R. F. Kuang

Babel, Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. 

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.

But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution. 

Babel

Marz 

English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.

Alina

Leonie

Lindsay

bri 🍂

Abigail Mills

A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers. They would both remain perfectly content to linger in the liminal, endless space between truth and denial. 

Gica

🌙

A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers.

Nour

Victoria

 Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?'

Draculelle

Hannah Nugent

He buried his past life, not because it was so terrible but because abandoning it was the only way to survive.

dana

‘That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.’

aywen

The four of them took turns losing their minds. There was an unspoken rule to this game: one of them was allowed to break down at a time, but not all of them at once, for the duty of the saner heads was to talk the mad one down. 

Sarah

Bethany Jenkins

It should have been distressing. In truth, though, Robin found it was actually quite easy to put up with any degree of social unrest, as long as one got used to looking away.

Still, something did not seem right, and Robin could tell from Victoire’s and Ramy’s faces that they thought so too. It took him a moment to realize what it was that grated on him, and when he did, it would bother him constantly, now and thereafter; it would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort.

ㅤㅤ

He hoped. He hoped until hope became its own form of torture. The original meaning of hope was ‘to desire’, and Robin wanted with every ounce of his being a world that no longer was. He hoped until he thought he was going mad, until he started hearing fragments of his thoughts as if spoken outside of him, low, gruff words that echoed around the stone. I wish— I regret—

Tija

That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.' 

Free trade. This was always the British line of argument– free trade, free competition, an equal playing field for all. Only it never ended up that way, did it? What ‘free trade’ really meant was British imperial dominance, for what was free about a trade that relied on a massive build- up of naval power to secure maritime access? When mere trading companies could wage war, assess taxes, and administer civil and criminal justice?

Syrina

He did not know that impressing a white man could be as dangerous as provoking one.

There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French, that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation - a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.

cedar winslow

The English made regular use of only two flavours - salty and not salty - and did not seem to recognize any of the others. For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, its citizens were violently averse to actually using them; in all his time in Hampstead. he never tasted a dish that could be properly described as 'seasoned; let alone 'spicy'.

sina (she/her) 

victoire desgraves you will ALWAYS be famous

‘We have to die to get their pity,’ said Victoire. ‘We have  to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their  inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. But I don’t want to die, Robin.’ Her throat hitched. ‘I don’t want to die. I  don’t want to be their Imoinda, their Oroonoko. I don’t want to be their tragic, lovely lacquer figure. I want to live.’ She fell against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, rocking back and forth. ‘I want to live,’ she repeated, ‘and live, and thrive, and survive them. I want a future. I don’t think death is a reprieve. I think it’s – it’s just the end. It forecloses everything – a future where I might be happy, and free. And it’s not about being brave. It’s about wanting another chance. Even if all I did was run away, even if I never lifted a finger to help anyone else as long as I lived – at least I would get to be happy. At least the world might be all right, just for a day, just for me. Is that selfish?’ 

maria b

He pulled on his English accent like a new coat, adjusted everything he could about himself to make it fit, and, within weeks, Wore it with comfort. 

maria bisogno

shelley

The word loss was inadequate. Loss just meant a lack, meant something was missing, but it did not encompass the totality of this severance, this terrifying un-anchoring from all that he'd ever known.

Tace

He was of an age when the language had made a permanent impression on his mind. But he had to try, really try, to make sure that he did not stop dreaming in his native tongue.

fc ♡

Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel. 

Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down? 

Babel — a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal response to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell — grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of translation as a tool of empire.

Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

Cried my eyes out at the ending. Best book I’ve ever read! 

alexis :)

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History? and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide… Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Or, the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of The Oxford Translators' Revolution

the paradox of language. immense in its capacity to inspire, to hope and hope until it becomes its own form of torture, for what use is it when your voice isnt your own and what does it mean to be home yet foreign in the mouth

tofuniculus

joey

The first 3 1/5’s of the book made me feel like reading Harry Potter and then the final 1/5 was like V for Vendetta, on and off i enjoyed the book and trapped me early on. 2nd book I read written by Rebeca Kuang, top talent 

Cristian Garcia

robin as a protagonist reminds me heavily of katniss, a hero not because they choose to be, but because revolution needed them to. would read it all again just to remember how sweet innocence can be.

i will be thinking about this for the rest of my life actually 

shadee

Broke my heart. Want to give it 4.5 stars but that would be an injustice.

