Odyssey Book BloG

Unpacking the brilliance of R.F Kuang’s Babel

★★★★★

Spoiler free

I think I’m in love with R.F. Kuang. Not in a weird stalker way, but in an “I want to live inside her brain” kind of way. Her ability to take enormous, nuanced concepts and weave them into metaphorical fantasy narratives is brilliant.

It’s not often a book leaves me speechless but Babel is breathtaking. Kuang blends real historical injustices, particularly those rooted in colonial violence, with fantasy elements so seamlessly. Her writing has a way of making you feel slightly hopeless but in a way that’s very honest and forces reflection and most of all, reckoning. Her writing reflects some of the most horrendous faces in history and reminds you just how bleak humanity’s constant abuse of one another can feel, and how right vs wrong is not always black and white, or easy. There’s so much to unpack here so I’ve broken the discussion points into a few themes that resonated with me:

Spoilers ahead

Theme 1: Language as Power

In this story, language is a tool of colonization, a means of resistance, and a crystal through which identity and oppression are understood. The magic system (silver working through meanings lost in translation) is used as a powerful metaphor, exploring how language itself can be stolen, erased or even weaponized.

Here, Kuang is unpacking how entire conflicts were sparked by miscommunication or entire empires were built on deliberate cultural erasure. Robin and his fellow foreign students are being groomed as tools for the British Empire, trained to use their native tongues to help Britain maintain dominance over the very countries they come from. Kuang unpacks how entire empires were built through cultural erasure, and how translation can become a weapon instead of a connector.

Theme 2: The Cost of Revolution

Robin is caught between gratitude for the elite education and promising future he’s been afforded and the shame of knowing that education is funded by the exploitation of his homeland (and that he is being used as the very weapon to carry it out). His internal battle wages as he contemplates whether to look away and accept what he’s been given, or risk everything by making a stand against the violence being inflicted on his people. This reflects a dilemma for many privileged people, and a question most of us are not ever faced with answering honestly: if joining in on revolution meant you may not know where your next meal will come from, or how you will house yourself for the month, would you choose complicity?

“In truth…Robin found it was actually quite easy to put up with any degree of social unrest, as long as one got used to looking away.”

And yet, Robin decides. And his ultimate sacrifice (his life) is a powerful counterpoint to our beloved Victoire, who chooses survival over martyrdom. Kuang offers something rare as neither choice is vilified. Her writing doesn’t demand a single correct answer but rather, makes both choices heavy.

Theme 3: Letty and the Limits of Empathy

Letty’s character has stirred controversy, but I don’t think she exists to demonize any group entirely. Kuang did not write Letty as completely evil. She’s nuanced, frustrating, and a very honest representation of what happens when context and circumstance blinds people to the experience of others. Letty suffers just enough to know oppression is harmful but has a very limited grasp on how it could possibly be any worse. Because she is marginalized as a woman at Oxford, she views herself as progressive, but her worldview is rooted in “what about me?” at every turn, a form of empathy that only extends as far as her own experiences.

*Whispers* this is the critique of the white-centered feminism movement. The movement has historically only left room for the experiences of white women without leaving space for the experiences of other marginalized identities.

Letty’s tragedy is that she can empathize…but only so far. And when she’s asked to confront the ways her own identity contributes to systemic harm, she recoils. How could she possibly lack understanding when she’s suffering too?

Her betrayal wasn’t necessarily malicious, it was rooted in fear, and the inability to hold space for others’ suffering alongside her own. She’s a cautionary tale for anyone who believes empathy ends where their own discomfort begins. And she’s a necessary part of this story because she’s not an outlier, she’s someone we’ve all met and possibly someone many of us have been. Pull apart your own bias, and leave room for others to have a story to tell as well.

Final Thoughts           

This book was emotionally heavy and intellectually rich. The characters were beautiful, and the look into colonialism and revolution was honest and unflinching. Babel, much like Kuang’s work on The Poppy War, challenged me to think deeper about all of the different ways in which colonization has touched so many corners of the world, and shaped so many identities, and how each and every corner and identity deserves its own conversation. And for all its academic and political complexity, it’s still a strikingly human story about love, and loss.

This has been my favorite read of the year, but far. Thank you R.F. Kuang for sharing this with the world!