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Review: Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by RF Kuang

Book 15 of 2022

Start Reading Time: 22 September 2022

Finish reading Time: 7 October 2022

Page Count: 545 pages

TRIGGER WARNINGS: COLONIZATION, VIOLENCE, DEATH, BLOOD, MURDER, SUICIDE, RACISM, MISOGYNY

This is the spoiler-free part of the review. I will put up a spoiler alert before going into the review that contains spoilers.

Hello there! If you've been reading this blog for a while, you must have already know that I'm a die hard RF Kuang stan, since I seem to be unable to stop babbling (pun intended) on and on about The Poppy War (I'm serious, it seems that I mention TPW in every other book review in this blog). I mean, If there's anything you need to know about me, and if we're meeting for the very first time, I will tell you that:

I love books that make me cry,

RF Kuang is one of my favorite authors of all time, and

The Poppy War is the best trilogy ever written

My obsession with TPW is borderline concerning. I mean, I created a whole ass Spotify playlist for this trilogy, consisting of songs dedicated to each of TPW characters, I had daydreams about the TV series adaptation of it, who would play who, what the soundtracks and theme songs would be, etc. I'm telling you, it's kinda creepy how much I think of this book series, that's how obsessed I was with it, and still am.

I also have to mention that this trilogy is what kick-started my book review career. Because I started chronicling my reactions while reading the 1st book in this series with my Instagram stories. I have all of my breakdowns, highs and lows while reading The Poppy War captured and published on my IG stories, and now it's all been well documented in my IG stories' archive, and I am so glad for that. Because you very rarely get to really re-experience that special moment when you found something or someone so special that will stay with you for the rest of your life (I mean how many people have documented the exact moment they fell in love with the love of their lives? Well maybe the people who go to those reality dating shows, but even The Bachelors and all of its franchises only have so few lasting marriages). But I have those IG stories that have perfectly captured that special moment that I can now visit and relive whenever I want to. And from there, I've been making more book contents, which then turned into book reviews, and book ramblings, which then gave birth to this tumblr blog. And here we are now.

I mean, I have always been a book lover ever since I learned to read, I read all the time, and I feel like I have always been overly dramatic. But it took the amazing RF Kuang to ignite my will to publicize all of that to the internet and make it my whole ass personality in the internet, because TPW is just that freaking awesome AND I NEED EVERYONE TO BE AS OBSESSED WITH IT AS I AM. I have by now influenced a few people to read The Poppy War and got them to be obsessed with it and turned them into raging RF Kuang's stans like myself (you're welcome, guys 😉).

Having stated all of that, for me to say that this review will be unbiased, would be a big fucking lie. And I appreciate you and the time you're taking out of your day to read this review too much to lie to you about it.

I do have some criticisms about this book, but I started reading this book already knowing that I will like it, because it's RF Kuang's book, and it just checks all of the boxes in terms of the things I like to read about. I just simply can NOT make an unbiased review of Babel, when RF Kuang has impacted my life so much in the last 2 years, and I have been waiting for this book since the end of 2020, after I finished The Burning God. I had been digitally stalking RF Kuang, from which I first heard about this book. I saw every one of her Instagram posts, watched almost all of her Instagram lives, read her tweets, listened to every podcast episodes, watched every Youtube videos, and read every blog posts, articles and interviews she had ever been in and/or made herself. Every time she mentions any updates regarding this book before its release date, my anticipation grows bigger, because with every update she gives, the book seems to be getting better and better for me personally, like she just keeps hitting all the right spots for me.

I mean, she teased her readers with updates like: it's a dark academia book (oh my God, I'm obsessed with dark academia), but also a historical-fantasy book (fuck yeah, after TPW, I need more books of this genre from her), it's inspired by The Secret History by Donna Tartt which is also RF Kuang's favorite book (ARE YOU KIDDING ME, I enjoyed the fuck out of that book, even if I hate the ending, but I fucking love the whole dark academia vibes in it, this book is like the poster child of Dark Academia, and just imagine, a The Secret History-inspired historical-fantasy book written by THE RF Kuang??? At this point, my will to live if only just to be able to read this book went 📈📈📈), and finally when the cover design was published (WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT MASTERPIECE OF A COVER!! LOOK AT HOW FREAKING GORGEOUS IT IS!! LOOK AT ITTT!!!! GOOD GOD, I FELL IN LOVE WITH IT AT FIRST SIGHT, IT LITERALLY GAVE ME GOOSEBUMPS WHEN I FIRST SAW IT).

To say that I was so excited to read this book would be an understatement, as my expectation for it to be the next best thing, and my new obsession since the Poppy War (and Beartown trilogy and Stormlight Archive series and Mistborn trilogy, yes I'm obsessed with a lot of book series), continues to grow. But here's the thing with expectation, people say that it's just premeditated resentments, or that it often leads to disappointment. And so, I was also nervous and scared that Ms. Kuang will fail to deliver with this book what's gotten me so freaking hyped these last two years, and/or that she has lost that particular quality in her writing that has gotten me so in love with her works. I mean, I was sure that I would like it no matter what, but there was a little part of me that's scared that I would have to lie and convince myself into liking it, if the book turns out to be bad.

Now, having read this book, I can safely say, THE BOOK IS ACTUALLY SO FREAKING GOOD. RF Kuang has truly gotten better and better with each book she releases. I mean, DAMN, GIRL. I should have never doubted her. But then again, I have trust issues, so that might be why.

I didn't know what I was expecting this book to be like, but whatever it is, this book exceeded it all, and more. I'd forgotten what it feels like reading Rebecca's writing after 2 whole years without reading her books, but this book reminded me of how masterful Rebecca is of her craft and she had improved so much since The Burning God. I mean, the prose is just so freaking good (you'll see from the quotes I include in this review), the magic system is one of the most brilliant I have ever read so far, the thorough research she'd done is obvious, and she efficiently utilized the footnote feature of the book (which I absolutely love, it makes the whole dark academia vibe even more apparent). And what's more, she perfectly captures the ✨Dark Academia vibes✨ and she successfully transported me to 1830's Oxford, and got me to fall madly in love with the awesome foursome that is Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty but then broke my heart into million pieces in the latter chapters. Oh, also, let's not forget one of the main reasons why I love Rebecca's writing so freaking much: nobody, and I mean, NOBODY writes rage, angst and fury so raw and beautifully like Rebecca. That shit is just 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻.

Also, I have not yet read anything to represent my frustrations about racism quite like her writing, she just eloquently puts to words all of these frustrations and desperation and make it into something a lot of people can understand, relate to and sympathize with.

Once again, Rebecca tackles such a heavy, intense and important topic such as the one in this book, with such care and thoughtfulness that I'm sure the readers, like me, will be left deep in thoughts, to question and reevaluate all of the values they have ever held. I'm hopeful that this book will definitely spark important discussions regarding the impacts of colonialism in our education, and our languages, also regarding white privilege and racism in the academic sphere, among other important topics.

And once again, Ms. RF Kuang has given me a new obsession in life, new characters to daydream about and make a new Spotify playlist for, and for that I'm so grateful. My biggest complaint of this book is that it's a standalone book and it's only 545 pages long, and even though I tried to prolong the reading time to make it last longer, I still finished it in only 2 weeks' time, I mean, if you're gonna give us a standalone book this good, couldn't you at least pull a Brandon Sanderson and make it 1000+ pages at least, for God's sake but it's fine, whatever.

Nope, I lied, it is NOT okay. The truth is I WISH THERE WERE MORE OF THIS STORY TO READ, BECAUSE I NEED SO MUCH MORE OF IT. Just give me one more book about Babel and I will die happy. But, you know what, I'm glad that at least her 5th book, Yellowface, will soon be published too, so I don't have to wait so long to read more of her work. One simply does not NOT crave more of RF Kuang's books after having read any of her previous books, it has now become sort of an addiction for me. Even now, I'm still in a sort of book hangover from it. Other readers who had finished reading this book, please tell me how to move on from this book, because it has been a week and I can't even start to read a new book because my mind keeps lingering on Robin, Victoire, Letty, and Ramy (oh my God, Ramy, my dearest, most brilliantly clever and funny and charming Ramy 😭).

That's enough dramatic babbling from me, now let me give you a not so brief synopsis of this book.

In 1829, the plague that later became known as Asiatic Cholera came to Canton, China, and took many lives. A little boy watched his mother die in front of him, while he himself was helpless, unable to help his mother in any way because he also caught the sickness and is in critical condition. He's the only one left alive in his house. Just when he thought he's about to die, a mysterious man he didn't recognize came and kicked down the door to the boy's house and found him lying on the bed beside his mother's lifeless body. The boy thought the man came to reap his soul. But then, the man put a silver bar on the boy's bare chest, and spoke two words: Triacle (French)/Treacle (English). The bar then glows white, and there's an eerie sound from nowhere, like a singing or a ringing. The boy whined and curled to his side, the man told him to bear with it and to swallow what's in his mouth. The boy does as he's told, and says that it tasted so sweet. The man says that it's good and that it's working, and he puts the bar back into his pocket. Seconds later, the boy's breathing steadied, and he could see the man's face clearly. He's a white foreigner man whom the boy has never seen before.

The man has healed the boy with his silver bar and magic. The man asks if there's anyone else still alive, to which the boy says there's no one else, and the man asks if there's anything the boy can't leave behind. The boy wanted to take his mother's body with him, but the man said he couldn't take her body. So, the boy said his books, and the man took the books and the boy, and they left the boy's place.

