Babel reminds me a bit of the Star Wars prequels-- a creative and politically insightful work at a conceptual level, one that you want to see work, but one that is also executed unevenly on an actual storytelling level. I am not thinking of how democracy dies because of wartime fearmongering, I'm thinking about how annoying it is that Anakin won't stop monologuing about sand.

Babel contains a strong story concept that at times is beautifully written, a well-designed historical fantasy world, and sharp critiques of academia and colonial exploitation. However, I often found these strengths undermined by its middling execution as a novel. The book's writing at times lacks subtlety and feels long winded, characters (especially side characters) seem created more as political symbols rather than real people, and the pacing suffers for probably the first half or two thirds of the book. Considering how long I waited to get this book from the library, it's a bit of a letdown.

To start with the positive-- the reason I ranked Babel 3 stars (instead of 2) is partially because of its cool worldbuilding and magic system. I loved the idea that magic in this book comes from the lost meaning in translation between two words, and RF Kuang is clearly passionate and knowledgeable about translation. Kuang fleshes out a thorough and well-researched historical fantasy setting, with magic often standing in for industrialization and having very real consequences on everyday parts of the setting. Translation is also deeply interwoven with Babel's critique of colonialism and academia-- the British need more "exotic" words to create new and more powerful "match pairs," requiring them to recruit students from the colonies and exploit their languages.

Kuang also makes sharp political critiques. Babel's story takes concepts I remember from university history courses and makes them accessible to nonacademic or younger readers, such as the weaponization of free trade by empires and how scrappy resistance from the colonies can hurt seemingly all powerful imperial militaries. Subverting "dark academia" tropes, Babel highlights the real harms that academia's knowledge creates, and how even politically opposed scholars (such as Robin and his friends) become dependent on its money for survival. Finally, Babel makes nuanced and brave points on the necessity of violent resistance and direct action, with some scenes feeling timelier than ever.

(What is the scholars' takeover of Babel to prevent the invasion of China if not similar to today's campus occupations for Palestine?)

Unfortunately, the political themes of the novel often seemed to come at the expense of the actual story. It feels at times like the writing and characters are nothing more than a delivery mechanism for the themes, and the execution of the actual story is a bit of an afterthought.

I definitely agree with other reviewers that Kuang does not seem to trust readers to accurately interpret her story’s themes and thus resorts to just SAYING the themes outright. Often when something racist/ classist happens, or a racist intellectual comes up in passing, there will be a comment in the narration or a footnote saying something like “this was bad!” or “this person was a racist!” It almost seems like Kuang is expecting a stupid person or a bad-faith hater to be misinterpreting her message, or assuming that she condones a character’s behavior if she doesn’t make the character completely unsympathetic/ outright condemn their behavior in the narration. (This is another criticism I’ve heard for some of her other books, like Yellowface.)

Additionally, instead of the characters directly encountering racism or sexism or the sinister side of Babel, oftentimes it is just spoken “at” us in the dialogue. Griffin, a representative of the anti-Empire Hermes Society, just tells Robin that Babel’s silver bars are being used for evil and that the British Empire is bad, and Robin (despite being raised by a white colonialist since he was young) just… immediately believes him. A much more natural progression would be for Griffin to plant seeds of doubt while Robin is in denial, and then Robin slowly discovers proof throughout his studies that Babel and the British Empire are actually bad, and/or recontextualizes negative experiences he has had in the past. 

In another example, Ramy, Robin’s friend who grew up in India, talks about how the British grow opium in India and use it to control China. Instead of letting readers see “oh, so this is how imperialism connects the exploitation of these two countries together,” Kuang has Ramy then say that Britain is turning India into “a narco-military state” (305) and that’s how “empire connects us.” It seems like Kuang feels the need to spoon feed readers, which is distracting, along with the 21st century academic parlance that occasionally spoils the historic setting. (“Narco-military state?” Your historical characters should not sound like they know what Twitter is.)

I also had issues with the characters and their arcs (or lack thereof)-- good fiction feels like the characters are well rounded people making authentic decisions which drive the plot forward, not that the author has decided on a plot, with the characters getting dragged along for the ride. I never got much of a feel for the main cast of four characters (Robin and his three schoolmates, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty), even though the story revolves around them. 

