Pamiętasz wspaniałe opowieści o angielskich gentlemanach i ich eleganckim życiu?
Ta książka nie będzie opowieścią o nich, ale o ludziach, na których plecach, spracowanych rękach i krwi zbudowano Imperium Brytyjskie z całą jego zamożnością, elitarnością i dobrym wychowaniem.
Robin, osierocony pół-chińczyk, trafia do Anglii, gdzie ma tylko jedno zadanie: uczyć się. Zdobywać wiedzę, poznawać nowe języki a potem odpracować dług wobec Imperium w oksfordzkim instytucie Babel. Wszystko zmienia się w dniu, a właściwie w nocy, gdy Robin poznaje pewnego człowieka. Bliźniaczo podobnego fizycznie, ale żyjącego według całkowicie innych zasad.
To spotkanie zrujnuje misternie budowany świat Robina. Obróci w niwecz jego poczucie sprawiedliwości, wypali złudne poczucie bezpieczeństwa i zmusi do zadania sobie pytania: komu należy się moja wierność?
W tej historii nie będzie prostych odpowiedzi ani gotowych recept. Będzie za to gorzka opowieść o wyzysku, niesprawiedliwości i bezwzględnej walce o władzę. Będzie nie mniej gorzka opowieść o próbie przywrócenia sprawiedliwości.
Myślisz, …
Pamiętasz wspaniałe opowieści o angielskich gentlemanach i ich eleganckim życiu?
Ta książka nie będzie opowieścią o nich, ale o ludziach, na których plecach, spracowanych rękach i krwi zbudowano Imperium Brytyjskie z całą jego zamożnością, elitarnością i dobrym wychowaniem.
Robin, osierocony pół-chińczyk, trafia do Anglii, gdzie ma tylko jedno zadanie: uczyć się. Zdobywać wiedzę, poznawać nowe języki a potem odpracować dług wobec Imperium w oksfordzkim instytucie Babel. Wszystko zmienia się w dniu, a właściwie w nocy, gdy Robin poznaje pewnego człowieka. Bliźniaczo podobnego fizycznie, ale żyjącego według całkowicie innych zasad.
To spotkanie zrujnuje misternie budowany świat Robina. Obróci w niwecz jego poczucie sprawiedliwości, wypali złudne poczucie bezpieczeństwa i zmusi do zadania sobie pytania: komu należy się moja wierność?
W tej historii nie będzie prostych odpowiedzi ani gotowych recept. Będzie za to gorzka opowieść o wyzysku, niesprawiedliwości i bezwzględnej walce o władzę. Będzie nie mniej gorzka opowieść o próbie przywrócenia sprawiedliwości.
Myślisz, że wiesz, co jest słuszne i właściwe? Spróbuj zmierzyć się z tą opowieścią.
Review of 'Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
In early victorian England, foreign translators at Oxford try to take on the empire, which works on a translation-based kind of magic that involves silver bars. Many times, we think it's all over for our protagonists, and they receive a miraculous rescue, it's quite gutting. Until at the end, they don't.
I liked it, the magic is very clever, the parallels to our real world are there, although events have been altered. There's still an opium war, an abolitionist movement, English exceptionalism and disdain for others, all the loathsome things that make up British Empire.
Review of 'Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence' on 'Storygraph'
4 stars
At times the book seems to want the characters to be complex people, but most of the time they are more there to fill a more fable like role and teach us lessons, similarly for the world building. Either of these approaches could work well but done at the same time they undermine each other.
At times the book seems to want the characters to be complex people, but most of the time they are more there to fill a more fable like role and teach us lessons, similarly for the world building. Either of these approaches could work well but done at the same time they undermine each other.
Review of 'Babel : Or the Necessity of Violence' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
This was on the list of books I went back and forth on reading. The concept sounded interesting, but, to be quite frank, it also sounded potentially boring. I'm glad I did go ahead and read it.
I won't argue that it isn't slow (it is), but it hits that lovely academia feel that I so loved in The Historian (and that made me at least start grad school. Grad school is not actually like this for most people, alas.), and I found the entirety of Babel and Oxford itself charming. I understood why the characters got so caught up in the world, and I can't say I wouldn't have done exactly the same.
My problems with the novel (and the reason why, despite devouring it rather quickly, it is not a five star for me and I actually debated on giving it a three) are mostly the last half. …
This was on the list of books I went back and forth on reading. The concept sounded interesting, but, to be quite frank, it also sounded potentially boring. I'm glad I did go ahead and read it.
I won't argue that it isn't slow (it is), but it hits that lovely academia feel that I so loved in The Historian (and that made me at least start grad school. Grad school is not actually like this for most people, alas.), and I found the entirety of Babel and Oxford itself charming. I understood why the characters got so caught up in the world, and I can't say I wouldn't have done exactly the same.
My problems with the novel (and the reason why, despite devouring it rather quickly, it is not a five star for me and I actually debated on giving it a three) are mostly the last half. Things pick up a bit there, but to the detriment of the feel of the book, even if it does serve the story.
The characters were interesting, and I did get attached to Robin, but they were held at arms' length by the text itself, which felt strange given how close we were told over and over that they were. All three of the other main characters in this adventure kept coming up with surprises late in the game that didn't feel like real surprises so much as "oh, somehow this character trait never came up at all despite everyone being best friends and oh-so-close," and that didn't feel great.
The magic system, though, was super neat. Watching pairs of words get traced through the lineage of history felt cool every time it was done, and it's not something I've seen before. I understood why the characters found it so enthralling, and that made it much easier for me to get excited about it.
There was a moment that was supposed to surprise us later in the novel that seemed too telegraphed for our theoretically very clever characters to have not seen. Maybe I was supposed to count on a relationship that had been built to make them feel blinded by it, but the relationship was never built to the point where I believed that.
The ending is a bit rough in that Robin seems to devolve into a different character rather quickly. I don't know that it is wrong that he does, given everything that happens (trying to speak around spoilers here), but the suddenness of it after the slow pace of a lot of the rest of the book felt bizarre. I didn't hate the ending, but it was not what I was hoping for and it didn't have the feeling of rightness that makes up for getting an ending you don't love. I'm not considering it a spoiler that something with the word "Revolution" in the title doesn't end perfectly cleanly.
Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit, but more for the delights of watching a neat magic system get attached to a dark academia book than because things hung together perfectly. If that's your cup of tea, I do recommend this, but it's a soft four and if you are not up for footnotes and lots of discussion of how the empire is problematic (I mean, it definitely was, but there's a ton of coverage of it in here), it may be a bit slow.
