Review: Babel by R.F. Kuang

RF Kuang's Babel is a dazzling and ambitious speculative fiction about history and etymology. Robin Swift is orphaned in Canton and brought to England as the ward of a man that he knows (but never dares say,) is his biological father. After years of study, he is given a place at Oxford to study at Babel, a tower in the centre of the institution from which the power of all of the British Empire flows. He soon discover that many kinds of sinister forces exist and eventually, he and his classmates discover that they have to find a way to stand up for what is right ...

While this novel has received much acclaim across the globe, my own feelings are mixed. The plot is somewhat tedious in the first half of the novel and the second, while much more exciting, does not always properly address what was set up in the first half. I found the death of Professor Lovell and subsequent cover up to be quite gripping and it certainly sets up the second half of the novel, but I felt that the characters became somewhat simplistic, sorted into who was moral and who was not, with no grey areas in between. For example, it would have been far more interesting to see Professor Lovell being more torn over his actions before his death, instead of being presented as a caricature who was incapable of feeling love for his sons. The only character I felt had any complexity was Victoire. The ending is fitting and I found myself staying up well into the night to see how it would all play out.

An imperfect, but highly readable novel that was written for all of the right reasons.