectures about these theories, I would have liked to see more debate, or even a few examples (e.g. take a line from a classic text and show the different ways it can be translated).

I'm wondering if things are supposed to be so predictable. At 40%, a (black) student is presumed dead after going missing on a foreign expedition. But it's obvious that he's not dead, that he's a member of the Hermes Society, that Victoire knows both of these facts, and is likely a member of the Hermes Society as well. It's so obvious I don't even have any doubts about it.

And just a chapter later, at most, it's confirmed that the 'dead' student is in fact still alive. Shocker.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from some of the issues that I thought made The Winter Knight so bad. Not too as severe a degree, which is why this book has a higher rating, but still frustrating. But whenever something exciting happens in the story, there's something - usually a translating explanation - that slows the pace. For example, Griffin breaks Robin out of prison, but takes the time to explain to Robin exactly which translation match-pairs he used to do it.

I started this review while reading the story, but since I've finished, and while my hopes were high for a lot of the book, I ended up disappointed.

First, the good. The book was incredibly well-researched, and while it was a rehash of my translation courses in college, I still appreciated the care even if I thought the lectures should have been condensed. The author is clearly very knowledgeable in this subject. I also appreciated the use of translation in the magic system. I thought it was very clever. Finally, the messages about anti-imperialism were important to read.

Now to the aspects of the novel that I think fell short.

First, this was marketed as a dark academia book. It is not dark academia. It is academia, and it is dark(ish), but it is not dark academia.

Second, as I've already mentioned, the pacing is off. Most of the book is incredibly slow, with faster sections punctuated by unnecessary explanations. I feel like I've talked about it enough, so I won't get into it further.

Now, the characterization. Of the four characters we see most often, only one - Robin, the main character - has actual characterization. Now, while it's subtle, his characterization is clever. He's a boy ripped from his homeland, raised by a cruel, abusive man in a country that treats him as less-than. So it makes sense that he would mold himself to what others expect. I just wish the author had gone even further. I wish that, given his very pro-British upbringing, he had initially defended imperialism only to slowly open his eyes over four years of university.

And the other characters? They have no character. They are flat as all can be. I've seen some reviews that even went so far as to call them 'stereotypes'. Ramy feels like he's supposed to represent every person in southeast Asia. Victoire feels like she's meant to represent every black person. They are broad strokes, not individual characters. They're so badly characterized that I felt absolutely no emotion whatsoever when Ramy dies. And Letty? She's an amalgamation of every single negative (modern) stereotype of white women. It's so disappointingly predictable. If there had been just a little more nuance in the character, the point at which she betrays her friends would have had more of an emotional punch. Instead, I felt nothing (aside for disappointment because I saw the 'twist' coming from about a hundred pages away and wish I had actually been surprised by it'.

So what does that mean for the story? Well, since the characters are flat, so are the relationships. We're told over and over again how close these characters are, how much they love each other. But for three years of university, we're never shown that. In fact, I'd say we're shown the opposite: we're shown characters who dislike each other, who fight, who cannot overcome their different backgrounds enough to build solid relationships. So when Ramy, Victoire, and Letty help Robin cover up a murder, it feels unrealistic. When Letty betrays them and kills Ramy, I feel nothing. Because the characters are flat and the relationships told and not shown, the story is unbelievable and emotionless.

Another issue I had was with the heavy-handedness of the anti-racist, anti-colonialist messages in the book. Obviously I'm not saying these messages are bad, but they were so, so obvious throughout. In real life, racism can be both blatant and subtle, external and internal. In the novel, racism was only ever overt and stemmed from other people, as in, none of the deeply oppressed characters ever expressed a hint of internalized racism. The author wanted her readers to know that racism is bad, but she didn't trust her readers enough to notice the more insidious aspects of racism themselves, so she had to tell us over and over again. No nuance, no nothing. Not only did it come off as insulting to readers' intelligence, but that combined with the over-explanation of translation theory makes the author come off as fairly pretentious. It feels like she needs the reader to know that she's smarter and better than them, and that annoys me (read: pisses me off). I wish she had a little more trust in her readers; readers on a whole are intelligent (or at least, I really hope) and especially with the help of excellent writing - which I believe this author is capable of - we can recognize those more subtle but equally important and harmful aspects of racism and consequences of colonialism.

In the same vein as above, the criticisms of misogyny and patriarchy were also very heavy-handed, and also bothered me because they were anachronistic. In the 1800s, 'feminism' as we know it didn't exist. Feminism, the term relating to the fight for equal rights for women, started being used around the late 1970s, early 1980s. In the 1800s, the term used when discussing this issue was 'rights of women'. If my review for The Night and Its Moon is any indication, I do not like anachronisms, especially not in historical fiction (and while The Night and Its Moon isn't historical fiction, it is based on the late middle ages, so the anachronism criticism still applies).

Finally, I'll admit that I was a little surprised that there was no discussion of the Ten Great Campaigns or imperial China's occupation of Tibet. That might be on me - I got so used to the heavy-handed criticisms of colonialism that I guess I just assumed I'd get them for imperial China too. Given that the cast didn't spend much time in Canton, I guess there wasn't a natural place to include that discussion, but I think it would have been interesting, especially considering China's current occupation of Tibet and its borderline neo-colonialist ties to Africa. I think the author missed an opportunity there by illustrating how history repeats itself (actually, I think she missed an opportunity to really illustrate that for all the colonialist countries mentioned, although maybe those themes were harder to weave in than I'm imagining).

Speaking of the cast's trip to Canton, I think Kuang missed another huge opportunity for an interesting conversation, specifically about internalized racism and colonialist views. The Babblers are forced to leave Canton early because the Chinese government has set fire to the confiscated British opium and shit is about to get ugly. What surprised me is that at no point did Robin - a man raised by a racist, abusive asshole with very British imperialist views, in a society with very British imperialist views - at no point does Robin think: 'why did the Chinese government burn the opium? Don't they know it'll probably lead to war?' Given his upbringing, a thought like that would have made sense. More importantly, it would have given him the opportunity to examine his own biases and learned imperialist views. He could have challenged his preconceived notions and internalized racism by thinking something like: 'Hm, maybe the Chinese are tired of Brits fucking up China, and want to teach them a lesson by costing them tons of money'. That could have been an interesting internal battle leading to lots of growth. Following that, Robin murdering Lovell would be a natural progression. He would be completing a rebellion against his upbringing. And this ties back in to my nuance complaints. If the author had been a little more nuanced, I think we could have gotten this very interesting internal struggle and growth. I'm disappointed at the missed opportunity.

This book was a very good first draft. And it hasn't put me off R. F. Kuang as an author, although her last shot with me is Yellowface. If I don't like that, I'm giving up on her. But was it a great book? Not really. It was disappointing. It makes me wonder: do people actually love it that much, or do they 'love' it because they think they should, because of the anti-colonialist message and intellectual delivery?

Edit: I originally rated this at 2.75 stars, but it's stayed with me, and not in a good way. I just have too many problems with too many elements of this book to rate it above 2.25 stars. I think I only rated it as high as I did because so many people like this book and I felt like I had to too. But I shouldn't cave to peer pressure, so I'm correcting my rating. Also, after thinking about it so much, I think Victoire is the only bearable character in this book. The fact she survives is the reason the rating is 2.25 stars instead of 2.