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

reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

Oxford is the centre of the British Empire’s dominance. London may be where Parliament and industry is, but Oxford manages the silver and the magic of language that powers the silver industrial age. Students come from around the world using their knowledge of their native languages to fuel research at Babel.

 

I’ve commented on a recent review that I can have a hit or miss relationship with fantasy fiction. And, while I’ve heard many good reviews of Babel I was concerned that it would stray into the complex world building that overlooks the plotting that is common amongst fantasy novels I don’t get on with.

 

Actually the world building here is simple. So simple in fact that the fantastical element of silver imbued with magical features by translated word pairs is almost irrelevant. The story feels like it could have been told quite easily without this aspect at all and just worked as a straightforward reimagined historical novel to make a point about colonialism and privilege.

 

The language focus on where words come from and common ancestry was interesting initially, but overdone. I found my brain skipping large sections of this, and likewise I skipped over most of the footnotes because it felt they were just distracting from the story.

 

While it’s a very slow burner I did eventually feel engaged in the outcomes for the characters, although it took over halfway through the book before I felt like there was enough depth to care about them enough to be worth keeping reading. Until that point I was constantly fighting the temptation to just give up.

 

More worthy than enjoyable, and actually I think I’d have preferred to read non-fiction about the reality of colonialism, because I’d at least have gone into that expecting the experience to be more educational than entertaining.