The man informed the boy that he wants to take the boy as his ward, provides him with a comfortable life in England, and all he asks the boy to do in return is to focus on his study and to study hard, because eventually the boy will be studying languages in the Royal Institute of Translation, in Oxford, where the man teaches. The man is Professor Richard Lovell, an Oxford professor, teaching languages in Babel, with a particular interest in Mandarin. The boy agreed to his proposal, thinking he has no family left in Canton and a life in England seems so much better than living a lonely life as a street urchin in Canton.

Prof. Lovell told him to pick an English name since no one in England will be able to pronounce his Chinese name. Inspired by his favorite book and its author, the boy picks the name Robin Swift.

Robin is bilingual, fluent in English and Mandarin, and his Cantonese is passably good. The boy had received parcels of books written in English twice a year since he turned 4 years old, and an English woman named Miss Elizabeth Slate, whom the boy had called Miss Betty, had lived with his household for as long as he could remember, and she taught him how to read and speak in English. The boy realizes Prof. Lovell was the one who sent the books and hired Miss Betty, though he doesn't know why he did all of that. When the Professor tested him with a silver bar with two engravings on it: one in English and one in Chinese, Robin was able to make the silver bar hum and work its magic on him. He has passed Prof. Lovell's test, and that's why he wanted to take Robin as his ward.

In England, Robin was set up to study Latin with Mr. Felton and Greek with Mr. Chester almost immediately, so he could catch up with his peers. He's also set up to study Mandarin with Prof. Lovell. There's a bookshelf full of books, the kinds that Robin likes. When Prof. Lovell was away for weeks in Oxford, Robin went to London and traveled by himself and read everything, even things he didn't understand. He learns the origins of some words and rhyming components of some of the names and words, he even comes up with some of his own. Mrs. Piper, the housekeeper, cooks him so many delicious foods that he has never eaten before.

He's enjoying his new life in England. But one day, he'd lost track of time while reading the new adventure book that Prof. Lovel bought him, he didn't notice that Mr. Chester had been waiting for 1 hour for him. Prof. Lovell comes home to this and immediately confronts Robin who's startled. Robin was about to go see Mr. Chester when Lovell suddenly punches him on the side of the face, thrusting him down to the ground. The Professor then beats him on the side of his torso with the poker from the fireplace. Robin was too stunned to even cry, and Lovell said that it's good that he didn't cry when he got hit. Lovell threatens to send Robin back to Canton where he doesn't have any family, or know anyone, or have any money to support himself, and that he won't get the same opportunities he had in England, nor go to Oxford. Lovell made Robin choose, whether to study hard as they agreed that day back in Canton, so he can stay in England and go to Oxford, or go back to Canton where he'll live and die alone. Robin chooses to stay. This satisfies Lovell, and he tells Robin to go downstairs to begin his study with Mr. Chester that day. Robin does as he's told, while still reeling from the pain on his face and torso. The next day, Lovell acts as if nothing had happened.

One night, after Robin crashed one of Prof. Lovell's gatherings with some of his friends, one of them had remarked on how Robin looks more like Prof. Lovell than the previous one, which sparked confusion in Robin's mind. Does he really look like the Professor? He always knew that his hair and eye colors were a softer shade of brown than the indigo-black that the rest of his family have, but he never even thought that he might not be full-blooded Chinese. Is the Professor his biological father? But why didn't he claim him as his son, but as a ward instead? However, in the end, Robin decided to never confront the Professor about this, as he's too scared to lose his comfortable life in England and lose his chances to study in Oxford.

Finally, the day came when Robin finally went to Oxford as a proper student. While he's studying there, he will be living in a lodging located in Number 4, Magpie Lane. He said his awkward farewell to Prof. Lovell, and meets his first new friend, a charming young man named Ramiz Rafi Mirza, or Ramy for short. He's a Muslim and is from Calcutta, India, and just like Robin, he came to England as a ward of a rich English man. He had left the rest of his family back in Calcutta. Robin felt an immediate connection to Ramy as they have so many things in common. Robin really likes Ramy, and he realizes that he wants to impress Ramy, and Ramy seems to like him back, as he already lovingly gave Robin a nickname of "Birdie". Robin realizes he will make a life there with Ramy, living close to him, and he thinks it wouldn't be so bad.

Robin and Ramy gleefully explore Oxford together as the classes won't start until a few days later. The night before their first day of classes, Ramy left his important notebook in the Bodleian. Robin offered to get it himself, as Ramy almost got into a fight earlier when a group of drunk racist Oxford students confronted Ramy. Robin suggested Ramy go back to their lodgings ahead and he'll return there as soon as he'd retrieved Ramy's notebook. However, just when Robin was leaving the Bodleian after he found Ramy's notebook, in the middle of Holywell Street, he heard a voice furiously saying something in Mandarin, which attracted Robin's attention. Robin then found out the voice belongs to someone who looks almost identical to himself, and there are also two other people with the guy who looks like him. Robin finally realizes that they're actually thieves, as they were struggling with a trunk filled with silver bars, and they were running away and hiding from the constable, who's looking for those thieves. Robin's doppelgänger begged for him to help them and Robin put his hand on the silver bar and said "Wúxíng", which is the word that his doppelgänger has been trying desperately to say, and then "Invisible". Then, the four of them became invisible, and the constable couldn't see them and went to look somewhere else. Robin then threw the bar away and the four of them re-materialized back into the physical world. The three thieves left hurriedly after gathering the scattered silver bars on the ground, and Robin's doppelgänger tells Robin to find him in The Twisted Root. Robin was so shocked, overwhelmed and confused by the whole thing, he's terrified because he had assisted in the theft of silver bars, which is a very serious criminal offence. Robin didn't tell Ramy about it when he got back to his lodging.

The next day, Robin and Ramy meet the other two people in their class, two girls named Victoire Desgraves and Letitia Price. Victoire is Haitian, she speaks French and Kreyòl, and English with a faint french accent. Letitia, or Letty, is English, born and raised in Brighton, England, she speaks French and German, and is an admiral’s daughter. Robin and Ramy were so shocked that their classmates are girls, and they acted awkwardly at first towards the girls, but the four of them would soon hit it off. An older student named Anthony then came and took them for the tour of Babel, the tower where they'll be studying in for the foreseeable future, and if they work hard and are lucky enough, one day they'll be working in it, too.

After their classes for the day, Robin and Ramy walked the girls back to their lodgings that's located outside of the college area, which is pretty far from the tower, due to the fear of the girls corrupting the boy students. Victoire casually mentions that there's a pub called Twisted Roots near their lodging. Robin remembered that name, as it was the name of the place his doppelganger told him to go to meet him, so he asks her where it is, and Victoire gives him the location of the pub. After Robin and Ramy said goodbye to the girls, Robin lied to Ramy about going to Prof. Lovell's house in Jericho, which is closer to the girls' lodgings, to visit the Professor and Mrs. Piper, and told Ramy to go back first, and Ramy does as requested.

Robin met his doppelgänger in the pub, and demanded information regarding who he is, and why they look alike, and why he's stealing silver bars. What his doppelgänger told him and the proposal he gave Robin that evening lay the foundations for the events that will unfold during Robin's years in Oxford.

Family drama, secret societies, betrayal, power struggle, violence. Babel is the tallest and safest building in England, guarding the knowledge the people working in it has collected from all over the world, and the magic that's keeping the British empire together. But it's going to be brought down by the very people it has enslaved to enrich itself. Revolution looms ahead for the British Empire.

🚨SPOILER ALERT🚨

From this point forward in the review, I will mention spoilers, plot twist and the ending. So, if you don’t wish to be spoiled, you can skip the rest of the review and come back to this review once you’ve finished reading this book.

There are so many things I love in this book, but here are the very best things about it for me:

THE FRIENDSHIP. There are so many things I love about this book, but the one thing I love the most would definitely be the friendship between Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty. I don't even know how to even begin to to tell you about my love for their friendship. I feel like I always mention in every book review of the books that have some kind of friendship between the characters in it, that I found the friendship to be the best thing about the book. Because I think that friendships are such a magical thing, and this book, through the bond of friendship of Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty, just reminded me how true that is. As Hanya Yanagihara brilliantly wrote in A Little Life, "Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?” I find one of the most magical things in this book is that these four individuals, who were born and raised in such vastly different cultures, thousands of miles away from each other, could find their ways into each other's lives and become such an irreplaceable part in them. How many people can say, "I would die for you," to you and you believe them 100%? And this person has no legal obligations that bind them to you, nor sexually attracted to you, nor has any genetic relations with you. This is a whole different separate individual who was raised with different values, rules and principles, yet they still choose to love and care for you, and they choose to be in your life, even though they have no obligation to. If that's not magical, I don't know what is.

This friendship that the four of them have, I feel like it's special among any other friendships that I have read and have come to love in other books, because it feels like they're each other's first loves. It might be because they're all each other has in Oxford, so no wonder they clung to each other like they do in the book. They're became a family, and it's like them VS the world. They were the outcasts, as Oxford at that time is reserved for the education of White Men only, and they find that only each other can truly understand them, and they find peace, happiness and solace in each other, by simply being together. I used to think that I understood how much they must love and care for one another, but I really didn't. Because I never really had that kind of friends, as I am lucky enough to have never got to be in their positions. But RF Kuang has written it so brilliantly that I can feel how much they love and care for one another, it exceeded the bounds of friendship, that at times I feel like they're even more than just friends and lovers, and it made it hurt so much more when the betrayal happened.

