Award-winning author R.F. Kuang's latest novel, 'Babel', is what some might consider a daunting undertaking - at 560 pages it is, after all, much like the eponymous Biblical tower: mighty and many-layered - but this modern-day masterclass in magical realism is well worth every hour of invested reading time.
It begins as the tale of the newly orphaned Robin Swift, 'rescued' from his home in Canton by an elusive, morally dubious professor and thrust into a life of academia in Regency Era England. Although torn from familiarity and country, we see Robin begin to develop a place for himself in Britain, establishing a life and a found-family in the form of his Oxford University classmates Rami, Victoire and Lettie.
Yet over this budding coming-of-age journey there looms an ominous shadow, a great and faceless power that seizes control of our protagonist's once simple narrative: Babel. This fictional institution of translation - to which the novel owes its name - is the pinnacle of linguistic education in Kuang's alternate nineteenth-century, tracing and wielding the origins, meanings, and power of language for the sake of study and innovation. The realities of Babel's influence, however, and in particular its proud tradition of silver working, become increasingly apparent as Robin's story progresses: irrevocably intertwined with the school's identity is the notion of control, of bought and sold influence and of national supremacy with direct connection to the horrors of the British Empire. Robin and his friends must decide: will they stand against this authoritarian enemy, at the cost of all they have worked for, or will they remain complicit?
In this immaculately crafted and painstakingly well-researched work, Kuang captures the complex and often symbiotic relationship between academia and imperialism with marked intelligence, deftly treading the line between deeply human and intellectually brilliant storytelling. An absolute must-read for those who enjoy the work of V.E. Schwab, Susanna Clarke and Erin Morgenstern.
Rach
