Book Review: Babel
Is the best book I read in the past calendar year for you? Read on and find out!
Every so often, a book comes out that seems like it was written with you in mind. Babel, by R.F. Kuang, was written for me. I only picked this book up because our local Barnes and Noble was having a buy one get 50% off sale, and I wanted to buy the next in the Wool series by Hugh Howey (now adapted into the AppleTV show Silo). I scanned the table of available titles, and this one jumped out at me. A realistic light fantasy mixed with alternative history? Check. A focus on linguistics? Double check. A plot centering around university life? Add it to cart. Do not pass go. Please collect my $200 (or my $20, half off).
It wasn’t just me who felt like it was written for them. Babel won the Nebula award in 2022, as well as many other accolades. I’m not sure what was in the mind of the awards committee, but what makes this stand out for me is the use of imaginative setting. Kuang chooses to set the story in 1830s England, but in a speculative, fantastical version. In her world, silver bars have the ability to carry something like magic. To access this, special silversmiths have to mark the bar with the same word in two languages. But, since each language’s particular words carry slightly different semantic domains, the bar carries that overlap and produces something amazing in response. For example, a bar engraved with the English word “Speed” and the Latin “spes” (which means something like hope or success) can help a carriage get to its destination quicker and safer. You see the semantic pair in this case in the older English word “godspeed” which means something like “good success; good journey.”
The catch, though, is that an engraver must have a native command of both languages used. This makes those people capable of such arts much sought after, and is why our central character, Robin Swift, is such an interesting person. From birth, he was raised to make it into Babel, the nickname for the language institute at Oxford. He is raised speaking Mandarin and Cantonese, learning English later, but also a school course suffused with Latin and Greek. As such, he’s prepared for admittance and participation in this magical world of academics.
Of course, not all is as it seems. As Robin continues his studies, he becomes aware of Babel’s participation in wars, unseemly deals, and outright atrocity. Will Robin and his friends stand up against this system, or will they participate in it and the privileges that it affords the elites?
I found this pivot into what might be considered Act 3 the least satisfying of the book. Kuang is not just creating a story out of thin air; she’s speaking about the real history of British colonial activity in China during the Opium Wars. The allegorical, almost parable-like character of some of the happenings was incredibly clever and moving; others felt a bit contrived to fit the plot and the message.
Any novel that makes me think about real life is worth its time. Babel made me think on a number of levels. The first level was the linguistic one. As a biblical scholar myself and one who tries to make the truth of the Scripture approchable on a weekly basis, the silversmithing was something I couldn’t get out of my mind. The silver only worked in the space between the languages, that which was lost in translation. I kept thinking about the Biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew and how we try to make their meaning clear in English. Surely something is lost in translation along the way, right? But we, as Christians, don’t have a silver to carry that meaning for us. Instead, I believe we have the Holy Spirit, who guides us into all truth. So on the one hand, I certainly believe that the Bible is best understood in its original languages. But on the other, I think that any modern language can reliably communicate its truth. Advances in literature, history, narrative criticism, philology, and the like, have made this perhaps more true than ever before. But it is the task of those of us who can carry these languages forward to do so with fear and trembling, realizing that there is something supernatural here at stake.
The second level was the historical one. I realized I knew almost nothing of Chinese history, and certainly less of the early modern period. I think we had a paragraph or so in my high school textbook about the Boxer Rebellion, a paragraph about the Sino-Japanese War, and that’s about it. This tale, which put the overlap of the British Empire and China to the forefront, was a great whetstone for that history. But it is dangerous to get your history from fiction, even a well-researched and scholarly one such as this. As such, I hope to read more about this period to enhance my understanding of it.
This book was for me. It was for me because of the linguistic depth, the imaginative yet realistic setting, and the pacing of the plot. Is it for you? Check it out and see!
Adding this to my list of books to read!