Babel, or The Necessity of Violence

Pretty great.

‘“...in the Bible, God split mankind apart. And I wonder if the purpose of translation, then, is to bring mankind back together. If we translate to bring about that paradise again, on earth, between nations.”
“Well, of course. Such is the project of empire - and why, therefore, we translate at the pleasure of the Crown.”'

It's 1828, the height of the British Empire, and after cholera sweeps through his home Robin, a young boy from Canton, is brought to England and raised by an inscrutable Professor to prepare him for study at the Royal Institute of Translation, a.k.a Babel, at the University of Oxford. Babel is also the heart of silver-working, magic through translation, and provides the British Empire with the ultimate power to continue gaining its wealth and influence.

In many ways this book is a subversion of all those coming of age Victorian novels. Think Dickens, David Copperfield or Great Expections, the story of a young man raised from nothing in order to become a good English gentleman, serve his Queen, Country and Empire. But how does one do that when you're not welcome in the first place? Robin is Chinese, losing his connection to his mother tongue of Cantonese, and struggles reconciling the parts of himself moulded for this very specific purpose and the parts of him that are, for all intents and purposes, seen as an irrevocable contradiction to what a perfect English gentleman should be. Once studying in Babel, he is joined by easygoing Ramy, a practicing Muslim brought from Calcutta to be raised by his family's employer in England. Letty is the overbearing daughter of a retired admiral and is desperate and grateful for this education after being raised for marriage. And Victoire, a Haitian woman forced into navigating Oxford (and Letty) with patience despite being continuously mistaken for Letty's maid alongside other aggressions “small” and large. With the exception of Letty, the three are brought for Babel due to their fluency in ‘exotic' languages, as it is believed that lesser studied languages are an untapped potential power. And thusly, can become yet another tool in the arsenal of Empire.

Then, Robin is approached by the mysterious Hermes Society, a group dedicated to undermining Babel from the inside.

A step up from The Poppy War trilogy in every way. Problems I had there including somewhat flat characters, bland prose are all improved upon here. There were plot “twists” that were plenty obvious, sure. Anachronisms can be a bother. Nevertheless, it's ultimately satisfying.

Mostly, I enjoyed the explorations of language, etymology and translation. Although not in any capacity that's fluent, I do have experience in studying languages/translation right up through college until the end of University and it's a subject I've always been super interested in, especially the meanings that can slip through the cracks. Translation is incredibly difficult. So few people understand that no translation is ever fully accurate. This novel explicitly discusses this fact in detail and how through translation knowingly or not, we can't help but change meaning and implications. I've not really seen a book, much less fantasy book, go into this level of detail on the subject.

The book is also unavoidably and unashamedly about the violence of colonialism, and the harm it not only does to the peoples' of colonised countries on a grand scale but equally what happens to the individuals who are taken from there, are expected to assimilate, and then be grateful.

Definitely recommended. Will probably be my favourite new fantasy novel of the year.