A review by anabradley
Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

3.0

Thanks to Ana for changing my mind on Babel! And apologies for the characteristically long and OTT review...



Part love letter to the power of language and part damning condemnation of Britain’s (and specifically Oxford’s) colonial legacy, ‘Babel’ is a book that made me feel deeply uncomfortable. I didn’t enjoy it, not because I disagree that colonialism was and is an atrocity that has carved the wealth of Britain, but for a multitude of reasons including, perhaps, my own white privilege.. There is also the issue of Kuang’s writing style, which is incredibly powerful but also deceptively binary. Despite all this, I have been unable to think of anything other than ‘Babel’ since reading the very first page, which, for me, is the mark of a great book.

I’ll start with what I loved. Kuang’s knowledge of language is exceptionally well-researched, and you can feel her love for words jumping off the page. “Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one.” Kuang captures the importance of language with perfection. She explains the origins of words in enough detail that they wouldn’t be out of place in a textbook, yet renders them fascinating enough to make up part of a commercial fiction. And language is where Kuang’s genius shines through: a magic system based on what is lost in translation is both beautiful and effective.

However, this is where the nuance so perfectly captured in the exploration of language in Babel’s first half begins to be lost. Everything hinges on this one system of magic. The entire British empire relies solely on these ‘silver’ bars, imbued with linguistic magic. At first this seems ingenious. The British empire was built on the exploitation of the colonies. Our language is full of stolen words, as is our culture, our food, our institutions, and our wealth. However, the use of ‘silver’ as a metaphor becomes too binary when its destruction can bring down the entire empire. Giving colonialism a root as solid and defined as a singular tower of Oxford academics dealing in magical silver bars is simplistic and unrepresentative. It leads to moral dilemmas which have no relation to the real world. If colonialism could be destroyed from the source, by destroying a single institution, the colonial trauma experienced by so many today could be removed with one blow. The issue is far more complex than that, which left me thinking: what is Kuang’s point?

That colonialism is bad, obviously. Kuang makes that abundantly clear with her sometimes ironically amusing and other times frankly patronising footnotes, explaining that, yes, that clearly racist thing she refers to is, indeed, racist. So, given that colonialism is bad, what do we do about it? The full title includes the phrase, ‘the necessity of violence’. As the main character, Robin, develops, he begins to see that violence is necessary to take down the empire. We are swept along as murder is justified and a building is taken over by force. There’s a strike (which I’m all for), but it quickly leads to civilian deaths, and a final stand that is strikingly similar to the suicide bombings made use of by real-world terrorists. The story is told from the point of view of a man who has come to believe that all this is necessary and just, and Kuang’s writing is so powerful that you catch yourself agreeing with him.

Perhaps because of the heavy-handed didactic of the first half of the book, or perhaps just because at this point I was so caught up with the narrative of ‘the necessity of violence’, it didn’t occur to me that this might not be what Kuang was genuinely recommending. But of course it wasn’t. A woman who has studied at Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale cannot possibly advocate for the complete destruction of Oxford as an institution without sounding severely hypocritical. We never find out if the suicidal finale actually makes any difference (my suspicion is that it doesn’t) and the final chapter is told through the eyes of a character who (weakly) advocates for a slightly less extreme approach. She is the only character who gets away with both a guilt-free conscience and her life.

I have to conclude that I initially missed the point. That Kuang isn’t advocating for the ‘necessity of violence’ at all, but perhaps for the necessity of action instead. I read with a growing sense of unease, but Kuang must have meant for readers to feel this, especially those of us who benefit from colonial legacy. There are still bits I disagree with (the lack of sympathy for Letty, for one) but my own discomfort should not be a reason to condemn ‘Babel’. It is insanely powerfully written, and although often heavy-handed on the surface, its incredibly subtly nuanced when you pick it apart.