Book Review: “Babel” by R. F Kuang

Babel by R. F Kuang

I haven’t read Kuang’s earlier novels, but I gather they are tales of a fantasy version of Chinese history 200 years ago.  Babel is a similar historically set fantasy, centered on Oxford University, but also involving the British Empire, including the infamous Opium War with China. 

Kuang also imagines an interesting magical technology that evokes our contemporary ubiquitous digital technology.  The technology deeply involves the meaning of language and translation, which we assume Kuang knows a lot about. Oxford is the epicenter of this technology and the entire political economy of the British Empire.

From the author’s notes, we know that Kuang completed study at Oxford, in languages, no less.  So this tale of overseas students studying languages at Oxford is founded in autobiography.  And it shows.  Kuang captures the experience of advanced study at Oxford, including complex emotions.  The students love the place and work and each other, even though they face racism and what amounts to very luxurious slavery.

This book has been getting a lot of favorable comment, some of which surely comes from the political ideas and rendition of the real history of Oxford and the British Empire.  I’m sure this book is loathed by anti-Woke crusaders, because it (accurately) depicts the deeply racist and every other kind of -ist history of Oxford (and, by implication your favorite university).  It would be very surprising if Kuang herself hasn’t experienced gentile racism at Oxford in this century, too.

Her main characters are students from China, India and elsewhere.  These highly talented children were “adopted” by wealthy Brits, kidnapped relocated to Britain, and (literally) groomed for academic greatness. 

At Oxford they are treated as highly valuable resources, and expected to be grateful for the opportunity.  “Gratitude” includes doing what ever is demanded in the interests of British imperialism and capitalism.  Failure or disobedience will result in exile into poverty, if not worse.

Very woke stuff.

No one would care about this book if this were a simple political rant.  It isn’t. 

The characters have very realistic conflicted emotions.  Oxford is a wonderful place in real life and in this fantasy world, even if you are degraded and abused every day, and even if it is built on colonial extraction of wealth from the rest of the world, including your birth country.  The youngsters are attracted and repelled to this institution, not to mention the cushy lifestyle.

The story centers around events triggered by the Opium War, which, in this case involved Oxford scholars as translators and diplomats.  And, as it develops, Oxford dons were driving the policies, too; advocating and actively planning the war.

Young Robin Swift, “adopted” out of Canton, ultimately cannot abide this catastrophic attack on the Chinese people, his people.  Events spin out of control, and he ends up at the center of an uprising at Oxford.  Most of the campus rebels are overseas scholars from the colonies or other places. They are joined by British workers, impoverished by the swift concentration of wealth driven by colonialism and technology.

And here we find more nuanced story telling.  The student rebels agree that Oxford is deeply implicated in the colonialism, but it isn’t obvious what should be done.  Some may chose to be grateful and put up with the bad to get the good.  Others want to spread the wealth back to where it ultimately came from, ameliorating the harm and trying to do good and repaying historical debts.  And yet others believe that nothing short of violence will break the will of the powerful. And many will cycle through all these opinions.

Note the subtitle, “The Necessity of Violence”.  (Which, by the way, most contemporary “woke-ies” stop far short of. Wokism is mostly fighting about words.)

Anyone who has delved seriously into campus politics recognizes these internal and communal debates.  I’m sure Kuang has experienced contemporary versions of these strategic and tactical. More autobiography.

Which begs the question, “what is Kuang telling us to do?”

In this story, the protagonists come down in a variety of positions, and some ultimately chose to basically blow everything up.  We understand their moral cases, for sure, though the story ends without showing us what results ensued, if any.  What would this fantasy world be without Oxford and Oxford’s wealth and technology?

I can’t really tell if Kuang means to endorse violent mass uprisings, or believes that “blowing up” centers of power and wealth is a good idea or not.   She certainly has her main protagonists argue that sabotage and rioting is morally right and necessary.

Which leads one to wonder if this story is meant as a sort of wish fulfilment for Kuang.  Anyone who has spent a lot of time in academia has a little list of people who really won’t be missed.  If you haven’t imagined burning down this campus office or that building, you have no imagination!  

Does Kuang entertain dark fantasies of blowing at least some of it up?  And, with her obvious talents, has spun a (cathartic?) tale for us all? I don’t know.

Me? I’m not sure I would be comfortable publishing popular fiction that might inspire lethal violence in young readers. (Heck, these days I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of anti-woke uprising on campus, inspired to prevent imagined woke terrorism.)

We should all note that the author’s bio indicates that Kuang is to study at Yale now.  Now there’s a place that should be blown up!  Can we look forward to an equally savage fictional fate for those stuck up so-and-sos?  I hope so.  : – )

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1. R. F Kuang, Babel: An Arcane History, New York, HarperCollins, 2022.

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