Review: Babel

Babel by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is not subtle about its themes: colonial/postcolonialism within the context of the British empire of the 1800s and the ways in which language and translation factor into it, using silver as the historical fantasy "MacGuffin" if you will.

Which is to say that quite frankly, how believable is your fantasy world if not much materially is different between the real world and the fantasy one? Half of the premise of this book comes off as saying, colonial nations still gonna colonize, only maybe worse if they'd had access to magical silver as presented here with Oxford's Babel as the centerpiece of the British Empire's strength.

But silver is used to explain things like how steam engines took off and... why China got pulled into the Opium Wars, which makes it feels as if really silver isn't the point given history hasn't materially changed that much... aside from some racial minority characters being "woke" at Oxford nearly 2 centuries ahead of that term (yes I mean that in the actual definition of that term).

All that to say, I agree with the general ideas in this book in principle even though I wish they'd been delivered more subtly and believably. If you can tolerate all of that, the actual setting of Oxford is fun in itself, the treatises around translation and etymology are fascinating, and there is no shortage of shocking plot twists and page-turning developments. I enjoyed the ride this book took me on at the end of the day even though I had to suspend disbelief at times to fully get into it.