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Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution, R.F. Kuang, 2022 novel. I started writing this while up with a sick kid (he finally tested negative for covid like four days ago and had an evening of Bad Stomach Bug, we're having a great month here) so please excuse any greater-than-normal incoherence.
Babel! The most interesting 2022 novel I've read so far; I expect to see it on various ballots. (The Nebula, if not the Hugo, but probably both.) Very interesting to read after the Poppy War trilogy - Kuang is obviously still interested in a lot of the same things, but Babel is a much tighter book. Like the trilogy is doing so many different things at once (and many of them very well), but in Babel it's all focused and aligned. (There's also a lot less heavy content than the Poppy War books; although it's about the harms of empire, it keeps a tight focus on one character and does not spend time with, like, every other harm.)
I have seen various things suggesting that it's in dialogue with The Secret History or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I have read neither and it seemed perfectly readable as a book without that context, so hey.
Spoilers behind the cut ( Read more... )
Babel! The most interesting 2022 novel I've read so far; I expect to see it on various ballots. (The Nebula, if not the Hugo, but probably both.) Very interesting to read after the Poppy War trilogy - Kuang is obviously still interested in a lot of the same things, but Babel is a much tighter book. Like the trilogy is doing so many different things at once (and many of them very well), but in Babel it's all focused and aligned. (There's also a lot less heavy content than the Poppy War books; although it's about the harms of empire, it keeps a tight focus on one character and does not spend time with, like, every other harm.)
I have seen various things suggesting that it's in dialogue with The Secret History or Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but I have read neither and it seemed perfectly readable as a book without that context, so hey.
Spoilers behind the cut ( Read more... )
