Babel, by R.F. Kuang
Oct. 30th, 2022 05:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
landingtreeA boy is dying of cholera in nineteenth century China. Unlike other boys of that description, a British magician finds him useful - so his life, and only his, is saved. He is taken into the machine of British imperialism, raised as a translator between languages - because the magic which runs Britain is derived from the gradient of translation, and only fluent speakers can make it work. He takes the name of Robin Swift, and the name of his birth is never used.
This is a story about complicity and colonialism and Oxford. Its subtitles are:
The Necessity of Violence
An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.
which gives you some idea where it's going! But the getting there, the tension between Robin's hatred for the system he's in and his desire to settle into it, to find at Oxford friendship and love and a golden place to grow, is incredibly compelling. This was propulsive, and at times I couldn't put it down. At one other time I put it rather violently down, whee, suicidal ideation content warning, a good one to read on a cheerful morning rather than a gloomy night. Also torture, child harm, various other stuff. Colonialism: real bad.
I'm not the reader to whom the book is saying, "Here's Oxford, I did the work, I got it right." And I'm not the reader to whom the book is saying, "These inescapable facts of the world, and history, and your life? I won't forget about them. Not even for a page." I'm the reader to whom the book is saying, "Hey. Did you forget about colonialism? Did it soften a bit in your mind? It probably did, didn't it, because you're white and distant and you don't get around to reading your history. Don't forget." I do need that; In theory, I might rather have read a realist novel covering the same material, or nonfiction - because while the magic defamiliarises the world and gives it to us in another guise, it changes very little. The shape of British imperialism is the same; the gearing is different, its requirements and vulnerabilities are different, but the machine is the same. In theory that might mean I'd rather read the nonfiction, in practice - well, I didn't, did I, I like language magic. Glad to have read this, will return to R.F. Kuang's future work, definitely not going back to The Poppy War which I have heard is darker still.
This is a story about complicity and colonialism and Oxford. Its subtitles are:
An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution.
which gives you some idea where it's going! But the getting there, the tension between Robin's hatred for the system he's in and his desire to settle into it, to find at Oxford friendship and love and a golden place to grow, is incredibly compelling. This was propulsive, and at times I couldn't put it down. At one other time I put it rather violently down, whee, suicidal ideation content warning, a good one to read on a cheerful morning rather than a gloomy night. Also torture, child harm, various other stuff. Colonialism: real bad.
I'm not the reader to whom the book is saying, "Here's Oxford, I did the work, I got it right." And I'm not the reader to whom the book is saying, "These inescapable facts of the world, and history, and your life? I won't forget about them. Not even for a page." I'm the reader to whom the book is saying, "Hey. Did you forget about colonialism? Did it soften a bit in your mind? It probably did, didn't it, because you're white and distant and you don't get around to reading your history. Don't forget." I do need that; In theory, I might rather have read a realist novel covering the same material, or nonfiction - because while the magic defamiliarises the world and gives it to us in another guise, it changes very little. The shape of British imperialism is the same; the gearing is different, its requirements and vulnerabilities are different, but the machine is the same. In theory that might mean I'd rather read the nonfiction, in practice - well, I didn't, did I, I like language magic. Glad to have read this, will return to R.F. Kuang's future work, definitely not going back to The Poppy War which I have heard is darker still.
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Date: 2022-10-30 10:28 pm (UTC)