Kuang does a decent job showing internal conflict from Robin's POV, and she has created interesting backstories and traits for the secondary characters, but these characteristics appear much more in the short interludes from these characters' POVs rather than naturally coming up in the remaining 500+ pages of the book. A lot of the characterization again feels like telling rather than showing, especially for Robin and Ramy, who are supposed to be two of the most important characters. 

Compared to the other leads, Letty actually has a clear personality, but it's mostly that she is a classic annoying/ clueless privileged white woman. Victoire has the opposite problem-- it seems that Kuang was so afraid of making an offensive Black character that Victoire has no personality at all. Victoire doesn't have any flaws or distinguishing character quirks, and she rarely gets upset like the other leads, which could have easily been turned into a character arc of her being shy and needing to stand up for herself, but even that would have been too hard I guess. Her struggle with internalized racism is interesting but relegated solely to her POV interlude, as well as the development of her friendship with Anthony, another key character, which is super disappointing. (We just learn around ¾ through the book that Victoire and Anthony are good friends and you’re like, “OK, sure.”) Anthony (who is the only other Black character) and Victoire are both almost saintly and nonviolent figures who lack other more defining character details, which did not sit well with me.

Some positives include Griffin, who is one of the few distinctive characters in the story. Griffin is kind of annoying, but he has consistent character flaws and strengths, which makes him more compelling than the main cast. Kuang also does a pretty realistic representation of the tight knit friendgroups you form in college between like minded nerds, and the ways that they fracture or fall apart under life or interpersonal pressure.

As to be expected, the Captain Obvious quality of the storytelling seems to flatten the characters and actually harms the political themes of the book. By often making the characters feel like stand-ins for their racial or gender groups, the political messages themselves seem overly simplistic. All the POC characters are good, all the white characters (except for 1-2) are bad. Robin, Ramy, and Victoire all instinctively understand that the British Empire is Bad “because they’re POC” and are not really shown wrestling with internalized racism or having ignorant assumptions about each other’s home countries or being sexist, despite growing up in 1800s Europe and with racist white guardians. Meanwhile, Robin’s white bio dad and guardian, Professor Lovell, is abusive and says racist stuff constantly. Letty is constantly annoying and clueless in ways that make it hard to believe that the rest of the group is still friends with her.

Letty ultimately betrays the gang after initially seeming sympathetic to them, for reasons that seem kind of underdeveloped to me at least.

 

 Obviously in 1800s England, most white people were racist. But by making such clear cut and obvious villains, Kuang in many ways refuses to explore more nuanced experiences surrounding racism, such as white people who are kind to individual POC but still view them as inferior, or POC who side with colonizers out of internalized racism. Books like The Sympathizer and Disorientation have explored these themes in much more interesting ways by having morally ambiguous, self-hating, and reactionary POC characters.

In terms of the plot and pacing, I think the plot was pretty interesting. There’s political intrigue, academic drama, mysterious disappearances etc. Unfortunately, the pacing drags and doesn’t pick up until about 2/3 through the book. A more judicious editor probably could have cut out about 20% of the book. While the worldbuilding and translation element is mostly a strength, at times nerdy tangents about etymology or 1800s Britain feel redundant and pad the pagecount of a book that is already over 500 pages. The longer passages feel a bit like fanservice for translation/ British history PhDs in the way that Ready Player One has been criticized for having lengthy and unnecessary fanservice for 80s pop culture geeks. I also feel like some of the earlier slice of life university scenes could be cut, and the petty interpersonal school drama seems kind of weird to have in a book that also has some pretty violent and crazy stuff happen at the end.

For a more minor quibble, despite having a strong worldbuilding CONCEPT, I had problems with how it was executed at a writing level. The book to me at least did not do an adequate job of explaining what parts of the world looked like, or how the characters experienced the world in a sensory way. For example, when Ramy and Robin enter the Bodleian Library, all of the writing is an infodump of dialogue about the library’s history by a tour guide. There is not a SINGLE SENTENCE about what the library actually looks like (or smells like, or sounds like). I was googling this stupid building when it occurred to me– wait, isn’t it the author’s job to describe the setting?

Anyway, overall, Babel is ambitious and original, but its excellent story concept and political themes are undermined by their uneven execution. I don’t hate it, despite all the criticisms I’ve written. It’s more that I’m frustrated by it. Now more than ever, it’s critical to have smart, creative, politically engaging books about real world issues like colonialism and the dark side of academia. But it should not be too much for me to ask that political art is also good art.