Babel – R. F. Kuang

Thoughts: Babel was an apt recommendation by my friend Anika; I found it really compelling. I appreciated the way that languages and linguistics were so integral to the plot and the worldbuilding. I wasn’t on board, however, with what seems to be one of the book’s implicit theses—that positive change and/or meaningful reform are only possible through violence, and especially violent revolution.

The book fills a neat niche between fantasy and historical fiction (it’s set in Oxford during the run-up to the first Opium War, near the height of British colonial expansion). This genre, this time period, languages and translation—if one or more of these interest you, Babel would be worth checking out.

(The notes below are not a summary of the book, but rather raw notes - whatever I thought, at the time, might be worth remembering. I read this as an e-book, so page numbers are as they appeared in the app I used, Libby.)

Kuang, R. F. 2022. Babel. HarperCollins.

• 190: Prof. Playfair: “When we say a word is untranslatable, we mean that it lacks a precise equivalent in another language. Even if its meaning can be partially captured in several words or sentences, something is still lost—something that falls into semantic gaps which are, of course, created by cultural differences in lived experience.”
• 605: “For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made [Robin] laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French that could bully and absorb enough to become one.” I found this baffling. Placed at the plot’s climax, I gather this is meant to be some profound revelation. But up until this point in the story, I wouldn’t have ascribed this view to any of the scholars at Babel, least of all Robin. If I read the book again, am I meant to view the story’s events in a new light, in the knowledge that Robin held this belief?