Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — also known as Babel.
Babel is the world’s center of translation and, more importantly, of silver-working: the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation through enchanted silver bars, to magical effect. Silver-working has made the British Empire unparalleled in power, and Babel’s research in foreign languages serves the Empire’s quest to colonize everything it encounters.
Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, is a fairytale for Robin; a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge serves power, and for Robin, a Chinese boy raised in Britain, serving Babel inevitably means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide: Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence? What is he willing to sacrifice to bring Babel down?
Links for Babel: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop | IndieBound
When I think of R.F. Kuang’s Babel, I think of many things. It’s brilliant; it’s heartbreaking, it’s poignant and powerful. I may not be a translator, nor was I alive in the 1800s, but Babel has a way of peeking into your soul, and settling there. I first read Babel earlier this year, but struggled to find the words needed for my review. Even now, I’m still struggling to find the words to adequately explain R.F. Kuang’s brilliance. I figured today’s post is mostly an “annotate with me”, with bits of a review snuck in, so without further ado, let’s get started! There are some Babel spoilers in here, so consider yourself warned!
Babel is primarily told through the lens of Robin Swift, a student at the Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation — otherwise known as Babel. As a child, Robin was brought to London from his home in Canton by Professor Lovell, where he trained for years in Ancient Greek, Latin, and Chinese, in preparation for when he enrolls at Babel. At Babel, he finds his family, and a place of belonging, among his fellow Babblers: Ramiz “Ramy” Rafi Mirza, Victoire Desgraves, and Letitia “Letty” Price. But as Robin learns more about language and translation, he also learns more about his place in the world and his privilege. When Robin’s recruited into the secret Hermes society, an organization dedicated to sabotaging the silver-working that supports imperial expansion, he must decide at what lengths he’s going to go to to bring Babel down, and just what he’s willing to sacrifice.
I annotated for the following themes, and was really inspired by Cherelle’s tabs for my own. In hindsight, I wish I’d broken out “identity” into more specific themes (Race, Class, Gender) — and to separate out the tabs by the main characters, but I didn’t want to open a second pack of tabs! The things I annotated for were:
- characters
- identity
- language/translation
- colonialism/empire
- violence/revolution
- history
- illusion/reality
- silver/magic/worldbuilding
- favorite quotes
- notes/research
Something that I’ve always found interesting is names, and how they’re used in books. In Babel, in particular, I think it’s particularly fascinating how we never find out Robin’s Chinese name — he’s referred to as “the boy” before we meet him as Robin. To Lovell, Robin’s identity as someone who is Chinese doesn’t matter in any way, shape, or form. All Lovell cares about is erasing that aspect of Robin, making him acculturate to Western society — he wants to reinvent Robin and mold and shape him to his own beck and call. Lovell doesn’t even bother to call Robin by his given name. As the text says, names “marked lineage; they marked belonging”. And the fact that Lovell is stripping Robin of his home, denying his lineage and belonging, just says a lot. I could write a whole thesis on how names are used in Babel, but then this post wouldn’t be mostly spoiler free, so I’ll cut myself off here.
We see a similar moment here, where a younger Robin tells Lovell that he forgot his mother. And sure, this is in the literal sense — Lovell leaves Robin’s mother in Canton, but also in the figurative sense. Robin’s motherland, Robin’s home, is in Canton. Lovell, a white Englishman, who only speaks Mandarin, has seen no value in Robin’s mother, his home, or his language — Cantonese.
I underlined this line in particular, because I think the entirety of Robin’s journey can really be boiled down to this question. When you move to a new country, when you’re forced to shed all the parts of your identity except for the desirable traits (in Robin’s case, his language skills), what keeps you tied to it? For Robin, so much of his Chinese ties are stripped away once he’s at Babel, except for his knowledge of Mandarin — and Cantonese.
The core four Babblers respond to different circumstances and situations based on their own identities and past-experiences, just like we all do. And all of them have different definitions of ‘home’, and of loyalty. Are you ever able to call a place home, when you’re forever viewed as an outsider, a transplant, a foreigner?
Isolated in his youth, Babel is the first time that Robin feels a sense of belonging. He finds community and camaraderie within his fellow Babblers. Robin’s years at Oxford is the only time we see him interacting with people his age, and even more so, that we see him have friends. Throughout Babel, it’s repeated how much the four of them care for one another, and the lengths that they’d go to for each other, and it’s evident in R.F. Kuang’s writing. Robin’s loneliness, and then later, his love for his friends, is tangible. I could feel it through the pages the sense of community that comes with finding people who are just like you. I hesitate to call Babel a found family story, although I will say that there are elements of the story and dynamics that make it feel like one. The core four Babblers are able to bond so quickly, not just because of their shared courses, but because they all are able to bond over their shared experiences of being outcast — Ramy, Victoire, and Robin are all people of color; Victoire and Letty are both women. While they all have different experiences — and their experiences differ based on their identities and the intersectionality of said identities, it is easy to bond when you’re collectively being shunned and treated differently. Ramy, Victorie and Letty are the first people to make Robin feel like he belongs to something and somewhere.
This line in particular stuck out to me. I grew up speaking Cantonese fluently, and while I can still speak it fluently, I’m a lot less proficient at reading and writing it now. It also reminds me of a film I watched a few years ago, called Ten Years. It’s composed of five short films, the second one, Dialect, is the one that I’m referencing. The last time I checked, this film is banned in most parts of China, and I don’t believe it’s on any major streaming sites anymore. I managed to catch it on Netflix a few years ago, and I think about it frequently.
Here’s the synopsis of Dialect, which I copied from Wikipedia.
As the government enacts laws limiting operating areas of non-Mandarin-speaking taxi drivers, a Cantonese-speaking driver (Leung Kin-ping) finds himself marginalised as he fails to pass the national Mandarin proficiency test. The driver’s wife instructs him to stop using Cantonese with their son, Kongson, so that the boy will do better at his Mandarin medium of instruction school. A series of vignettes further illustrate the increasing dominance of Mandarin and Leung’s struggle adjusting. He is unable to make himself understood by his Mandarin GPS unit and is ridiculed by a passenger for it. Two Mandarin-speaking fares opt to take another cab when they realise he cannot speak the language. One of his passengers, an office lady (Catherine Chau), is fired from her job for failing to clearly explain something to a client in Mandarin.
The film alludes to a 2003 real-world proposal by the Transport Department that failed, as well as a regulation introduced in Wuhan. In Mainland China, Mandarin (a.k.a. Putonghua) is promoted as a national language, and legislation such as the Guangdong National Language Regulations restricts the use of Cantonese and all other varieties of Chinese. The name Dialect comes from the fact that the Mainland government refers to Cantonese as a dialect despite the fact that it is mutually unintelligible with Mandarin. The short was directed by Jevons Au Man-kit, a graduate of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, who said that the taxi driver’s plight was influenced by his own struggles to write scripts in Mandarin in an increasingly Mainland-oriented Hong Kong film sector.
So there you have it, friends! A little ‘annotate with me’ post, Babel edition! If you’re curious about my annotation supplies, check out this post here, and if you’d like to follow me on more annotation journeys, you can do so by following my bookstagram here!