Tari Rosario

the writing of this book is truly impeccable!! i loved following robin, ramy, victoire and letty throughout their babel years and they are obviously all so different from eachother and all have their own quirks and even though the ending was quite tragic, it was written so beautifully + it was a sacrifice that had to be made in order to make a change but truly wow!

micki

I literally cannot deign to give this book any less than 5 stars. What an epic, what a journey, what an incredible winding story. Kuang is an absolutely brilliant writer - both when it comes to character/story and just in her command of language alone. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the complexity of the work that was done to polish this novel to its absolutely shining final form.

There are two reasons why this book was a significant challenge for me. (1) This is a MEATY book. It is HEFTY. It’s written with eloquence and scholarly wisdom befitting the characters and the setting. It reads almost like a work of historical documentation (which like lol it is almost) and sometimes I found myself going over paragraphs frequently and constantly checking footnotes, etc. It’s not a light read, and I most definitely felt it as a strength training in my literary perception. (2) I typically read and enjoy media (book, movies, games, etc) to explore art and to escape the banality and depressing nature of living. This book…. Allowed me none of that. It’s full of colonialism, of hubris, trauma, psychology of humanity and psychology of power - of the patterns of history we make again and again and are even watching crumble us to ruins in real time. It was hard to swallow and made me a bit sick to my stomach, if we’re being honest. Which, might be a good thing for someone like me who is content to wander the planes of nonexistence so often.

Fair warnings aside, I don’t have anything else to say but “wow.” Thank you for the journey, Kuang. Even if at times I resented it. I don’t believe in spoilers so you’ll just have to go read it for yourself now.

Liv Wukasch

I literally cannot deign to give this book any less than 5 stars. What an epic, what a journey, what an incredible winding story. Kuang is an absolutely brilliant writer - both when it comes to character/story and just in her command of language alone. I can’t even begin to wrap my mind around the complexity of the work that was done to polish this novel to its absolutely shining final form.

There are two reasons why this book was a significant challenge for me. (1) This is a MEATY book. It is HEFTY. It’s written with eloquence and scholarly wisdom befitting the characters and the setting. It reads almost like a work of historical documentation (which like lol it is almost) and sometimes I found myself going over paragraphs frequently and constantly checking footnotes, etc. It’s not a light read, and I most definitely felt it as a strength training in my literary perception. (2) I typically read and enjoy media (book, movies, games, etc) to explore art and to escape the banality and depressing nature of living. This book…. Allowed me none of that. It’s full of colonialism, of hubris, trauma, psychology of humanity and psychology of power - of the patterns of history we make again and again and are even watching crumble us to ruins in real time. It was hard to swallow and made me a bit sick to my stomach, if we’re being honest. Which, might be a good thing for someone like me who is content to wander the planes of nonexistence so often.

Fair warnings aside, I don’t have anything else to say but “wow.” Thank you for the journey, Kuang. Even if at times I resented it. I don’t believe in spoilers so you’ll just have to go read it for yourself now.

The concept for this book was very cool - having language be the mode for magic. There is something nice about how that translates to how we can make change ourselves. Describing the intricacies of etymology and having that be the building blocks for technology was also fascinating. It also showcased how language is the literal embodiment of how you write/ talk about something skews how it is perceived by others. Also when you translate, you can't always capture the original meaning - and it must cross some special dimension - and have an approximate translation. However, language is the backbone of how the world operates, and it was very clever to use that metaphor and extend it into how resources were extracted from colonies/people to Britain and other colonial powers. Similar to how must cross a spatial dimension to translate, you must carry goods across trade routes and the way they are perceived in one place differs from where they came from/ value is ascribed differently. 

While Kuang was very explicit about her themes (and banged it on the head of the reader so they couldn't misconstrue what she was saying), I don't think it detracted from her prose and characters. Some of my favorite passages were describing the friendship between the 4 students, the depictions of them "falling in love with one another" and making memories really warmed my heart. Even the 1-2 paragraphs that clued the reader into the longstanding complicated relation between Griffin and Sterling before their final showdown had me in awe - being able to so concisely convey a history that passed between 2 people. 

