‘Faire sauter le monde colonial est désormais une image d'action très claire, très compréhensible et pouvant être reprise par chacun des individus constituant le peuple colonisé.’ (‘Blowing up the colonial world is now a very clear, comprehensible action image that can be taken up by each and every one of the individuals making up the colonized people.’) —Les Damnés de la terre, Frantz Fanon

I was quite eager to pick up Babel, one of the most hyped books in historical fantasy in recent years. R. F. Kuang is an author whom I’ve not yet read, but Babel fulfilled the role of acquainting me with her style and areas of concern. Also, life happened, so it’s been three months since I’ve finished the book… suffice it to say I will not have anything groundbreaking to say on this. I had some major issues with the novel, so even though its themes and the writing were commendable, I found it wanting. Parts of the novel also dragged for me. That is not to diminish Kuang’s talent at all—she is quite accomplished, especially for publishing so many novels at her age (which is terrifyingly close to mine). The characters were intriguing to start with, but they lacked the kind of depth I was anticipating. Robin, our protagonist, feels quite shallow for much of the novel—his actions are reactionary, merely parroting what is going on around him, and his own thoughts being as muddled and shapeless as the reader’s (perhaps intentionally). We are told rather than see the effects of his Victorian upbringing, and that too occurs at a breakneck pace. Robin’s fellow Babblers are interesting characters in that I liked the dynamic each brings to the group. Ramy and Victoire were a great balance of depicting the marginalized experience at an elite institution, contrasted with Letty, the admiral’s daughter, who has certainly fought for her place but neglects to acknowledge the advantages she has. Still, though the group dynamic was heartwarming at first and heartbreaking later on, I didn’t get to see the experiences that bring the group together so much as I was told about them, and the time skips do not help. Moreover, since we primarily have Robin’s perspective, the reader’s understanding of the group dynamic itself is rather narrow. The characters had the bones of something meaningful, but as a reader, we get merely a surface-level glimpse at their interactions. Perhaps one of the things that irked me about this book is that I had been told and thus expected something like an antithesis to The Secret History, or an in-depth examination of the darker side of ‘dark academia’ with respect to colonialized populations. There is some of that, too, but a lot of it is also reinforcing typical stereotypes about Victorian England that I’m already quite aware of. Yes, people mock Ramy and Victoire, who are more obviously ‘other’ than Robin. Yes, people in Victorian-era London are racist and propagate colonialism with every breath. On the other hand, we happen to meet members of a parallel ‘secret society’, who of course are meant to be the rebellion in the subtitle of the novel. Despite that, we get only hints as to their intent until the final section of the book. I kept thinking to myself—when will the “rebellion” actually happen? The blatantly black-and-white, good vs. evil dichotomy felt juvenile and uninspired. Reality, especially when dealing with complex issues like colonialism, can be messy and very grey. Kuang could have dived into that complexity a bit more; as a whole, it ended up feeling like a very surface-level examination of colonialism.On the other hand, I had the expectation of a fantasy alternative-world Oxford. This, too, was a disappointment. As it stands, Philip Pullman’s fantasy Oxford had significantly more interesting worldbuilding than this did. This just felt like a vaguely interposed version of modern Oxford (where the author clearly sourced things from memory, which in all fairness she does admit at the outset), Victorian Oxford, and a hint of magic underfoot. That’s about it. It wasn’t hard to forget that magic exists in this universe at some point; even without the power of silverwork, the humans in this tale are cruel and exploitative. So in terms of a magical Oxford that bends around the power of a seemingly ‘limitless’ magic, we don’t actually see anything that looks like a product of its circumstances, but rather a product of our own. We got the same two or three facts about the magical properties of silver, and then the obvious Chekhov's gun was so obvious that it felt like a punch in the head. The ways in which magic impacts Oxford’s society is a parallel to colonial attitudes and their effects; but in essence, this leaves the narrative feeling very predictable and mundane. The pacing and plot were lacking as well. I found the ending to be quite bizarrely executed and the pacing very imbalanced, especially since the first third of the book drags, and while the second finally picks up a little, the third rams at you like a freight train at full speed with little semblance of buildup or follow-through. Certain aspects of the plot were incredibly formulaic. Though I did find some parts exciting, they came far too late in the book for me to enjoy them as much as I would’ve otherwise. The intrigue of the plot lost its charm by the middle portion, as I kept reading mainly to get closure and find out how things would resolve, rather than by the force of the narrative itself.As with the book, I’ve rather lost my steam with this review; indeed, it’s been a few months at this point since I’ve even read the book. I’m certain I had a lot more to say once, but whatever it was, I will have to resign it as lost to time so I can move on with my life and finally finish this review. Also, Kuang got some of her Latin text glaringly wrong, in a book that is emphatically about language, so I can only imagine what other seemingly minor details were overlooked in editing that affect the overall (il)logic of this book.