Babel: An Arcane History ~ R.F. Kuang

Babel: An Arcane History by R.F. Kuang is a dark academia fantasy novel. In 1828, after being orphaned in Canton by cholera, Robin Swift is brought to London by Professor Lovell. There, Robin is taught Ancient Greek, Latin and Chinese, so that one day, he can enrol in Babel, the prestigious Institute of Translation at Oxford University. Not only is Babel the world’s centre of translation, but is also the world’s centre of silver-working, the art of turning translation into magical effects. Silver-working runs the British Empire, Babel being the power behind the colonisation. Robin makes it to Babel and is enchanted by the wonders of Oxford and the friends he makes through Babel. As he progresses through his university years, Robin comes across the Hermes Society, an organisation trying to topple Babel’s silver working and the power that knowledge brings. When Britain decides to pursue an unjust war against China, Robin must decide between trying to bring Babel down within or a violent revolution.

I essentially pre-ordered this book through my library and ended up waiting quite a while for it to be available to read. During that time, I watched how the hype around this book grew and grew. I was so excited to read it and yet hesitant that this book which had such an amazing premise, would become another one of those books that bookstagram overhyped. That was not the case, it was amazing. 

This book covers a lot of heavy topics and yet, it doesn’t slow the pace of the story down too much. I did find that going to sleep after reading was a little hard as my mind was whirring a little too much, but I was enjoying it enough that I was very willing to sacrifice some sleep in order to read more. 

It was very easy to forget the fantasy element in this novel was actually fantasy. The silver-working and the magic that came with that was so embedded in the story that despite knowing a bit about the British Empire and how they colonised half the globe, I was sitting there nodding along, thinking ‘yeah, this makes sense’. 

My only issue with this book was that there were a lot of footnotes. The footnotes gave really interesting contextual snippets or tidbits about the history of the words. I enjoyed the expansion of the literature, however, sometimes they were so long that I lost my place on the page. I also found it really difficult to spot the asterisks and had to scan through the page I had read to find which part the footnote was relating to.

Overall, I really recommend this book even to those who are not fantasy lovers. It was so close to a five-star read however, the footnotes annoyed me enough that I couldn’t forgive them. So, I rated Babel: An Arcane History, four-point-seven-five stars. 

C🌙