Review of Babel by R. F. Kuang

Artwork by Nico Delort

Continuing with my resolution to review all the novels I read this year (not counting manuscripts for Not a Pipe Publishing, so don’t worry, authors!), I find myself reviewing another novel that doesn’t need any of my support or praise to find readers. Too bad! I’m going to offer praise, anyway!

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 

Rebecca Kuang’s Babel is a masterpiece, as you may have already heard. It tells the story of four students who are studying together at Oxford in the 1830’s. If that sounds a bit dry, I should add the students are there to study magic. Yeah, that should pull you back in, but what makes the book so brilliant is the magic system as metaphor. I don’t want to spoil anything, but this novel is not escapist fantasy nor some kind of nostalgic perversion of the past through rose tinted glasses. This is a book about the past and magic, but it’s a novel about the world we live in right now and the world we want to live in tomorrow. 

I know Babel been compared to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell a lot, and there are certainly similarities in the scope of the story, the meticulous research required, the blending of history and magic, and the quality of the writing. I loved Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and I’m not disparaging it by saying Babel is alternate-history to illuminate our modern world, while Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell is alternate history as glorious escapist fun where the deeper meaning is in the characters and their humanity. Babel has those deeply human characters, but it is also commenting on our present political, economic, and social structures. It’s less like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and more like Gulliver’s Travels. Maybe it’s my writer bias, but I think I might compare Babel more to Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr, though Cloud Cuckoo Land is not set in one particular era of history and is less fantasy than sci-fi in that it abides by our univer’s laws of physics to highlight the …proverbial? …metaphorical? …literal-but-in-our-universe-and-therfore-not-fantastical? magic role of storytelling itself. Both Babel and Cloud Cuckoo Land are deeply researched, beautifully written, and will stick with you, but I’m struck by the way both are incredibly ambitious. Rebecca Kuang set out to tell a story of enormous scope and power, and whether she came up with the metaphor of her magic system first and endeavored to do it justice, or decided on the nuanced point she wanted to make and conceived of the magic system in order to do that, she has risen above the cleverness of the conceit of the novel to build something greater than the sum of any of its parts.

Be warned: Babel doesn’t let any of us off the hook about the harm we create in enabling and/or resisting colonialism, patriarchy, structural and cultural racism, and hyper-capitalism. To acquiesce is to cause suffering of the most vulnerable. To fight back is to cause suffering of the most vulnerable. None of us escape unscathed from Babel.