The one quote by Fredrik Backman (one of my favorite authors of all time) in Us Against You immediately came to mind when I was sobbing while reading THAT betrayal scene, "The best friends of our childhoods are the loves of our lives, and they break our hearts in worse ways." That quote had never resonated with me more than at this exact moment, with these four characters. I remember hearing in a really great episode of an awesome podcast called Dear Sugars, that the heartbreak from the breakup of a friendship is so much worse than the heartbreak from a breakup of a romantic relationship, because people in romantic relationships breakup all the time (there are millions and millions of breakup songs, and thousands of books about marriage and romantic relationships, but how many songs and books about friendship breakups are there in this world?), but we think that friendships are supposed to last forever, and so the pain that comes with that is soul crushing. People cheat in romantic relationships all the time, but when friends do the act of betrayal, I feel like it's so shocking and disorienting because we almost never see it coming.

But these betrayals do happen, and friendships do breakup often in real life, even to the strongest ones that people thought would and should have lasted a lifetime. I love how RF Kuang depicted the conflicts that often happen in friendships, especially friendships between a group of people with such vastly different backgrounds, because conflicts happen all the time even in friendships between people with similar backgrounds. I felt the frustrations that Robin, Ramy and Victoire felt when they explained to Letty about the racism that they face for the millionth times, and Letty still not getting it, to the very end. How could she love them, as they did her, when she didn't even understand the very present racism that they faced? It hurts, but friends do hurt each other, sometimes.

However, while it lasted, before that betrayal happened, their friendship was so beautiful and magical, it was such a joy to read. I remember my school days and the friends I had from those days. There's something very special in that friendship where we get to be present in each other's lives almost everyday, bearing witness to their highs and lows, and then motivating and cheering them on their long and hard days, and the happiness that's multiplied when we're celebrating each other's successes, or even the mundane everyday dialogues and silences, it's all very precious and special to me, now. But the thing is, I took it for granted when it happened, and now I wish I had cherished those moments more, taken more pictures and videos with them, and made more effort to actually keep in touch with them after those school days are over. And so, I love that scene where they took a group picture of themselves, even though Robin, Ramy and Victoire hated the picture, in the end it's the only remaining proof of their happier days in Oxford.

(art by Kimberly McDonald)

To quote Andy Bernard from The Office, I wish there's a way to know you're in the good old days before you've actually left them. Maybe that's why I love reading about friendships in books. Because maybe, in a way, I'm reliving those days through these characters in their stories, maybe it's my way of making those days last longer and cherishing it, like I should have done back then. So yes, I will always have a soft spot for beautiful friendships in books, and Robin, Ramy, Victoire and Letty's friendship has a special place in my heart.

MY PRECIOUS SON, ROBIN. I think it's fair to say that, at this point in my life, I have read many fantasy books, and I have fallen in love many times with the main characters of those books. But the things is, the main characters of those books are often times described to be a powerful brave knight who's also often times a natural born leader, and even though their initial situation may be tragic and incredibly hard, by the middle to end of the book they will have overcame it all and they heroically lead the fight against evil. Some might say, these are Mary Sue characters. Now Robin Swift, is a very unique main character, and by no means a Mary Sue, in my opinion. He is a scholar, and in no way a fighter, at least in 80% of the book. He literally ran away to avoid a fight, and he was so scared that he would lose an opportunity to study and have a good life in England, that he told his own brother to not involve him with anymore of Hermes business, even though he knew it's the only way he could take a stand against this powerful evil institution that is about to go to war with his home country, China (though he would later learn from his mistakes and rejoin The Hermes Society). All of this is to say, Robin is an unconventional fantasy book heroine, and that is so refreshing and that's one of the reasons I love him so much. Don't get me wrong, him being a scholar and not as heroic as other fantasy book heroines doesn't make him any less interesting or boring, quite the contrary actually, it's so interesting to read about him growing and changing over time as the story progresses. It almost feels like he went from one end of the spectrum to the other end, because even though he was so docile and non confrontational by the beginning of the book, he was so furious and hungry for revenge by the end of the book, but it was written in such a brilliant way that it doesn't feel forced or unnatural for him to change so drastically.

True, in the end, Robin took the charge and led the Babel students' strike against the British government, but there's absolutely no way it's his initial choice of action. Because it took many tragic deaths of some of the most important figures in Robin's lives, and the betrayal of one of the people he loved the most in this world, to get him to finally be so unhinged that he chose violence, and blew up an entire tower, and himself, along with some other willing characters. He was pushed so far beyond his limits, that by the end of the book, he was so unhinged, I even think that Rin from TPW would be impressed by the amount of destruction that Robin caused, and it was so hard to read. It definitely gave me flashbacks to the ending of The Burning God, and knowing Rebecca, I knew for sure by then that Robin will die in the end. Because homegirl simply does not write the easy happy endings, no.

Rebecca writes the hard and heartbreaking endings, because they're the right endings to the stories and the characters in it. One thing for sure, RF Kuang is NOT afraid of killing her darlings, and it's the quality that I have come to highly respect and appreciate of hers. Because it must not be easy for her. Fredrik Backman said in his events when asked about how he makes his writing so good to the point that it made so many people cry, he said that people crying while reading his books is the extension of him crying while writing his books, because to write something so profound and poignant that so many people were able to relate and cry to, it took so much out of the author, and that Backman even wrote himself into depression at one point. Now, I don't know if Rebecca agrees to that sentiment, and I don't know if she cried when she was writing this book, but I can definitely imagine her sobbing while writing this book, because I was sobbing while reading it. I don't know how these incredible authors do it, to make people you don't even know cry and be so impacted by the pieces of art you created... It's wizardry. These authors are wizards. I highly appreciate the emotional labor they put into their books.

Anyway, Robin be robbin' my heart in this book. It was such a journey reading his story. My guy has one of the most tragic life stories, but my God, is it inspiring and impactful for me personally. I really love reading his inner turmoil about wanting to stay to study in Oxford and make Prof. Lovell proud of him, but also knowing that what Lovell's done is NOT right and wanting to do something about it. I also love his character arc, his character growth is incredible, heartbreaking though, it was. I felt his heartbreak when he realizes that no matter how hard he tries, he will never ever be seen as a fellow human being by Lovell, let alone be a son he can proudly claim for the world to know, much less be a son he can ever love, all because he's half Chinese. I think, from Robin's story, we can all learn how critical it is for us to take a stand for what is right, in anyway we could, and to not be trapped in the comfort of our everyday lives. To comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable, I think it's one of the most important message this book has. Although, granted, by the end, Robin was so blinded by rage and fury, and he was also so broken from all the tragic deaths of his loved ones, that the actions Robin took in the end is very extreme, that I hope that we would never be put in positions where we have to do anything even remotely close to it. But I think the message is very well delivered. It evokes the question if violence is really necessary to break free from oppressive systems? With all of these reckonings happening all over the world, be it about injustice, oppression, or even global warming, one thing for sure, we should all take a part to help make a good change in this world.

Also, I gotta say, I can relate so much to Robin. I can also see my precious late son Kitay in him, and in a perfect world, these two precious characters never had to die and live long and fulfilling lives, but alas, the world is too rotten for these two angels, and now they're in heavens, where they belong. As I have mentioned before, I would very much like to read more of Babel, and if Rebecca ever graciously decides to make more books about it, if it's a sequel, I hope we get to find out how the British Empire is impacted by the explosion of Babel, and how Robin's legacy is being honored, and about Robin's and Griffin's other half siblings (since in his letter to Robin, he said there are more of them), or if it's a prequel, I hope it's about Griffin and The Hermes Society.

I wish we got to know Robin's real Chinese name.

MY SWEETHEART, RAMY. Ah, so we've arrived at the point where I have to relive the biggest heartbreak I experienced while reading this book. Okay, first let me tell you the reasons why, to me, Ramy's the brightest star of this book:

He's the first muslim character in a fantasy book that I've ever read, and RF Kuang excellently, respectfully and accurately depicts him as a muslim. Because Ramy is so well written, he's multi dimensional and complicated and overall, such a joy to read. And, if you haven't notice even from the hijab I wore in my profile picture, I, myself, am a muslim. I was taken aback when I read about him doing prayers, saying Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi Raji’un when a character dies, and Rebecca even remembers to not make Ramy drink any alcohol, because those are the things that I do too. I feel so close to Ramy due to this, I feel like he could be one of my classmates, except for him being exceptionally bright with an exceptional talent for languages. I had to keep reminding myself that I'm reading a dark academia fantasy book, because it just seems so unbelievable to me to be reading about a muslim character in a book of this genre, but I am so grateful and incredibly ecstatic to have that representation. And yes, I am aware that I need to read more, as there are A LOT of muslim characters in fantasy books already existed before Ramy, especially in the ones written by muslim authors. Trust me, they are now added to my TBR list and I am so excited to read those books.

The book doesn't mention it outright, but I think it did insinuated that Ramy is gay. I mean, tell me you disagree with me after reading this scene:

"‘Why won’t you dance with Letty?’ ‘I’m not looking to start a row.’ ‘No, really.’ ‘Please, Birdie.’ Ramy sighed. ‘You know how it is.’ ‘She wants you,’ Robin said. He’d only just realized this, and now that he said it out loud, it seemed so obvious that he felt stupid for not seeing it earlier. ‘Very badly. So why—’ ‘Don’t you know why?’ Their eyes met. Robin felt a prickle at the back of his neck. The space between them felt very charged, like the moment between lightning and thunder, and Robin had no idea what was going on or what would happen next, only that it all felt very strange and terrifying, like teetering over the edge of a windy, roaring cliff."

