The first book that I read by R.F. Kuang was Yellowface. It was an easy-to-read, straightforward book that kept me warily eager to read more (wary because of the dividing nature of the protagonist, something that I hadn’t come across before). That book offered a great insight into the publishing world (of which I am very interested!). With this in mind, I expected the same writing style going into Babel, as all that I knew of the book was that it was about dark academia.

I couldn’t have been more wrong and the book couldn’t have been more different!

Yellowface was a breeze for me to read. By comparison Babel took a lot longer to get through, not only because the book itself was more extensive, but because the material was a dense blend of fantasy, historical fiction, and nonfiction. Though I maybe shouldn’t have been surprised considering that the full title of the book was ‘Babel, or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of Oxford Translators’ Revolution‘!

The story follows Robin Swift after the tragic death of his family to plague. He is taken from his home country of China and brought to London by the stranger, Professor Lovell. There, he continues to practice Chinese and also trains in Latin and Ancient Greek, all to prepare for the day that he will enroll into the prestigious Royal Institute of Translation at the famous Oxford University. Otherwise known as Babel, the institute is at the heart of the world’s translation work and is also most notably the centre of the world’s silver-working, which is how the rich make magic.

I have never read anything like Babel before, so I found the story incredibly unique and new, something that I feel has been a bit lacking lately in some of the books that I’ve picked up. It was written so well and in such a way that, at times, I found myself questioning known history! Which is silly, because then magic would be, or would have been, real – which would be brilliant.

Talking about the writing, it was very detailed and very technical and at times I felt as though I was reading a published essay more than a fictional story, which I actually found I enjoyed because of the challenge that it presented. This nonfiction feel definitely came across whenever Kuang used the footnotes throughout the story to emphasise a point.

Maybe a complaint I could make is that the footnotes became a bit too worn or were ill-fitting at times. For example, when the footnotes were used as a window into a character’s mind, which never failed to take me out of the story. I felt like these details should have been kept in the main body of text and only notes about language and history should have been added to the footnotes. But this is quite a small nitpick of mine and it didn’t really get in the way of me enjoying the writing because everything else was just so good!

I hadn’t seen Kuang write like this before and I didn’t know that she could – coming from Yellowface – but I really loved what I was reading: the text was rich in detail and description, just as I like it. Some paragraphs were very, very concentrated and almost lecture-like in their delivery, and I liked the challenge. The themes of language and education, family and love, home and belonging, betrayal and racism were all discussed with a ruthless care and attention to detail that I beyond appreciated because it all just seemed so well planned out and executed. I felt like I was reading a good book.

Everything was tied together so well that, as the story progressed, I as an audience member could see only one outcome for the characters and for the institution of Babel. And I think that when your reader can piece together things by themselves without being told what will happen when – and piece things together accurately! – well, I personally think that you’ve done something right! I really do enjoy it when, as the reader, it becomes our job to try and unravel everything!

It was easy to be swept up in the story and I’d often sit down to read just a few pages and come to realise a lot later that more time had passed than I had realised. Kuang never failed to make her story and the world of Babel incredibly immersive and I always wanted to know what was going to happen next.

I found the book to be very intelligent and ambitious and I often caught myself wondering just how much time, effort and research, had gone into producing it because finishing the book had me feeling as though I’d just completed an entire university course.

I know Kuang has the Poppy War books, and more coming out, and I’m eager to see how they differ to Yellowface and Babel respectively. I’m really keen, as well, to see if I can see the growth and development in her writing, too, when I do go back to her earlier works: maybe I’ll be able to see in that past writing the beginning of ideas for Babel!