Review of Babel, or the Necessity of Violence.

[chris_gerrib]

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I purchased this book for my monthly SF book club event. I think we expected it to be on the Hugo ballot (it's not) but I did read the book and find it interesting if a bit slow.

The story starts with a small Chinese boy in 1828 who is dying of cholera, which has taken his family. He is rescued by an Englishman, Richard Lovell, and taken to England where he uses the name Robin Swift. Under Lovell's instruction, Swift ends up going to Oxford. It's not our Oxford - at the center of town is Babel, a tower where silver bars are inscribed with word pairs, giving the silver magical qualities. Swift and a few other translators eventually understand the exploitive system they live under and take action to fight it.

I found the novel interesting, and as a student of history I found myself carefully looking for where the author's history diverged from ours. I also found the novel a bit slow - by starting when Swift was a small boy we spend many pages merely observing him as he observes the world. The second half of the book has a lot of interpersonal drama as Swift and his friends deal with some very complicated interpersonal relationships. These bits were just this side of soap opera for me.

Overall, and enjoyable if long read and I hope to find out why it did not get on the Hugo ballot.



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