RIGHT?!!! Also, I think Robin might also be gay or bi, because it seems that he was having a gay panic in that scene above. Also, take a look at this scene:

"Ramy gesticulated wildly as he spoke. It was clear he wasn’t truly angry, just passionate and clearly brilliant, so invested in the truth he needed the whole world to know. Robin leaned back and watched Ramy’s lovely, agitated face, both amazed and delighted. He could have cried then. He’d been so desperately lonely, and had only now realized it, and now he wasn’t, and this felt so good he didn’t know what to do with himself."

And I love that for them. I mean, this is just my theory though, I don't think that Rebecca has ever commented about the characters' sexual orientations, so this is all just my personal assumption. And so, that makes Ramy a complicated character, since we know from how he's depicted in the book, that he's a pretty devout muslim, and Islam doesn't look kindly upon anything LGBTQIA+, not at all. I can only imagine Ramy having multiple complex inner conflicts about this, and I wish we'd gotten that being explored in this book, because queerness in Islam is a topic not being discussed enough, and to have Ramy be proudly gay and a muslim would have been an important representation to have. Especially for young queer muslims who would've felt represented had it was explored more in the book, instead of just being a subtext. But I understand that Rebecca may think that she's not well equipped to be tackling such complicated topic, since she's not a muslim herself, also the book's setting is in 1830s England, which is not a great time and place for queer people.

Ramy's very sarcastic and funny, and I know he might be using sarcasm and humor as coping mechanisms since he had to deal with the gross racism almost everyday while living in England, and that behind the funny and sarcastic facade is a whole lot of hurt, but that's one of the reasons why I love him, because I can relate. Who among us doesn't use humor and sarcasm as coping mechanisms? Well, not me. I am completely fine, and I don't have nor need any coping mechanism whatsoever.

His background story made me cry more than the others'. Again, it must be because I'm a muslim, but reading about his childhood in Calcutta, his family and his father, oh my God, it just gets to me. When his father was being humiliated by those rotten racists in front of Ramy, his own son. And when his father was saying goodbye to him when he was to board the ship to England. Those remain one of the most heartbreaking scenes in this book.

Okay, now, let's talk about THAT scene. When he was shot and then died, I almost threw my phone across the room (because I was reading the ebook on my phone). That scene fucking broke me, because Ramy was one of the best things about this book, to me. And he was killed??!!!! By Letty, no less. Oh God, I can't even begin to tell you the overwhelming anger, shock, and devastation I felt. Just know that I was ready to throw hands, and sue RF Kuang for emotional damage. I wasn't even in denial, like I usually was when I first read about the sudden deaths of my favorite characters (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE POPPY WAR, MISTBORN, A LITTLE LIFE AND CROOKED KINGDOM!!) (Altan of TPW, Kelsier of Mistborn, Willem of ALL, Matthias of SoC, etc.), I fucking knew that Ramy was really dead, and that he's not coming back. Because if there's anything I know about Rebecca, it's that she likes to make her readers suffer. While I understand that his death is instrumental in moving the story into its climax, it still hurts, Rebecca. It hurts so much reading about the murder of your favorite character.

MY QUEEN, VICTOIRE. Queen of surviving, or survivor queen(?). I truly hope we get more of her, because I feel like we got so very little of her in the book, but she was actually a fascinating character with a lot of depth, which we only find out in the end of the book. I get that maybe she's more of a quiet type, and I can relate to that, so maybe that is why we don't get more of her in the book. I feel like every friend group has that one quiet friend who would rather be a wallflower to the group's more extroverted friends' lively discussions and shenanigans. Maybe you yourselves have or even have been that one quiet friend. However, it almost feels like I was robbed of more scenes where Victoire and her personality shines before shit hits the fan.

I was so glad that she didn't die. Listen, when Robin was becoming unhinged and I realized that he will have to die by the end of the book, I was TERRIFIED that Rebecca's gonna kill Victoire too, because one of the most heartbreaking thing about The Burning God is that (SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE BURNING GOD!!) Kitay died along with Rin in the end. So, when I had that realization that Robin will die in the end, I was like, OH HELL NOOO!!! I was still reeling from Ramy's death, and while I was already slowly accepting Robin's inevitable death, I was in no way ready for Victoire's death. And that is why I was so happy that in the end, she chose to leave and continue to live. And I truly think that it's such a brave choice for her to make, such a radical one too, in her position.

It's a radical choice because I think people would expect her to die along with Robin, you know, because best friends are supposed to die for one another and be each other's ride or die, which is actually unhealthy. While yes, people in friendship should ideally care about their friends, and in some cases if they're lucky enough maybe those friends even love each other, but we should never expect anyone to die for us. I mean, loving our friends means respecting the fact that they are individuals with their own lives and free will, and they should be able to make choices regarding their own lives. So maybe we should stop this belief that friends should want to die for one another. Call me crazy but you should be able to love your friends without giving them your whole life and death. This applies for romantic partners too, IMO.

Also, because in Robin's case, while yes, he died in an effort to prevent the British Empire from attacking China, and thus, saving many innocent civilian lives, but it's also because he's been so broken that he didn't have the will to live anymore, so he wanted to kill himself, which is, as Ramy and Victoire told him, an escape for him, as it is the easy way out. As Victoire said, the evil and injustice doesn't end with Babel, and there is still so much they have to do to stop the colonization of the British Empire in the world, to accomplish what the Hermes Society was made for. Their fight is so far from being over but they have to be alive to actually fight it. And so, to continue living and continue the fight is actually much harder than dying by blowing up Babel. But Robin said that he couldn't go on, and in the end he chose what he chose. I really love the fact that he respected Victoire's wishes to leave and live on, and so did Victoire towards Robin's final wishes. What's heartbreaking though is that, in the end, she thought she was being selfish, because she really wasn't.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT LETTY. Do I hate the bitch? Yes. Oh, believe me, yes I really do hate her. But oh God, is she hurting too. It feels like everything she loves, she hurts. She's also suffering, even if it's in a different way than Robin and Victoire are suffering. Imagine having to live with the knowledge that you killed the man you loved, who's also one of your best friends. She must also blame herself for the death of her brother, and then Robin and Victoire's (even though Victoire is actually still alive, but Letty would never know that). These are the people she had loved dearly. I cannot even begin to imagine what a miserable life that is. RF Kuang did a great job making me care for Letty too, even after everything, she really is the queen of writing morally grey characters.

Gosh, I really should have known better because Letty was already exposing herself from the beginning, anytime Robin, Ramy or Victoire show any sign of not being happy with Babel due to its racism, Letty was all, "Why aren't you happy? you should be grateful." Reminds me of somebody (Lovell). But when I was reading it, I brushed it aside, I thought she would come around soon enough, but then she did it again, and I was like "Pooja Letty, what is this behaviour?!!"

But still, I trusted that she will eventually understand and support her friends. I really suck at detecting toxic people, huh? But I was able to sense that something is wrong with her when she wanted to walk around by herself around the Old Library. When she pointed the gun to Robin, Ramy and Victoire, I still thought she was just bluffing. So when she actually shot Ramy, I realized what I was this whole time...

And when we got to the 2nd interlude which was about Letty's back story, I was like NOPE. Not giving you a chance to make me feel sorry for this bitch, Rebecca. But, I was too scared that it would include something important that would be pertinent to the remainder of the story, so I did read her interlude. And now, here we are. Feeling sorry for Letty.

Oh, and that scene when she tried to convince Robin and Victoire to give up before the army attacks them, I hate that I still feel sad for her. I kept reminding myself that she's Ramy's murderer, but I'm too soft, I can't help but feel sorry for her. Maybe being so lonely and full of regrets for killing someone as precious as Ramy and losing amazing friends like Robin and Victoire is punishment enough for her. I can't imagine having to live with such pains.

POOR BRAVE GRIFFIN. Another character that I hoped to get more of in the book, but didn't. I initially didn't trust him, I thought he was just using Robin to sell those silver and use the money himself or other nefarious things, but he didn't, he was actually doing the most for The Hermes Society. He really hated the British Empire and did his darndest best to help bring it down. By the few final chapters I regretted ever not trusting him so much. His life is so tragic, maybe arguably even more tragic than Robin's, although it's not a competition. I wish we get more of his story and the missions he did for the Hermes Society.

THE BEAUTY OF LANGUAGES. I'm so grateful to be bilingual (English is my second language, Bahasa Indonesia is my mother tongue), and I have always been interested in so many other languages. Being a lover of books, I understand the beauty of words and so I have also come to love the languages of the books I loved. Last year I briefly learned Swedish in Duolingo, in an effort to be able to read the third and final book of one of my favorite trilogy of all time, The Winners, of the Beartown trilogy, by Fredrik Backman. The book is originally written in Swedish and it's released in October last year, while the English version has just been released this month in the US. My study of the Swedish language on Duolingo came to an abrupt end when I realized there's no way I would be fluent enough to read and fully understand the book without actually translating every other word with google translate, so I accepted my defeat and waited a whole ass year for the English version of the book. But, when I was only 2 chapters into Babel, it has reignited my will to study Swedish. I'm happy to announce that I will soon resume my study of the Swedish language, not that anyone cares. Who knows, maybe by the time Backman releases a new book in Swedish, I would be fluent enough to actually read and understand it, though I hope it wouldn't take Backman that long to release another book. I love that my whole motivation for studying a whole new language is books.

My whole point is that Babel has that effect on its readers. It really showcases the beauty of languages and the magic that they have. Because languages really are magical, there are literally sayings in one language that can't be properly translated or explained in any other language, but there's so many people who spoke that language and have it as their mother tongue who understands that saying and so it's like some kind of the biggest inside joke ever. Isn't that so magical? Languages open doors to new knowledge, and new treasures that are written in books from all over the world. As Anthony pointed out in the book,

"‘Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys to civilization. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.’"

