“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.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel
Dear Reader,
I am excited to present the Babel Book Club as part of the TREASURE BOUND NOTEBOOK newsletter — homage and namesake of RF Kuang’s fourth novel, Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution.
I completed my read in peak dark academia season as raindrops raced down the window October of last year. Even now as July swells up with summer, I fit myself between the pages and welcome the difficult reflection held to my character — I imagine with a regency-style giltwood hand mirror of course.
If you have not yet read Babel, here is my synopsis:
In an alternative reality of 1830s England, an orphan boy from China is taken, raised, and groomed in England by a cryptic guardian-professor to be accepted into Oxford’s Royal Institution of Translation: Babel. The boy takes the name Robin Swift.
England’s colonial supremacy and economy rely upon magic silver bars that are powered by uncovering the meanings lost in the translation of words and languages. Once deciphered, the match-pair translations are inscribed into the silver bars and can be used to increase industrial and agricultural production, to safeguard homes and public buildings, heal injuries, or hone weapon accuracy such as bullets. The university uses their exclusive society of translators to perpetuate and enable capitalism and British imperialism.
Seduced by the sense of belonging and acceptance at Babel he never felt before from his adoptive country, Robin’s loyalties begin to contradict. His attempts to sustain the coexistence between his allegiance to his homeland, Babel, and his new friends reveal Robin’s complicit desire to inact.
But as Robin and his friends navigate their growing awareness that their academic efforts are being used to maintain British supremacy and afflict violence, they all must face their beliefs and the consequences of them.
My intention behind naming this book blog and club after the Babel building is to encourage readers to impugn their realities through the act of reading diversely. To ask — Do we abuse our own beliefs and learnings by holding onto preconditioned ones? Do we honor our beliefs with words and actions? Or are we complicit? Undecided? Apathetic?
I was once told by a high school English teacher that there can be no such thing as not caring.
Babel reminds me that coming into my own was and is a series of difficult decision just as it was for Robin and his friends. That I have the mind to discern for myself who I want to be, what I want to become, and what I want to do.
It also reminds me to pull close to my friends and family — to be an ear and soundboard for each other.
So welcome then, to Babel, where we read, we think, we choose.
I will share my reading progress, opinions, and recommendations as well as playlists to accompany the texts and more fun features!
Next up, I will be posting my upcoming reading list for August as well as my last, current, and next reads! Subscribe to keep to date and leave your last, current, next in the comments!
All the best dear reader,
Sophia
Last: Brutes by Dizz Tates, current: The Chiffon Trenches by Andre Leon Talley, next: Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton (subject to change)