“1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world’s center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire’s quest for colonization. – Description from Goodreads.
At first, I loved Robin as a character. He had this innocence of childhood to him and we see him come to age as a young man enrolling, in university, at Oxford. His story truly felt magical, it was very reminiscent of the vibes that the Harry Potter series gave to me as a child. Ramy, he was a character that I hated. He was a jerk and yes, he was treated poorly, but that does not give him the right to go and treat others the same way. Now, yes, it is realistic that bullies were usually bullied or insecure themselves but the book seemed to not think he was doing anything wrong when he was. Victorie, there was not a lot to her character. SHe was mainly just off to the side so I liked her alright but I wish there could have been more dimension to her. I loved the epilogue that was at her perspective. Letty, a character that I felt bad for. I liked her but she was just done dirty. Let’s get into that. Robin and Letty both practically snapped. They took complete turns, in their character developments, in the last quarter of the novel. Now, I do understand how these arcs can happen but there was not enough development from point a to point b to get us to where their stories ended. I was shocked by how poorly these characters were written but maybe this just needed to be a series like ‘The Poppy Wars’, rather than a standalone.
I really enjoyed the Georgian and Victorian settings. I am so used to only seeing this setting portrayed in England, which the majority of this was, but we also got to venture to China as well. I’ve read several books with Chinese settings this year and I have enjoyed getting to see that country’s history. This is a dark academia setting as well as the majority of the story takes place at Oxford. Dark academia does not do anything for me but I do know that a lot of people love that subgenre. However, the school setting did feel magical. Again, it was really reminiscent of Harry Potter.
The writing is another reason why I did not absolutely love this book like I thought I would. First, it was very dense. I usually have no issue for heavier size fiction but here it was just too much for me. I could only read about twenty five pages in one sitting when usually I can read double that. I would not recommend this book to someone just getting into reading as it is a lot to digest. That being said, this book could have been about a hundred to hundred and fifty pages shorter than it was. Yet, the characters still needed more time to develop. It’s confusing but I stopped caring about the plot after so long, this book was not executed properly.
The plot was fantastic and unique. I have not read anything like this novel. There are slight hints of ‘The Name of the Wind’ and ‘Harry Potter’, but, as I said, slight. The coming of age storyline feels so magical and you can just feel the childlike wonder coming off the pages from Robin. The writer also discusses themes of colonialism and racism. Racism is obviously a hot topic nowadays but I had never read a book dealing with colonialism until this one. My goal in reading is always to see the world through someone else’s eyes and ‘Babel’ did a great job at that.
I was shocked by how poorly these characters were written but maybe this just needed to be a series like ‘The Poppy Wars’, rather than a standalone. I really enjoyed the Georgian and Victorian settings. The writing is another reason why I did not absolutely love this book like I thought I would. My goal in reading is always to see the world through someone else’s eyes and ‘Babel’ did a great job at that. I still enjoyed the majority of my time reading “Babel’, and would encourage you to give this story a chance. However, it did not live up to the five star prediction set in the book.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
Izzy Reads 