The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: Babel
Author: R. F. Kuang
Published: September 2022
Genre: Dark Academia
Themes: Colonisation, racism, classism.

One sentence summary: Babel is an intense novel but that shouldn’t put you off, it’s deep, layered and clever in it’s execution.

One sentence review: Truly fascinating novel and I would definitely recommend it. 

Review:

Set in 1836 Oxford, Babel follows student Robin through his studies of translation. Taken from his home in Canton at young age, he’s trained in languages until he’s of university age. His university experience and the path he takes is not one he could ever comprehend, and then the ropes start unravelling and the ugly side of Babel is revealed.

This was absolutely a tale of two halves: the first of mystery, intrigue and quiet suspicion and suspense, while the second half was an absolute fever dream of a book and I’m still not sure what I’ve read.

With rooted themes of colonialism, racism and classism amongst others, Babel is an intense novel but that shouldn’t put you off. It’s deep and it’s layered and as the story progresses it keeps giving you snippets that become relevant later. Kuang is one of the literary greats, no discussion needed.

Let me touch on the characters briefly – there are going to be some you fall in love and root for right from the beginning, some that are going to break your heart through no actions of their own and then there’s the downright awful. We’ve spirits broken manipulated and blinded by colonialism, we’ve got white fragility and all its horrors that it brings, it’s all here in these deeply complex and traumatic childhoods some of the characters follow.

Let me give you some of my favourite quotes:

“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes.”

“And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods.”

“the oppressor would never sit down at the negotiating table when they still thought they had nothing to lose”

It’s a truly fascinating novel and I would definitely recommend it. 

If reading more is something that you’re looking at doing this year then should check my reading challenge out here! Read nine books from nine prompts over the first six months of the year and be entered into a draw to win a bundle of bookish goodies.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here.

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 24/02/2025