Book Review: ‘Babel’ by RF Kuang ( a dark academia critique of the oppressions of Empire)
Season Five of ‘The Dark Academicals’ is here!
Listen to the full episode here:
The start of a new season always feels like a huge milestone for us so we always want to make sure that the first book that we tackle is A Big Deal and since RF Kuang’s ‘Babel’ came out last autumn is has really been A Big Deal - it just won a British Book Award, aka a Nibbie!
And we might be the last bookworms left on Earth having not read it because we were saving it for the podcast. Season 5 is the time and we were so ready for our first read of RF Kuang, but before we get into the nitty-gritty, this is what this chunky book is all about:
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
Oxford, 1836.
The city of dreaming spires.
It is the centre of all knowledge and progress in the world.
And at its centre is Babel, the Royal Institute of Translation. The tower from which all the power of the Empire flows.
Orphaned in Canton and brought to England by a mysterious guardian, Babel seemed like paradise to Robin Swift.
Until it became a prison…
But can a student stand against an empire?
An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.
With an Oxford setting at one of the most famous universities in the world, the focus on language and the specialised skill of translation, and a secret society, we had to include ‘Babel’ on ‘The Dark Academicals’.
I listened to ‘Babel’ via audio and I was a little concerned that the footnotes would feel a bit jolty, but having them read by a different narrator to the rest of the novel was actually really helpful. It was a really great audiobook and it helped propel me through the slower start wonderfully.
We follow Robin from the his near-death in Canton and his journey to London, then to his time at Oxford and Babel, and everything that comes from there: an exploration of language and translation, systemic racism and oppression under colonialism and the British Empire, making friends and found family, and the sacrifices that have to be made in order to fight the good fight. This novel is a thought-provoking, and often eviscerating, treatise on the harm of colonialism and systemic racism that may be focused in 1830s and 1840s England during the novel, but still echo now. There’s so much about this period in history and the realities and ripples of the Empire that we’re not taught (I’m white British for reference) and it’s made me realise just how much research and reading I need to do of my own - our education system was shaped and formed by the very systems that upheld this oppressive system.
The critiques of Empire are intricately explored in the discussions of language and translation and it was all very clever, sometimes too clever for me - I felt like I was missing a lot from the intricacies of all of the languages explored in the novel. A lot of the time this distanced me from the characters and the story as there was a tendency towards info-dumping and I ended up not connecting with the characters in the way that I had hoped.
My expectations were sky high for this incredibly hyped novel, and while it was as technically good and clever as I expected, I didn’t hugely enjoy it because it kept me at arms length.
If you want to give ‘Babel’ a go yourself, you can grab a copy from our bookshop.org link below which helps to support the podcast and the website, as well as giving independent bookshops a helping hand.
But is ‘Babel’ dark academia? You’ll have to listen to the podcast and find out!
Written by Sophie
