A review by penguinna
Babel by R.F. Kuang

challenging dark emotional informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Let me tell you everything without a prelude: if you expect an aesthetic dark academia book to unwind with after a long day, do not take Babel in your hands. Just leave it where you found it. Because this is nothing like an easy read. This book will shatter you. You will hate it. And you will love it, too.

Usually I am a pretty fast reader. But it took me 52 days to read this book. Almost two months for 560 pages that are typically read by me within a week. I had to force myself to pick up Babel. I couldn't stand it, and yet, I couldn't wait to know what would happen next.

1830s. Robin Swift, discovered on his deathbed in Canton by a mysterious stranger, is brought to London. Now he knows that when he grows up, he will become an excellent translator at Babel, the famous translation faculty in Oxford. Because only like this, he can create magical silver plates that the British Empire needs so desperately. This life seems like a fairy tale after the tough years he had in China. Everything is just perfect until his paradise becomes his prison.

I study at the faculty of translation myself, and I immediately fell in love with this book as soon as I opened it. The magic of words, of meanings lost in translation, resonated deeply within me. All the etymologies explained in Babel left me absolutely fascinated. This beauty is put in contradiction with the ugliness of an empire that exploits languages for its own despicable purposes.

Babel doesn't just tell you how terrible colonialism and imperialism are. No, no, it makes you feel these emotions throughout your entire being, it makes your stomach churn, it makes you want to close your eyes so you don't have to read any more of it. In other words, it makes you realize.

Babel is slow paced and informative. Sometimes even too much. But it is a must for everyone. Not “everyone, who”, just “everyone”. This book will shatter you and make you want to forget it, but you won't be able to. It will haunt you so much that all its characters will linger in your mind forever, reminding you of what humans are capable of doing to one another.

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