Review: Babel by RF Kuang

 Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution

by R. F. Kuang

Pub Aug 2022, Harper Voyager

I will admit I’m not well versed in the dark academia sub genre so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I can tell you, a full-on Shakespearean tragedy was NOT IT. 

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This book is 542 pages long and it FELT like it. I swear it took me 84 years to get through. By all rights, this book should be totally up my alley. I love academic settings, the study of languages, etymology, and translation. And those things play a huge role in this book. I was really excited for it! And honestly it’s a great story but it was just hard for me to keep turning pages for a while. (A long while.)

Fortunately, the last 150 pages or so were very exciting; after all the set-up and exposition of the first two thirds, the action really ramped up in the final section (for the most part) and you could sense the end getting nearer. It was kind of a nail biter. And the ending was pretty amazing.

This book encompasses So. Much. It’s filled with moral lessons and metaphors about the perils of capitalism, imperialism, oppression and class structure. Colonialism, racism, slavery. Modernization, hoarding wealth, white supremacy, elitism, all kinds of privilege. Just like the adults in Robin’s life who turned a blind eye to his abuse could be seen as accessories to the crime, Robin realizes that by participating in Oxford’s translation program, he is accessory to the empire’s colonization of foreign lands and, by association, is financially supporting and allowing slavery and imperialism (among other things) to continue. 

I applaud Kuang for attempting to tackle so many huge issues. But the author spent a lot of time telling us how we should feel rather than letting us come to our own conclusions. There is nothing subtle here in all the ways we’re shown how abhorrent and harmful colonialism is. But Kuang still felt the need to tell us how to feel about everything which seemed unnecessary. 

I think using languages as a method for teaching colonialism is pretty clever and Kuang does the concept justice. Oxford’s Babel is a tool of colonial white supremacy and language translation is the perfect vehicle for showcasing racist structures in a society and how cultures and people are affected by a colonizing power.

I enjoyed the conversations about translation quality. They reminded me of conversations I’ve had with my husband about the different translations of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time where the translator has clearly applied their own agenda and personal beliefs to the work. (Here’s where the quote “an act of translation is an act of betrayal” comes into play.)

Despite the slow pacing and the didactic feel, overall I’m glad to have read it and happy to have it on my shelf. I wish I could spend more time with Robin and his Babel cohort.

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