Letty's character also chilled me. The second Oxford was no longer just a classes and readings, she was not someone the group could trust. It made me sick because each step of the way it felt like her betrayal was inevitable. Her depiction made me really analyze my own behavior because Kaung was also very explicitly using Letty to speaking to people who could never fully understand/internalize the experiences she described in this book. 

This book also made me wish more people would just stop and listen to each other. Ramy and Robin have a conversation where they say they get along not only because they listen, but because they "hear" each other and get the meaning of their words or experiences. Yet, many people don't take the time to fully analyze and get what people are going through or understand. This was a wonderful read. 

Ashley Denktas

The concept for this book was very cool - having language be the mode for magic. There is something nice about how that translates to how we can make change ourselves. Describing the intricacies of etymology and having that be the building blocks for technology was also fascinating. It also showcased how language is the literal embodiment of how you write/ talk about something skews how it is perceived by others. Also when you translate, you can't always capture the original meaning - and it must cross some special dimension - and have an approximate translation. However, language is the backbone of how the world operates, and it was very clever to use that metaphor and extend it into how resources were extracted from colonies/people to Britain and other colonial powers. Similar to how must cross a spatial dimension to translate, you must carry goods across trade routes and the way they are perceived in one place differs from where they came from/ value is ascribed differently. 

While Kuang was very explicit about her themes (and banged it on the head of the reader so they couldn't misconstrue what she was saying), I don't think it detracted from her prose and characters. Some of my favorite passages were describing the friendship between the 4 students, the depictions of them "falling in love with one another" and making memories really warmed my heart. Even the 1-2 paragraphs that clued the reader into the longstanding complicated relation between Griffin and Sterling before their final showdown had me in awe - being able to so concisely convey a history that passed between 2 people. 

Letty's character also chilled me. The second Oxford was no longer just a classes and readings, she was not someone the group could trust. It made me sick because each step of the way it felt like her betrayal was inevitable. Her depiction made me really analyze my own behavior because Kaung was also very explicitly using Letty to speaking to people who could never fully understand/internalize the experiences she described in this book. 

This book also made me wish more people would just stop and listen to each other. Ramy and Robin have a conversation where they say they get along not only because they listen, but because they "hear" each other and get the meaning of their words or experiences. Yet, many people don't take the time to fully analyze and get what people are going through or understand. This was a wonderful read. 

Upon finishing the book, I finally know why it's written from Robin's POV.

🌚

I think it's truly crazy how this book is just a neat retelling of the original tale of the tower.

Sunkist’s Darling

I think it's truly crazy how this book is just a neat retelling of the original tale of the tower.



Usman Merchant

It's full packaged of languages and literatures, and historical in a one book. I love how they describing something with etymological term

Seka.

OMGGGG WHAT AN INCREDIBLE BOOK T....T

It's full packaged of languages and literatures, and historical in a one book. I love how they describing something with etymological term

Cried for several reasons (used this for my undergrand thesis #academicweapon)

It lets you live a different and very needed perspective 

angel

This was one of the most thought provoking and interesting books I’ve read in a while. The fantasy elements combined with the societal commentary and themes of revolution and resisting imperialism were done in a really unique way. The author didn’t hold back from describing the logic behind armed resistance. 

I wish I had more, and the ending left me questioning so many things, which I think was the intention. My only complaint is that the beginning was a bit slow, and the entire first half of the book felt like setting up the plot. But the rest of it made up for it. I had to hold back from highlighting a paragraph on each page in the second half. 

I highlyyyy recommend all my friends to read this book! It’s easier to digest because it’s fiction, but has some really interesting and important connections to real life! I could write an essay but I’ll spare you. 

sujj

This was one of the most thought provoking and interesting books I’ve read in a while. The fantasy elements combined with the societal commentary and themes of revolution and resisting imperialism were done in a really unique way. The author didn’t hold back from describing the logic behind armed resistance. 

I wish I had more, and the ending left me questioning so many things, which I think was the intention. My only complaint is that the beginning was a bit slow, and the entire first half of the book felt like setting up the plot. But the rest of it made up for it. I had to hold back from highlighting a paragraph on each page in the second half. 

I highlyyyy recommend all my friends to read this book! It’s easier to digest because it’s fiction, but has some really interesting and important connections to real life! I could write an essay but I’ll spare you. 

WHAT THE FUCK FUCK ASS BOOK😭😭😭😭😭😭

asher

I just finished it and cannot describe it but it will stay with me for the foreseeable future 

Babel Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.

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