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Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution
Audiobook21 hours

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

Written by R. F. Kuang

Narrated by Chris Lew Kum Hoi and Billie Fulford-Brown

4.5/5

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About this audiobook

THE #2 SUNDAY TIMES AND #1 NYT BESTSELLER

‘One for Philip Pullman fans’
THE TIMES

‘This one is an automatic buy’
GLAMOUR

‘Ambitious, sweeping and epic’
EVENING STANDARD

‘Razor-sharp’
DAILY MAIL

‘An ingenious fantasy about empire’
GUARDIAN

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

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.

Until it became a prison…

But can a student stand against an empire?

An incendiary new novel from award-winning author R.F. Kuang about the power of language, the violence of colonialism, and the sacrifices of resistance.

'A masterpiece that resonates with power and knowledge. BABEL is a stark picture of the cruelty of empire, a distillation of dark academia, and a riveting blend of fantasy and historical fiction – a monumental achievement’

Samantha Shannon, author of THE PRIORY OF THE ORANGE TREE

LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarperCollins UK Audio
Release dateSep 1, 2022
ISBN9780008501846
Author

R. F. Kuang

Rebecca F. Kuang is a Marshall Scholar, Chinese-English translator, and the Astounding Award-winning and the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award nominated author of the Poppy War trilogy and the forthcoming Babel. Her work has won the Crawford Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. She has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford; she is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale.

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Reviews for Babel

4.5/5

583 ratings19 reviews

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  • 4/5
    O livro é mto bom e a narração tb! O final pra mim deixou um pouco a desejar…
  • 3/5
    Enjoyed the play with translation and the anti-colonial themes, but not a plot heavy reader, so elements of this didn't work for me. Which is more a me thing.
  • 5/5
    No words necessary other than 'wow'. A true literary feat.
  • 5/5
    A brilliant and inimitable ode to the real struggles of power and privilege in our modern world, through the truly mesmering lens of 19th century England with a tarnished silver lining. The world building is full and tantalising, and the prose exquisite, every chapter offering a place to laugh and weep. A must read for anyone who enjoys, magic, universities, and righteous revolution!
  • 5/5
    et in an alternate world where Britain rules the seas and much of the land in part because of its near-monopoly on the magical powers of silver through its near-monopoly on translation. If properly inscribed and activated by a translator, silver can perform wonders based on nearly-matching pairs of words with slightly different meanings in different languages. Robin, a young Cantonese boy whose mother dies of illness, is taken by a British scholar to train as a translator at Oxford, the heart of silverworking and translation. He learns to love translation but also experiences discrimination and discovers the oppressive foundations of the world that makes him mostly happy. Because it was Kuang, I was desperately worried for the fates of the characters I grew to care about, and many do come to unhappy ends. The magic system and associated discussion of translation is fascinating; the politics are both pessimistic and fiery, a bit crude like real political arguments are.
  • 4/5
    This is not a genre I typically read, and I did struggle a bit with the whole silver/magic aspect - I'm not sure what it added to England's empirical ambitions over and above what actually happened in history. I also found it hard to remember that the story was set in the Victorian era - many of the attitudes and speech patterns were very modern.On the other hand, I thought Robin's character was very well drawn, and there were a couple of truly shocking moments in the plot, even if it did drag out a bit at the end. On a very minor point, the asterisks denoting a footnote were so tiny I kept failing to spot them in the main text.Recommended.
  • 5/5
    Babel by R. F. Kuang is, without a doubt, the best book I’ve read this year. Its theme of language usage is a fascinating commentary on imperialism, revolution, and resistance. As compelling as the story is, and it delivers a little nugget of insight on almost every page, the language of the story is the true star of Babel. Ms. Kuang’s writing style is perfect. While it most definitely is prose, each sentence has a beauty that feels like poetry. Between the story, that magical setting that is Oxford, and the language, Babel left me in awe. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
  • 5/5
    Brilliant book, lovely narrator
    Best read of 2023 I suppose
    Read it!
  • 5/5
    Stunning. I'm blown away and very emotional. The first half was stunningly academic and the second half was like a Guy Fawkes/Les Miserables vibe
  • 5/5
    This book is a most read. It’s so good on so many levels.
  • 5/5
    so so so good! R.F. Kuang's writing and storytelling are amazing
  • 5/5
    I'm not even going to attempt to review this. Amazing story, well researched, I want to read this again and annotate.
  • 5/5
    Well-written and important. Captures nuance and complexity. Characters were so easy to love and so easy to hate, in the best way! Loved this world and loved the magic, but not just that, the real people inhabiting this world!
  • 5/5
    just wow this was a experience victoire my beloved love u
  • 3/5
    Naïeve story that begins promising but ends lame, violence forever?
  • 5/5
    Oh how I wish everyone would read this book. The struggles the “othered” have always had to face. The battle we were born into whether we like it or not. I can’t actually leave a detailed review bc I’m still processing. But oh how I wish you’ll all read this book.