THE BRILLIANT MAGIC SYSTEM. I think it's so brilliant of RF Kuang to use the translation-based magic, where translation is deconstructed and attached to a magic effect, using silver and a person who has mastered a minimum of two different languages. I think it's so smart and brilliant and unique. I love it so much. Of all things in this world that she can imagine having magical powers to use in her book, she chose translation, and silver. I understand that it must be because Rebecca loves languages and is passionate about translation, but I mean, using it in a fantasy book might be the best thing she ever did, in terms of writing magic systems for her books. I'm so excited to find out what's her next best idea for her books would be.

THE REFRESHING TAKE ON DARK ACADEMIA. It has been known that Dark Academia lacks diversity. In most cases, almost all of the characters in Dark Academia books and movies are all white (The Secret History, Kill Your Darlings, Dead Poet Society, etc.), and if you look up dark academia fashion inspo, it's almost always white people in those pictures, wearing Dark Academia inspired outfits (although now more and more POC make Dark Academia fashion inspo too, via social media, which is awesome). So it feels like Dark Academia is reserved for white people only, and for the longest time I felt guilty for liking it. That is why it feels so refreshing to have 3 of the 4 main characters of the book to be people of colour, and the main conflict of the story to be about racism in the academia world and colonialism. It's like RF Kuang is saying fuck your white dominance in the world of Dark Academia, here's the diversity it has been lacking. She's showing that POC belong in the academic world just as much as everyone else, and it's high time we depict that in our media. What a power move. For that I will always stan this woman.

As much as I love this book, I do have some criticisms…

I find it a little hard to believe that Griffin regains his ability to make silver bars with mandarin engraving works ever since he heard Robin say something in mandarin, because isn't he supposed to be traveling abroad often, why didn't he just go to China and regain that ability back years before he met Robin?

I need to know SO MUCH more about the Hermes Society, I feel like the book should have given us more about it in order to make us root for it more. It's very hard to make people root for something they don't really know about.

I wish we get multiple POVs (Ramy's, Victoire's and Letty's, and even Griffin's and Lovell's) instead of only Robin's. I truly believe it would make this book even better than it already is, since it will undoubtedly give more life to the other 3 main characters, and probably even give them more depth. I'd also like to get more out of these three characters.

THIS BOOK IS WAAAYYYYYYY TOO SHORT FOR ME, I NEED MORE OF THESE DELICIOUSLY AWESOME CAST OF CHARACTERS. I'm thinking of starting a petition for RF Kuang to make more books or novellas with these awesome characters. Give me prequels, sequels, anything, PLEASE.

Here are my favourite moments from the book:

Those first days when Robin and Ramy were exploring Oxford for the first time and they had a picnic just the two of them.

When the four of them were laughing themselves silly in Victoire's room looking for the ripe pears that the stench must be coming from but there's no pears.

When Griffin gave Robin the three-volume set of Oliver Twist because Robin mentioned to Griffin that he likes Dickens.

When Robin impressed that snobby Pendennis and his snobby friends, who were undermining him, at that wine party.

That ball scene in the Babel tower, thrown by Babel students.

That night in the old library when they had dinner, when they were scheming to defy the British empire.

And finally, here are my favorite quotes from the book:

"He felt a sharp ache in his chest as Canton disappeared over the horizon, and then a raw emptiness, as if a grappling hook had yanked his heart out of his body. It had not registered until now that he would not step foot on his native shore again for many years, if ever. He wasn’t sure what to make of this fact. The word loss was inadequate. Loss just meant a lack, meant something was missing, but it did not encompass the totality of this severance, this terrifying un-anchoring from all that he’d ever known."

"He had no right to be resentful. Professor Lovell had promised him everything, and owed him nothing. Robin did not yet fully understand the rules of this world he was about to enter, but he understood the necessity of gratitude. Of deference. One did not spite one’s saviours."

"He quashed his memories too. His life in Canton – his mother, his grandparents, a decade of running about the docks – it all proved surprisingly easy to shed, perhaps because this passage was so jarring, the break so complete. He’d left behind everything he’d known. There was nothing to cling to, nothing to escape back to. His world now was Professor Lovell, Mrs Piper, and the promise of a country on the other side of the ocean. He buried his past life, not because it was so terrible but because abandoning it was the only way to survive. He pulled on his English accent like a new coat, adjusted everything he could about himself to make it fit, and, within weeks, wore it with comfort. In weeks, no one was asking him to speak a few words in Chinese for their entertainment. In weeks, no one seemed to remember he was Chinese at all."

"‘But that’s the beauty of learning a new language. It should feel like an enormous undertaking. It ought to intimidate you. It makes you appreciate the complexity of the ones you know already.’"

"But even then, Robin was not too young to understand there were some truths that could not be uttered, that life as normal was only possible if they were never acknowledged. He had a roof over his head, three guaranteed meals a day, and access to more books than he could read in a lifetime. He did not, he knew, have the right to demand anything more. He made a decision then. He would never question Professor Lovell, never probe at the empty space where the truth belonged. As long as Professor Lovell did not accept him as a son, Robin would not attempt to claim him as a father. A lie was not a lie if it was never uttered; questions that were never asked did not need answers. They would both remain perfectly content to linger in the liminal, endless space between truth and denial."

"Inside, the heady wood-dust smell of freshly printed books was overwhelming. If tobacco smelled like this, Robin thought, he’d huff it every day. He stepped towards the closest shelf, hand lifted tentatively towards the books on display, too afraid to touch them – they seemed so new and crisp; their spines were uncracked, their pages smooth and bright. Robin was used to well-worn, waterlogged tomes; even his Classics grammars were decades old. These shiny, freshly bound things seemed like a different class of object, things to be admired from a distance rather than handled and read. ‘Pick one,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘You ought to know the feeling of acquiring your first book.’ Pick one? Just one, of all these treasures?"

"He cocked his head. ‘Do you wish to return to Canton?’ Robin swallowed. ‘No.’ He meant it. Even after this, even after the miseries of his classes, he could not imagine an alternate future for himself. Canton meant poverty, insignificance, and ignorance. Canton meant the plague. Canton meant no more books. London meant all the material comforts he could ask for. London meant, someday, Oxford."

"‘I’ve always just tried to blend in,’ said Robin. ‘But that’s impossible for me,’ said Ramy. ‘I have to play a part. Back in Calcutta, we all tell the story of Sake Dean Mahomed, the first Muslim from Bengal to become a rich man in England. He has a white Irish wife. He owns property in London. And you know how he did it? He opened a restaurant, which failed; and then he tried to be hired as a butler or valet, which also failed. And then he had the brilliant idea of opening a shampoo house in Brighton.’ Ramy chuckled. ‘Come and get your healing vapours! Be massaged with Indian oils! It cures asthma and rheumatism; it heals paralysis. Of course, we don’t believe that at home. But all Dean Mahomed had to do was give himself some medical credentials, convince the world of this magical Oriental cure, and then he had them eating out of the palm of his hand. So what does that tell you, Birdie? If they’re going to tell stories about you, use it to your advantage. The English are never going to think I’m posh, but if I fit into their fantasy, then they’ll at least think I’m royalty.’"

"They stood looking at each other in silence. There was no question about what had happened. They were both shaken by the sudden realization that they did not belong in this place, that despite their affiliation with the Translation Institute and despite their gowns and pretensions, their bodies were not safe on the streets. They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men. But the enormity of this knowledge was so devastating, such a vicious antithesis to the three golden days they’d blindly enjoyed, that neither of them could say it out loud. And they never would say it out loud. It hurt too much to consider the truth. It was so much easier to pretend; to keep spinning the fantasy for as long as they could."

"‘But academics by nature are a solitary, sedentary lot. Travel sounds fun until you realize what you really want is to stay at home with a cup of tea and a stack of books by a warm fire.’"

"‘Translation, from time immemorial, has been the facilitator of peace. Translation makes possible communication, which in turn makes possible the kind of diplomacy, trade, and cooperation between foreign peoples that brings wealth and prosperity to all."

"And then they were laughing again. Soon it became apparent that no topics were off limits. They could talk about anything, share all the indescribable humiliations they felt being in a place they were not supposed to be, all the lurking unease that until now they’d kept to themselves. They offered up everything about themselves because they had, at last, found the only group of people for whom their experiences were not so unique or baffling."

"One thing united them all – without Babel, they had nowhere in this country to go. They’d been chosen for privileges they couldn’t have ever imagined, funded by powerful and wealthy men whose motives they did not fully understand, and they were acutely aware these could be lost at any moment. That precariousness made them simultaneously bold and terrified. They had the keys to the kingdom; they did not want to give them back."

"‘Babel collects foreign languages and foreign talent the same way it hoards silver and uses them to produce translation magic that benefits England and England only. The vast majority of all silver bars in use in the world are in London. The newest, most powerful bars in use rely on Chinese, Sanskrit, and Arabic to work, but you’ll count less than a thousand bars in the countries where those languages are widely spoken, and then only in the homes of the wealthy and powerful. And that’s wrong. That’s predatory. That’s fundamentally unjust.’"

"So you see, translators do not so much deliver a message as they rewrite the original. And herein lies the difficulty – rewriting is still writing, and writing always reflects the author’s ideology and biases. After all, the Latin translatio means “to carry across”. Translation involves a spatial dimension – a literal transportation of texts across conquered territory, words delivered like spices from an alien land. Words mean something quite different when they journey from the palaces of Rome to the tearooms of today’s Britain."

"And he wondered at the contradiction: that he despised them, that he knew they could be up to no good, and that still he wanted to be respected by them enough to be included in their ranks. It was a very strange mix of emotions. He hadn’t the faintest idea how to sort through them."

