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

challenging informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

The magic in this book is phenomenal. I was perfectly content with the amount of explanation and world building we got. I didn’t have any further questions beyond what we needed to understand the fantasy portion of the book. Babel is a place where foreign scholars have been taught that their unique languages are a key to working these silver bars by meshing words together, taken out of context and somehow digging deeper into the roots of said words, to create a magic that powers this world. Yet, they are deeply protected from the atrocities such a centralized power and control of this magic has on the rest of the world. This book really leaned into the power and what is lost and gained and who is hurt by the outcomes of translation and language as tools for colonialism. Give me more! But then we get into the cast of characters.

Protagonist Robin Swift, is content moving in a world, while not catered to him, has deeply benefited him in perverse ways until he is suddenly thrust into a revolution he is reluctant to be a part of. Robin is presented with the truth time and time again and refuses to believe what he’s being told. Until he is back in his home country and sees the effects firsthand. And even this eye-opening event isn’t enough of a catalyst for him to commit to change or resistance. So when the book comes to a crazy climax it is hard to believe that Robin is standing up against the institution and is in any way capable of leading this revolution. Or that he has these significantly meaningful relationships to his cohort that he’d go as far as he does for them. For the sheer length of this book, I didn’t feel any special bonds to the 4 main characters or trust that they each felt as strongly for one another as we were told. Much too late into the book do we get chapters in their POVs that should have been already established in the narrative. The chapters served to tell us rather than show us who these additional characters are. Which again, is crazy that I didn’t feel that in this 700 page book.

Lastly, the footnotes as a vehicle for storytelling really stayed with me. I listened to the audiobook. Where the main story is narrated by a man and a woman narrates the footnotes. The first time this happened, it confused me so much and took me out of the story in a way I did not like. I thought she was a secondary POV and then it clicked I was being provided historical context. In an interview, RF Kuang mentions this was intentional. She wanted the footnotes to be an out of space moment for the readers and she accomplished that for me.

Since finishing this book, the topics in it have come up so often in conversations in a way I did not expect. And I’ve come to think of the book differently after reading. All to say, I enjoyed the book but I wanted to love it more - the way I love the conversations I’ve had surrounding the book since reading.