I’m trying to find any redeemable qualities that make me feel better for the time I spent reading it. I could have put it down, but the raving reviews made me think that it would get better.
It didn’t.
I loathed it. With passion.
I loved it. Loved the historical setting and its exploration of racism, imperialism, capitalist exploitation at that time and place with the perspectives of diverse characters.
I already enjoy linguistics and learning languages, so I may be biased towards already liking the premise of the novel. (And dark academia is totally up my alley.) The way the author explores the nature of language and how certain parts of ideas always get lost in translation was pretty cool; and using that as a form of magic (that could then be exploited only from native speakers of the language no less) was so cleverly done.
Add in the character conflicts between the four friends, a campus strike, and working class solidarity (with a dash of “be gay do crime”)… I was hooked.
I read and enjoyed it but it was definitely very “hit you over the head” on imperialism/colonialism, and the ending was kind of predictable.
The Poppy War trilogy, however, I am nearly finished with and I have absolutely loved. It is raw, honest, unpredictable, and very well written. Also long af.
I liked poppy wars but it was a bit too relentlessly nihilist for me. I thought Babel was, if anything, better balanced in terms of presenting empire as a system where people who are not inherently out to harm others end up doing so anyway.
I read it, and I really enjoyed it. I will give a few reasons.
There are tons of spoilers here, by the way, you were warned.
References to the themes the work relates to including some specific events.
- Focus on language. The entire conceit of translation means there’s lots of careful language in the book, which I enjoy reading.
- Theme. There are two major themes I can see that I enjoyed: on one hand, the theme of imperialism, with the British Empire making use of its power to oppress people abroad. This is certainly central. On the other hand, the operation of empire doesn’t even help most British people themselves, hence the uprising. These themes are interesting to me.
- Subthemes. But there are a lot of subthemes, issue that make you think when reading the book. Just a couple of examples: brain drain, the way translators are plucked off their societies to serve empire; the interaction of relative privilege with relative oppression, in the way that the foreign-looking translators get treated at the party; the notion of language itself as an exploitable resource (more relevant in connection to AI and the use and exploitation of corpora); the weaknesses of imperial centralisation, which could also be a critique of the cloud (the way the silver bars are connected to teach other); and the whole thorny issue of white feminism, which is very sharply demonstrated by one particular character.
I also think there are very poignant situations in the book: the two brothers at odds, the reluctance to violence, the scene where the professor beats his pupil, the attempt to follow Muslim ethics and law while having to handle practical reality…
So in short, it was one of my favourite books in the last few years. It also illuminates the opium wars in a way that hasn’t often been done before.