"Then he blinked, because he’d just registered what this most mundane and extraordinary moment meant – that in the space of several weeks, they had become what he’d never found in Hampstead, what he thought he’d never have again after Canton: a circle of people he loved so fiercely his chest hurt when he thought about them. A family."

"He felt a crush of guilt then for loving them, and Oxford, as much as he did. He adored it here; he really did. For all the daily slights he suffered, walking through campus delighted him. He simply could not maintain, as Griffin did, an attitude of constant suspicion or rebellion; he could not acquire Griffin’s hatred of this place. Yet didn’t he have a right to be happy? He had never felt such warmth in his chest until now, had never looked forward to getting up in the morning as he did now. Babel, his friends, and Oxford – they had unlocked a part of him, a place of sunshine and belonging, that he never thought he’d feel again. The world felt less dark. He was a child starved of affection, which he now had in abundance – and was it so wrong for him to cling to what he had? He was not ready to commit fully to Hermes. But by God, he would have killed for any of his cohort."

"‘Which seems right to you? Do we try our hardest, as translators, to render ourselves invisible? Or do we remind our reader that what they are reading was not written in their native language?’ ‘That’s an impossible question,’ said Victoire. ‘Either you situate the text in its time and place, or you bring it to where you are, here and now. You’re always giving something up.’ ‘Is faithful translation impossible, then?’ Professor Playfair challenged. ‘Can we never communicate with integrity across time, across space?’ ‘I suppose not,’ Victoire said reluctantly. ‘But what is the opposite of fidelity?’ asked Professor Playfair. He was approaching the end of this dialectic; now he needed only to draw it to a close with a punch. ‘Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?’"

"‘Languages aren’t just made of words. They’re modes of looking at the world. They’re the keys to civilization. And that’s knowledge worth killing for.’"

"English did not just borrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular. And Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods."

"'History isn’t a premade tapestry that we’ve got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.’"

"Come back with me, he almost said when they parted. Come to hall. Come back and have Christmas dinner. But that was impossible. Robin’s life was split into two, and Griffin existed in the shadow world, hidden from sight. Robin could never bring him back to Magpie Lane. Could never introduce him to his friends. Could never, in daylight, call him brother."

"‘You have such a great fear of freedom, brother. It’s shackling you. You’ve identified so hard with the colonizer, you think any threat to them is a threat to you. When are you going to realize you can’t be one of them?’"

"At last, Griffin shook his head and said, ‘You’re lost, brother. You’re a ship adrift, searching for familiar shores. I understand what it is you want. I sought it too. But there is no homeland. It’s gone.’ He paused beside Robin on his way to the door. His fingers landed on Robin’s shoulder, squeezed so hard they hurt. ‘But realize this, brother. You fly no one’s flag. You’re free to seek your own harbour. And you can do so much more than tread water.’"

"A hundred arguments swam through Robin’s head – that he had not requested these privileges of Oxford, had not chosen to be spirited out of Canton at all, that the generosities of the university should not demand his constant, unswerving loyalty to the Crown and its colonial projects, and if it did, then that was a peculiar form of bondage he had never agreed to. That he had not wished for this fate until it was thrust upon him, decided for him. That he didn’t know what life he would have chosen – this one, or a life in which he’d grown up in Canton, among people who looked and spoke like him. But what did it matter? Professor Lovell would hardly sympathize. All that mattered was that Robin was guilty."

"‘You drink the champagne, Robin. You take your allowance. You live in your furnished room on Magpie Lane, you parade down the streets in your robes and tailored clothes, all paid for by the school, and yet you say all this money comes from blood. This does not bother you?’ And that was the heart of it all, wasn’t it? Robin had always been willing, in theory, to give up only some things for a revolution he halfway believed in. He was fine with resistance as long as it didn’t hurt him. And the contradiction was fine, as long as he didn’t think too hard about it, or look too closely. But spelled out like this, in such bleak terms, it seemed inarguable that far from being a revolutionary, Robin, in fact, had no convictions whatsoever."

"Mr Trevelyan turned back to the other guests. ‘Consider this boy and his father. Both of similar ability, both of a similar background and education. The father begins with even more of an advantage, I would say, as his father, I’m told, belonged to a wealthier merchant class. But so fortunes rise and fall. Despite his natural talents, Mr Mirza here can attain no better than a posting as a domestic servant. Don’t you agree, Mr Mirza?’ Ramy saw the most peculiar expression then on his father’s face. He looked as if he were holding something in, as if he’d swallowed a very bitter seed but was unable to spit it out. Suddenly this game did not seem such fun. He felt nervous now for showing off, but couldn’t quite put his finger on why. ‘Come now, Mr Mirza,’ said Mr Trevelyan. ‘You can’t claim that you wanted to be a footman.’ Mr Mirza gave a nervous chuckle. ‘It’s a great honour to serve Sir Horace Wilson.’ ‘Oh, come off it – no need to be polite, we all know how he farts.’ Ramy stared at his father; the man he still thought was as tall as a mountain, the man who had taught him all his scripts: Roman, Arabic, and Nastaliq. The man who taught him salah. The man who taught him the meaning of respect. His hafiz."

"His father stood a little way back, observing his wife and children, blinking hard as if trying to commit everything to memory. At last, when the boarding call sounded, he hugged his son to his chest and whispered, ‘Allah hafiz.* Write to your mother.’ ‘Yes, Abbu.’ ‘Forget not who you are, Ramiz.’ ‘Yes, Abbu.’ Ramy was fourteen then, and old enough to understand the meaning of pride. Ramy intended to do more than remember. For he understood now why his father had smiled that day in the sitting room – not out of weakness or submission, and not out of fear of reprisal. He’d been playing a part. He’d been showing Ramy how it was done. Lie, Ramiz. This was the lesson, the most important lesson he’d ever been taught. Hide, Ramiz. Show the world what they want; contort yourself into the image they want to see, because seizing control of the story is how you in turn control them. Hide your faith, hide your prayers, for Allah will still know your heart."

"‘I’m not a traitor,’ Robin pleaded. ‘I’m just trying to survive.’ ‘Survival’s not that difficult, Birdie.’ Ramy’s eyes were very hard. ‘But you’ve got to maintain some dignity while you’re at it.’"

"‘It’s called yánghuò,’ said Robin. ‘That’s what she called the opium. Yáng means “foreign”, huò means “goods”. Yánghuò means “foreign goods”. That’s how they refer to everything here. Yáng people. Yáng guilds. Yánghuòre – an obsession with foreign goods, with opium. And that’s me. That’s coming from me. I’m yáng.’ They paused over a bridge, beneath which fishermen and sampans went back and forth. The din of it, the cacophony of a language he’d spent so much time away from and now had to focus on to decipher, made Robin want to press his hands against his ears, to block out a soundscape that should have but did not feel like home."

"Robin saw a great spider’s web in his mind then. Cotton from India to Britain, opium from India to China, silver becoming tea and porcelain in China, and everything flowing back to Britain. It sounded so abstract – just categories of use, exchange, and value – until it wasn’t; until you realized the web you lived in and the exploitations your lifestyle demanded, until you saw looming above it all the spectre of colonial labour and colonial pain. ‘It’s sick,’ he whispered. ‘It’s sick, it’s so sick . . .’"

"What he wanted, Robin thought, was for Professor Lovell to admit what he’d done. That it was unnatural, this entire arrangement; that children were not stock to be experimented on, judged for their blood, spirited away from their homeland in service of Crown and country. That Robin was more than a talking dictionary, and that his motherland was more than a fat golden goose. But he knew these were acknowledgments that Professor Lovell would never make. The truth between them was not buried because it was painful, but because it was inconvenient, and because Professor Lovell simply refused to address it. It was so obvious now that he was not, and could never be, a person in his father’s eyes. No, personhood demanded the blood purity of the European man, the racial status that would make him Professor Lovell’s equal. Little Dick and Philippa were persons. Robin Swift was an asset, and assets should be undyingly grateful that they were treated well at all."

"He had become so good at holding two truths in his head at once. That he was an Englishman and not. That Professor Lovell was his father and not. That the Chinese were a stupid, backwards people, and that he was also one of them. That he hated Babel, and wanted to live forever in its embrace. He had danced for years on the razor’s edge of these truths, had remained there as a means of survival, a way to cope, unable to accept either side fully because an unflinching examination of the truth was so frightening that the contradictions threatened to break him. But he could not go on like this. He could not exist a split man, his psyche constantly erasing and re-erasing the truth. He felt a great pressure in the back of his mind. He felt like he would quite literally burst, unless he stopped being double. Unless he chose."

"The origins of the word anger were tied closely to physical suffering. Anger was first an ‘affliction’, as meant by the Old Icelandic angr, and then a ‘painful, cruel, narrow’ state, as meant by the Old English enge, which in turn came from the Latin angor, which meant ‘strangling, anguish, distress’. Anger was a chokehold. Anger did not empower you. It sat on your chest; it squeezed your ribs until you felt trapped, suffocated, out of options. Anger simmered, then exploded. Anger was constriction, and the consequent rage a desperate attempt to breathe. And rage, of course, came from madness."

"‘Diē?’ He did not know what made him say it, the word for father. Perhaps he thought it would stun Professor Lovell, that the shock alone would bring him back to life, that he could yank his father’s soul back to his body by naming the one thing that they had never named. But Professor Lovell was limp, gone, and no matter how hard Robin shook him the blood would not stop pouring. ‘Diē,’ he said again. Then a laugh escaped his throat; hysterical, helpless, because it was so very funny, so apt that the romanization of father contained the same letters for death in English. And Professor Lovell was so clearly, incontrovertibly dead. There was no walking back from this. There could be no more pretending."