    1 person found this helpful

  • 3/5
    I received an advance copy via NetGalley.Babel is a complicated work of fantasy, and requires a complicated review. It takes place in an alt history 19th century, wherein the might of the British empire is being empowered through the strength of magic derived from the use of silver and linguistic word play. The narrative primarily follows Robin, born and raised in China. After his mother dies, he's taken in by a white Oxford professor and brought to England, where his linguistic skills are cultivated with a goal of eventual education at the great tower known as Babel in Oxford. As a work of research, this book is masterful. Kuang knows languages, knows Oxford, and this is a novel that word geeks will delight in... or like me, delight in to a point. The book succeeds in channeling an academic voice, footnotes and all, and is a slog to read. The plot isn't big on action, but on revelation. The deep criticism of colonialism and empire-building is fascinating, educational, and quite often horrific, because it's very clear that everything is based on fact even if given a magical bent. The characters are incredibly well-done, too, complex and real. If you've read Kuang's other books, you know she handles the dark shades of people with deftness, and she does so again here.The book slowly yet surely built up to an ending that left me surprised only in that the major point of plot resolution was blatant very early on. I expected it to go a different way but it didn't, leaving me feeling flat at the conclusion.
  • 4/5
    In the author’s note at the beginning of Babel, R.F. Kuang’s final thought is, “...feel free to remind yourself this is a work of fiction.” In her alternate 19th century England, linguists learned to harness the power of language and embed it into silver bars with magical consequences that the wealthy whites use to dominate the world. Snatched from his home in Canton, Robin Swift is raised by Professor Lovell in England with one purpose —to attend Oxford and use his skill will language to become one of the famous translators and silver workers. Kuang weaves a complicated tale of friendship, language, colonialism, and foreignness as Robin and his Oxford cohorts work their way through school and realize how the world really works. Readers who heed Kuang’s advice and can let go of reality will be rewarded with the pleasure of this book; readers who cannot will remain frustrated and hung up on the anachronisms and the modern people, ideas, and language. So bring your patience for convoluted linguistic explanations, footnotes, and speculative details and enjoy this well-written and heartbreaking novel.
  • 4/5
    When this book first came to my attention I had two primary thoughts. First, that it was great to be getting more fiction from Ms. Kuang, as she herself wasn't sure that she had another novel in her. However, there is also the small matter that I'm not a particular enthusiast of 19th-century British literature, and it was not clear how the concept I was being presented was going to work.So, having engaged with "Babel," I come away with mixed feelings. The prose is polished, Robin Swift (the main POV) is believable, and Kuang does get her points across. That might be the major issue; whatever else this book is it's a polemic, and polemics should be short and sharp, as opposed to being narrative bricks. Another point is that I tend to agree with the folks who think that Kuang could do better with her antagonists, and this is speaking as someone who is far from enthralled with the image of the British Empire. Three, in regards to the climax, this only makes sense if you appreciate that, for Chinese patriots and sympathizers, the First Opium War was where matters all went wrong for China, setting in train events that, into the current day, give you the atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party. Violence committed in the name of averting the disaster of colonization could be argued to be worth it.In the end then, I'm left with the opinion that this book is an interesting experiment that I was happy to have the chance to read, but which doesn't quite hit the mark.Also, as a public service, those interested in the real history of this period might wish to read Stephen R. Platt's "Imperial Twilight," which deals with how poor communications and imperial arrogance in both Beijing and London contributed to disaster. Whatever caveats I may have about Kuang's execution, it's thematically on target.