Wednesday, October 19, 2022

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Babel: or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

 



Full Disclosure:  This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on August 23, 2022 in exchange for a potential review.  I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution (hereinafter, I'm just referring to the book as "Babel") is the newest novel from author R.F.. Kuang, who previously wrote the incredible Poppy War trilogy.  That novel was a second world fantasy based heavily upon the modern history of China, especially the atrocities its people suffered in the Sino-Japanese Wars, the Opium Wars, and from Imperialist interference, and was powerful and devastating to read.  So it's hardly a surprise that Kuang would write a Historical Fantasy novel as her next novel, which is what Babel is, taking place in an alternate 1830s, in which the British Empire wielded its power through at type of magic centered around Oxford, based upon linguistics and the ability to translate foreign used languages.  And with a full title like Babel has, you have an idea that what's coming is going to be similar in theme and message to that of the Poppy War, in the necessity for violent action in dealing with oppressors.  

And Babel is just that, and it is really powerful and incredible as a result, as the book follows a boy, who takes the name Robin Swift, as he's taken from his dead family in China by a racist colonialist English Professor and taught the power of learning and using different languages...and the magic of translation of such languages, like the Cantonese that is his native tongue.  There, alongside others at Oxford, at their own tower known as Babel, he comes together with others like himself, taken from various native lands to exploit for England's own use....and Robin and the other struggle with how they're both privileged and still treated as Others, and struggle with the need to rebel and do something about the injustice at great cost to themselves.  The result is a novel that is often devastating as we follow Robin throughout a situation that only gets worse and worse, and while it's never anything close to subtle, it's all the more incredibly powerful as a result.  



----------------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------------
In 1828, a boy in Canton, China is orphaned when his family falls victim to a cholera pandemic, only to be saved by a mysterious English Professor named Professor Lovell, who uses a strange silver bar to save his life.  The professor takes the boy back to London and has him take an English name, Robin Swift, as he begins a rigorous education of the boy in both his native Cantonese, but also in Latin, Ancient Greek, and English.  

Years later, Robin is sent by the Professor to Oxford University, to study at its prestigious Royal Institute of Translation - colloquially known as Babel.  There, he finds himself in a Class with three other outcasts: Ramy, an Indian boy taken to Britain from a decent family in Calcutta; Victoire, a Haitian girl taken to and raised in France; and Letty, a white English girl who dared to break gender conventions by trying to go to Oxford instead of getting married off and got disinherited as a result.  At Babel, the three of them learn the magic of translation - of how matching foreign words to English ones on silver bars can produce magical effects based upon the differences in actual meaning - a magic that has enhanced the power of the British Empire as it spreads its tendrils all over the world.  

Yet despite Robin and the others loving their studies, and being fascinated by languages and their derivatives, Robin can't help but feel uneasy with how he and they are still treated as others, and how the power of silver is being used not to support people, but to enrich the already wealthy and powerful.  And when Robin finds himself contacted by an underground organization dedicated to righting that wrong, at the potential cost of all the comforts he enjoys, he finds himself greatly torn.  

But when Britain appears on the verge of a manufactured war with China, solely for the sake of getting control of China's vast silver reserves, Robin and his friends find themselves forced to make a decision....one which will require him to pick the cause to support....
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Babel is an alternate history fantasy, but its one where the world we face is very similar to our own...even if the way it got there was very different. So here, as in our world in 1830s Britain, the British Empire is flourishing as a world power, and is trying to take advantage of China's massive resources by exporting to it opium in exchange for those resources, setting up the conflict that in our world would eventually become the horrific Opium Wars. The difference is that here, British power is backed by the power of magical Silver, a magic fueled by two things: 1. the raw material (of which China has a lot) of Silver and 2. the research into used foreign languages, as the magic is created through combining an English word with its translation into a foreign language on a silver bar, with the effect resulting from the gaps in the translations and etymologies between the two words. The British Empire powers both its military and its whole economy on this magic silver, creating automaton and technological wonders that enhance the productivity of its labor and the rewards that its rich can enjoy....even as such silver and automaton puts ordinary British laborers out of work and doesn't actually enrich the lower class.

This creates a world in which the British Empire is even more literally than in our own world taking the fruits of its colonies and using them to benefit its elites, even more so than in our world. This is pretty well identified with three of our four main characters: after all the Cantonese/Chinese (known by Robin), the Urdu (known by Ramy) and the Haitian Creole known by Victoire are all relatively new languages to the British people at Oxford, and thus provide for new possibilities for magic created with the right silver translations. Notably, the power gets lessened over time as languages become more familiar to the British, meaning that they are incentived to go and gather speakers of more and more faraway lands to try and keep up and increase their power via the method of translation. Thus the British here are in a more LITERAL sense than in our world taking away the languages of the people they colonize and profitting from them as a result, without ever giving anything back. It's not a subtle message here, but it works really well - especially as Robin and the other struggle with the idea that truly translating a word is not actually possible, and to try and take such a beautiful foreign word and fasten it to an English translation is to do literal violence.

This is especially the case because well, as in our world, Robin and his compatriots Ramy and Victoire are not accepted in the British world despite their use in preserving it. While their compatriot and fourth member Letty is discriminated against in some areas for being a woman, they're discriminated against on the basis of their race - as British elites consider them inferior by definition, even as they exploit them. They get treated miserably by the other students at Oxford, and the White professors around them are little better with their insinuations. So it doesn't take any big revelation for Robin and the others to realize the British actions are evil, they can feel it all along, which naturally results in them becoming willing to rebel and try to find a way to fight back for the colonized and for the lower classes who are victimized by all this.

As you can guess from the book's full title, Babel eventually comes around to the idea that at least some violence is necessary to make a change, and this results in an explosive final two acts that generally work very well. After all, even the minorly oppressed, like the rich but disowned white girl oppressed for her sex, can't quite get over how much privilege they have and understand that the others around her can't simply accept the evils of the British Empire and try to enjoy it as much as they can - for people of color in this world, as in our world, will never be free from microaggressions and outright racism. That said, the book isn't quite clear - and this is on purpose - as to how that violence should go...for example a conflict between two of our major characters at the end is between whether it is cowardly or right to go out in a big grand sacrifice, or whether it makes sense to try to escape to fight for another day. Another conflict rests upon how many poor people will take the brunt for their actions while the rich are still able to mostly function. Babel raises these questions through its fantasy story really well, and its main characters demonstrate the reasons why these questions and violence are necessary. It also, interestingly enough, demonstrates how racial prejudice can blind people to their combined interests in fighting injustice due to class and poverty level, although honestly it's a bit optimistic in my mind in how it tries to resolve sort of that conflict.

Babel is not a perfect book - while I appreciate the lack of subtlety given how much subtle SF/F tends to go over people's heads, at times like with the white girl Letty is it is almost too much. It also doesn't really develop characters outside of the major four, leading to one side character professor going from an ass in the beginning to someone extremely sympathetic without really any reason. And, as with Kuang's prior works, this is a book dealing entirely with issues of colonization, empire, race, and sex....but not dealing at all with gender and discrimination of LGBTQ individuals, who basically don't exist in the narrative, although to be fair, romance and sex in general doesn't exist in the narrative.

But Babel is an extremely powerful book, well worth your time, and it will rightfully be on the top of rankings and nomination lists for next year...and might also be on mine.

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