"‘It’s just – you’re all signed up to help me conceal a murder?’ Robin couldn’t help all his statements becoming questions. The whole world right then seemed like one great, unanswerable question. ‘And you’re not even going to ask how, or why?’ Ramy and Victoire exchanged a look. But it was Letty who answered first. ‘I think we all understand why.’"

"How could they tell her she was being delusional? That it was insane to imagine that the British legal system was truly neutral, that they would receive a fair trial, that people who looked like Robin, Ramy, and Victoire might kill a white Oxford professor, throw his body overboard, lie about it for weeks, and then walk away unscathed? That the fact that she clearly believed all this was only evidence of the starkly different worlds they lived in?"

"‘You want to do the right thing,’ said Ramy, bullish. ‘You always do. But you think the right thing is martyrdom. You think if you suffer enough for whatever sins you’ve committed, then you’re absolved.’ ‘I do not—’ ‘That’s why you took the fall for us that night. Every time you come up against something difficult, you just want to make it go away, and you think the way to do that is self-flagellation. You’re obsessed with punishment. But that’s not how this works, Birdie. You going to prison fixes nothing. You hanging from the gallows fixes nothing. The world’s still broken. A war’s still coming. The only way to properly make amends is to stop it, which you don’t want to do, because really what this is about is your being afraid.’"

"‘What do you mean?’ Letty cried. ‘Of course I’m with you. You’re my friends, I’m with you until the end.’ Then she flung her arms around Victoire and began to weep stormily. Victoire stiffened, looking baffled, but after a moment she raised her arms and cautiously hugged Letty back. ‘I’m sorry.’ Letty sniffled between sobs. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry . . .’ ... Still, something did not seem right, and Robin could tell from Victoire’s and Ramy’s faces that they thought so too. It took him a moment to realize what it was that grated on him, and when he did, it would bother him constantly, now and thereafter; it would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort."

"‘There are no kind masters, Letty,’ Anthony continued. ‘It doesn’t matter how lenient, how gracious, how invested in your education they make out to be. Masters are masters in the end.’"

"‘The thing about violence, see, is that the Empire has a lot more to lose than we do. Violence disrupts the extractive economy. You wreak havoc on one supply line, and there’s a dip in prices across the Atlantic. Their entire system of trade is high-strung and vulnerable to shocks because they’ve made it thus, because the rapacious greed of capitalism is punishing. It’s why slave revolts succeed. They can’t fire on their own source of labour – it’d be like killing their own golden geese.'"

"‘Violence shows them how much we’re willing to give up,’ said Griffin. ‘Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock. You have no idea what you’re capable of, truly. You can’t imagine how the world might shift unless you pull the trigger.’"

"‘But that’s the problem, you see. No one’s focused on how we’re all connected. We only think about how we suffer, individually. The poor and middle-class of this country don’t realize they have more in common with us than they do with Westminster.’"

"One day Robin would ask himself how his shock had turned so easily to rage; why his first reaction was not disbelief at this betrayal but black, consuming hatred. And the answer would elude and disturb him, for it tiptoed around a complicated tangle of love and jealousy that ensnared them all, for which they had no name or explanation, a truth they’d only been starting to wake up to and now, after this, would never acknowledge. But just then, all he knew was red blurring out the edges of his vision, crowding out everything but Letty. He knew now how it felt to truly want a person dead, to want to tear them apart limb by limb, to hear them scream, to make them hurt. He understood now how murder felt, how rage felt, for this was it, the intent to kill he ought to have felt when he killed his father."

"Grief suffocated. Grief paralysed. Grief was a cruel, heavy boot pressed so hard against his chest that he could not breathe. Grief took him out of his body, made his injuries theoretical."

"‘The university doesn’t own me.’ ‘Bah. The university gave you everything.’ ‘The university ripped us from our homes and made us believe that our futures could only consist of serving the Crown,’ said Robin. ‘The university tells us we are special, chosen, selected, when really we are severed from our motherlands and raised within spitting distance of a class we can never truly become a part of. The university turned us against our own and made us believe our only options were complicity or the streets. That was no favour, Sterling. It was cruelty. Don’t ask me to love my master.’"

"She had chosen to let him die. This did not hurt as much as it should have. Rather, it clarified things; the stakes before them, the insignificance of their lives against the cause they’d chosen. He saw her begin to apologize, and then catch herself – good, he thought; she had nothing to be sorry for, for between them only one had refused to break."

"And Oxford at night was still so serene, still seemed like a place where they were safe, where arrest was impossible. It still looked like a city carved out of the past; of ancient spires, pinnacles, and turrets; of soft moonlight on old stones and worn, cobbled roads. Its buildings were still so reassuringly heavy, solid, ancient and eternal. The lights that shone through arched windows still promised warmth, old books, and hot tea within; still suggested an idyllic scholar’s life, where ideas were abstract entertainments that could be bandied about without consequences. But the dream was shattered. That dream had always been founded on a lie. None of them had ever stood a chance of truly belonging here, for Oxford wanted only one kind of scholar, the kind born and bred to cycle through posts of power it had created for itself. Everyone else it chewed up and discarded. These towering edifices were built with coin from the sale of slaves, and the silver that kept them running came blood-stained from the mines of Potosí. It was smelted in choking forges where native labourers were paid a pittance, before making its way on ships across the Atlantic to where it was shaped by translators ripped from their countries, stolen to this faraway land and never truly allowed to go home. He’d been so foolish ever to think he could build a life here. There was no straddling the line; he knew that now. No stepping back and forth between two worlds, no seeing and not seeing, no holding a hand over one eye or the other like a child playing a game. You were either a part of this institution, one of the bricks that held it up, or you weren’t."

"Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence."

"‘Oh, don’t you judge me.’ His lip curled. ‘Righteous Letty, brilliant Letty, should have been at Oxford except for the gap between her legs—’ ‘You disgust me.’ Lincoln only laughed and turned away. ‘Don’t come home,’ she shouted after him. ‘You’re better off gone. You’re better off dead.’ The next morning a constable knocked at their door and asked if this was the residence of Admiral Price, and if he would come with them, please, to identify a body. The driver never saw him, they said. Didn’t even know he was under the cart until this morning, when the horses had a fright. It was dark, it was raining, and Lincoln had been drunk, traipsing across the road – the admiral could sue, as was his right, but they doubted the court would be on his side. It was an accident."

"‘They’re just lying there – Anthony, Vimal, Ramy—’ They hadn’t carted them to the morgue. Hadn’t even covered them. They’d simply left the dead where they’d fallen, bleeding across the bricks and pages, were simply stepping around them on their way to excavate the library. Was this their petty revenge, retribution for a lifetime of inconvenience? Or did they simply not care? The world has to break, he thought. Someone has to answer for this. Someone has to bleed."

"‘They can’t touch us. No one can touch us. They need us too badly.’ And that, the key to Griffin’s theory of violence, was why they might win. They’d finally worked it out. It was why Griffin and Anthony had been so confident in their struggle, why they were convinced the colonies could take on the Empire. Empire needed extraction. Violence shocked the system, because the system could not cannibalize itself and survive. The hands of the Empire were tied, because it could not raze that from which it profited. And like those sugar fields, like those markets, like those bodies of unwilling labour, Babel was an asset. Britain needed Chinese, needed Arabic and Sanskrit and all the languages of colonized territories to function. Britain could not hurt Babel without hurting itself. And so Babel alone, an asset denied, could grind the Empire to a halt."

"How slender, how fragile, the foundations of an empire. Take away the centre, and what’s left? A gasping periphery, baseless, powerless, cut down at the roots."

"Privately, Robin did not want this to end. He would never confess it to the others, but deep down, where the ghosts of Griffin and Ramy resided, he did not want a speedy resolution, a nominal settlement that only papered over decades of exploitation. He wanted to see how far he could take this. He wanted to see Oxford broken down to its foundations, wanted its fat, golden opulence to slough away; for its pale, elegant bricks to crumble to pieces; for its turrets to smash against cobblestones; for its bookshelves to collapse like dominoes. He wanted the whole place dismantled so thoroughly that it would be as if it had never been built. All those buildings assembled by slaves, paid for by slaves, and stuffed with artefacts stolen from conquered lands, those buildings which had no right to exist, whose ongoing existence demanded continuous extraction and violence – destroyed, undone."

"Robin put the bar back into his pocket, took a deep breath, and wondered at the hammering in his veins. He wanted a fight. He wanted to jump down there and bloody their faces with his fists. Wanted them to know exactly what he was, which was their worst nightmare – uncivilized, brutal, violent."

"And if the oppressed came together, if they rallied around a common cause – here, now, was one of the impossible pivot points Griffin had spoken of so often. Here was their chance to push history off its course."

"‘Only it builds up, doesn’t it? It doesn’t just disappear. And one day you start prodding at what you’ve suppressed. And it’s a mass of black rot, and it’s endless, horrifying, and you can’t look away.’"

"‘But that’s precisely the devil’s trick,’ Robin insisted. ‘This is how colonialism works. It convinces us that the fallout from resistance is entirely our fault, that the immoral choice is resistance itself rather than the circumstances that demanded it.’"

"Robin thought he understood now the way that Griffin had once looked at him. This was a failure of nerve. A refusal to push things to the limit. Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table; violence was the only option. The gun was right there, lying on the table, waiting for them to pick it up. Why were they so afraid to even look at it?"

