Babel

Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution

De: R. F. Kuang

Narrado por: Chris Lew Kum Hoi, Billie Fulford-Brown

From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 R. F. Kuang (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

Fantastic

Really enjoyed this story, and loved hearing the different etymologies. There was never any slow moments, things are paced really well. Like others have said, the performance is great, but the editing is sloppily done in places. it's clear where some clips were spliced in. I got used to it though, and overall didn't distract too much for me.

Bigotry is bad….over and over and over

The authors opinions (at time story takes place) of bigotry/victimization, superseded the plot development.
The constant beating of the (time periods) racism-drum was a failure to launch for me.

When it started, I empathized. Took stock/root in the protagonist’s challenges and started our journey. But I just got tired of hearing the about the periods injustices, by way of the English or the University. Yes, I get it. Arrogant, racist behavior. But I wanted story too.

Ambitious Success

In Babel, the author undertook an astonishing complex task — to write a fascinating novel with credible, flawed but accessible characters, in an alternative history setting in which the industrial revolution is fueled by silver and by the energy created by the transitions (continuities and discontinuities) of meaning among cognates of words in different languages. The book is an able critique of capitalism, slavery in its many forms, and tribalism. Kuang demonstrates a deep familiarity with nineteenth century Oxford, with linguistics, and with the mechanics of the industrial revolution and its reformer critics, and with individual human motivations and goals. The book is a stunning success on all these levels.
It was moving to hear Chinese words pronounced authentically (I think) with tonal stresses. For me, this underlined the complexities and contradictions within the protagonist.
From this book, I take away lessons about motivations and rationalizations, imperialism, the costs and benefits of capitalism and the challenges to cross-cultural communication. The story is wonderful, and its observations are applicable in the real world as well.

excellent! I hope all will read it!

I thought that this book was excellent and it's the second book that I've read by this author. I read her book yellow face and it made me immediately want to come and read other works. it's a stunning and at times extremely emotional and sometimes challenging to wrestle with some of the topics, but I loved it and I can't wait to read more from her

Intro was great but struggled

The promising intro had me hooked but the book droned on and meandered. The author's points felt sledgehammered yet still not entirely convincing.

Not quite a hit

The author is an extremely talented writer. There were many beautiful lines and the book was narrated well. However, the sorry fell a little flat to me.

Simply Meh…

I love other books by this author, but I only finished this one because I wanted to see if it got any better at some point.

So much to say.

I initially wrote a review when I was half way through (same rating) and focused on so many points that I barely feel connected to anymore. The boom evolves so well that the things I very much connected with initially now seem inconsequential. It’s safe to say that this book gets better the more you read it. And the end was very good.

I felt curious, intellectual, nostalgic, smug, nervous, angry, heartbroken, relieved, impressed, and dozens of other words from beginning to end. Rebecca is an amazing author.

I am docking a single point for the narrator redoing words that he clearly mispronounced and had to re-record. It’s not bad, mostly entertaining, but it happened quite a bit. Not annoying really.

Also I saw another review disparaging the footnotes being read aloud, but I didn’t find it bad at all. They weren’t even that frequent

Astounding

Beautifully written and unapologetically honest. Wonderful narration, amazing lessons in etymology, history, and an unforgettable ending. 5 stars.

Holy balls

Wow y’all Just wow. When I first started this book I was like yeah sure whatever. It’s a little slow but I’ll give it a chance. And you know what? It’s a bit of a slow burn at the beginning. But then something happens and BOOM I was hooked. It’s a beautiful story Ian overwhelmed at how beautiful it was. I loved it. So good. Give it a chance. Hope this helps.
The narrator did a great job. It seemed they had to fix some words here in there in post production but other then that I enjoyed it.