"‘It was like an exercise in hope,’ she said after a pause. ‘Loving her, I mean. Sometimes I’d think she’d come around. Sometimes I’d look her in the eyes and think that I was looking at a true friend. Then she’d say something, make some off-the-cuff comment, and the whole cycle would begin all over again. It was like pouring sand into a sieve. Nothing stuck.’"

"‘We look so young.’ He marvelled at their expressions. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since they’d posed for that daguerreotype. ‘We look like children.’ ‘We were happy then.’ Victoire glanced down, fingers tracing their fading faces."

"There was no future without Ramy, without Griffin, without Anthony and Cathy and Ilse and Vimal. As far as he was concerned, time had stopped when Letty’s bullet had left the chamber. All there was now was the fallout. What happened after was for someone else to struggle through. Robin only wanted it all to end."

"But it was so hard to look at her now and not see a friend. How could you love someone who had hurt you so badly? Up close, staring her in the eyes, he had trouble believing that this Letty, their Letty, had done the things she had."

"For a moment the three of them only looked at each other. They stood uncertain in the middle of the lobby, an unbalanced triangle. It felt so fundamentally wrong. There had always been four of them; they had always come in pairs, an even set, and all Robin could think of was the acute absence of Ramy among them. They were not themselves without him; without his laughter, his quick, easy wit, his sudden turns of conversation that made them feel like they were spinning plates. They were no longer a cohort. Now they were only a wake."

"She blinked, and suddenly tears traced two thin, clear lines down her face. This was not an act; they knew Letty could not act. She was heartbroken, truly heartbroken. She loved them; Robin did not doubt it; at least she really believed that she loved them. She wanted them safe and sound, only her version of a successful resolution was to put them behind bars. ‘I didn’t want any of this,’ she said. ‘I just want things to go back to the way they were. We had a future together, all of us.’ Robin bit back a laugh. ‘What did you imagine?’ he asked quietly. ‘That we would keep eating lemon biscuits together while this country declared war on our motherlands?’ ‘They’re not your motherlands,’ said Letty. ‘They don’t have to be.’ ‘They do have to be,’ said Victoire. ‘Because we’ll never be British. How can you still not understand? That identity is foreclosed to us. We are foreign because this nation has marked us so, and as long as we’re punished daily for our ties to our homelands, we might as well defend them. No, Letty, we can’t maintain this fantasy. The only one who can do that is you.’ Letty’s face tightened. The truce was over; the walls were up; they had reminded her why she’d abandoned them, which was that she could never really, properly, be one of them. And Letty, if she could not belong to a place, would rather tear the whole thing down."

"‘Guilty,’ he repeated. ‘Guilty, that’s exactly what I am. Ramy told me once that I didn’t care about doing the right thing, that I just wanted to take the easy way out.’ ‘He was right,’ she said fiercely. ‘It’s the coward’s way, you know it—’ ‘No, listen.’ He gripped her hands. They were trembling. She tried to pull away, but he squeezed her fingers between his. He needed her with him. Needed to make her understand, before she hated him forever for abandoning her to the dark. ‘He’s right. You’re right. I know it, I’m trying to say it – he was right. I’m so sorry. But I don’t know how to go on.’ ‘Day by day, Birdie.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘You go on, day by day. Just as we’ve been doing. It’s not hard.’ ‘No, it’s – Victoire, I can’t.’ He didn’t want to cry; if he started crying, then all his words would disappear and he would never manage to say what he needed to. He ploughed through before his tears could catch up. ‘I want to believe in the future we’re fighting for, but it’s not there, it’s just not there, and I can’t take things day by day when I’m too horrified by the thought of tomorrow. I’m underwater. And I’ve been underwater for so long, and I wanted a way out, but couldn’t find one that didn’t feel like some – some great abdication of responsibility. But this – this is my way out.’"

"‘We have to die to get their pity,’ said Victoire. ‘We have to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. But I don’t want to die, Robin.’ Her throat hitched. ‘I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be their Imoinda, their Oroonoko. I don’t want to be their tragic, lovely lacquer figure. I want to live.’ She fell against his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight, rocking back and forth. ‘I want to live,’ she repeated, ‘and live, and thrive, and survive them. I want a future. I don’t think death is a reprieve. I think it’s – it’s just the end. It forecloses everything – a future where I might be happy, and free. And it’s not about being brave. It’s about wanting another chance. Even if all I did was run away, even if I never lifted a finger to help anyone else as long as I lived – at least I would get to be happy. At least the world might be all right, just for a day, just for me. Is that selfish?’ Her shoulders crumpled. Robin held her tight against him. What an anchor she was, he thought, an anchor he did not deserve. She was his rock, his light, the sole presence that had kept him going. And he wished, he wished, that was enough for him to hold on to. ‘Be selfish,’ he whispered. ‘Be brave.’"

"Often, he had thought of death as a reprieve. He had not stopped dreaming of it since the day Letty shot Ramy. He entertained himself with ideas of heaven as paradise, of green hills and brilliant skies where he and Ramy could sit and talk and watch an eternal sunset. But such fantasies did not comfort him so much as the idea that all death meant was nothingness, that everything would just stop: the pain, the anguish, the awful, suffocating grief. If nothing else, surely, death meant peace. Still, facing the moment, he was terrified."

"Tears streamed down Ibrahim’s face. ‘I don’t want to die,’ he whispered. ‘There must be some other – I don’t want to die.’ They all felt the same, a desperate hope for some chance of escape. In these last moments, the seconds weren’t enough. In theory this decision they’d made was something beautiful. In theory they would be martyrs, heroes, the ones who’d pushed history off its path. But none of that was a comfort. In the moment, all that mattered was that death was painful and frightening and permanent, and none of them wanted to die. But even as they trembled, not one of them broke. It was only a wish, after all. And the Army was on its way."

"One minute to six. He loosed a shaky breath. His thoughts flew about, casting desperately for anything to think about that was not this. He landed not on coherent memories but on hyperspecific details – the salty weight of the air at sea, the length of Victoire’s eyelashes, the hitch in Ramy’s voice just before he burst out into full-bellied laughter. He clung to them, lingered there as long as he could, refused to let his mind go anywhere else."

"Five. Ramy, smiling. Ramy, reaching. Robin placed his hand on the nearest pyramid, closed his eyes, and breathed, ‘Fānyì. Translate.’"

"He thought he’d be scared. He thought he’d be fixated on the pain; on how it might feel when eight thousand tons of rubble collapsed on him at once; on whether death might be instant, or whether it might come in horribly small increments when his hands and limbs were crushed, when his lungs struggled to expand in an ever-tinier space. But what struck him most just then was the beauty. The bars were singing, shaking; trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves, which was that translation was impossible, that the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known, that the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception. For how could there ever be an Adamic language? The thought now made him laugh. There was no innate, perfectly comprehensible language; there was no candidate, not English, not French, that could bully and absorb enough to become one. Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation – a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them."

"‘It’s so odd,’ Robin said. Back then they’d already passed the point of honesty; they spoke to one another unfiltered, unafraid of the consequences. ‘It’s like I’ve known you forever.’ ‘Me too,’ Ramy said. ‘And that makes no sense,’ said Robin, drunk already, though there was no alcohol in the cordial. ‘Because I’ve known you for less than a day, and yet . . .’ ‘I think,’ said Ramy, ‘it’s because when I speak, you listen.’ ‘Because you’re fascinating.’ ‘Because you’re a good translator.’ Ramy leaned back on his elbows. ‘That’s just what translation is, I think. That’s all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they’re trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands.’"

"But he’d waited for death to come before. He remembered this now - he knew death. Not so abruptly, no, not so violently. But the memory of waiting to fade was still locked in his bones; memories of a stale, hot room, of paralysis, of dreaming about the end. He remembered the stillness. The peace. As the windows smashed in, Robin shut his eyes and imagined his mother’s face. She smiles. She says his name."

"Victoire Desgraves has always been good at surviving. The key, she has learned, is refusing to look back."

"She learned revolution is, in fact, always unimaginable. It shatters the world you know. The future is unwritten, brimming with potential. The colonizers have no idea what is coming, and that makes them panic. It terrifies them. Good. It should."

"She won’t let herself grieve that friendship, as true and terrible and abusive as it was. There will come a time for grief. There will come many nights on the voyage when the sadness is so great it threatens to tear her apart; when she regrets her decision to live; when she curses Robin for placing this burden on her, because he was right: he was not being brave, he was not choosing sacrifice. Death is seductive. Victoire resists."

"Anthony called victory an inevitability. Anthony believed the material contradictions of England would tear it apart, that their movement would succeed because the revels of the Empire were simply unsustainable. This, he argued, was why they had a chance. Victoire knows better. Victory is not assured. Victory may be in the portents, but it must be urged there by violence, by suffering, by martyrs, by blood. Victory is wrought by ingenuity, persistence, and sacrifice. Victory is a game of inches, of historical contingencies where everything goes right because they have made it go right."

To conclude this exhaustively long review, if you have not yet read this book, I 100% recommend it (and The Poppy War trilogy, obviously). Yes, I am biased but trust me, it will be 100% worth your time, there's a reason why I'm biased in the first place. These books have brought so much happiness which is weird because TPW is a grim-dark fantasy book and Babel is a dark academia fantasy book with emphasis on the DARK part into my life, and made my heart so full. Even though it IS a heavy read due to the dark content, topics and themes, and even though they DID make me hysterically cry, sob, and throw up, don't let that discourage you from reading these amazing books. They're truly some of the best books I have ever read.

PLOT - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

WRITING STYLE - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

PAIN ENTERTAINMENT LEVEL- ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

BOOK COVER DESIGN - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

OVERALL BOOK RATING - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

#babel #babel an arcane history #book review

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