'All the intellectuals are insane' A Review of R.F.Kuang's Babel

It seems to me that all intellectuals are insane. 

Set in 19th Century of alternate England, where the British Empire’s main trade is of silver, Babel is centred on boy Robin, taken from Canton, and thrown into the world of silver, translation, and magic. He finds home in three unexpected friends - but

, it's the British Elite that he grew up in, so nothing is ever as it seems, is it?

For our narrator, Robin, I would argue that he was fated to die -  in certain faiths, it is said that you must believe that what was written for you, will happen, no matter how much you attempt to avoid it. This is how I See Robin’s fate, his suicide was inevitable -  as all geniuses in the 19th century were like, (I’M JOKING) if he hadn’t killed himself in the destruction of Babel, he would have done it eventually himself, though, I would argue that perhaps he wouldn’t have simultaneously, if he hadn’t killed Lovell. Though the spiralling downfall only began when he caught Victorie and Ramy (it hurts to even type his name) at the tower - had he not caught them, he probably would have not joined The Secret Society of Hermes (again), and he would have been happy and pleased in his ignorant bubble that he had created for himself  - a sort of, out of sight, out of mind situation. Do I think that he would have lived if he had read Griffin’s letter to him? Unlikely, if I'm being honest. Why? Well, because he had so much grief built up within him, I don't think he would have had the energy to search for them, in some ways he was like Griffin, and in some ways he wasn’t. I think Griffin would have looked out for them, (well he obviously did because he knows about them) but not Robin -  Ramy takes notice of it too, he says that Robin is always about being morally right, and because of that, I think he wouldn’t go looking for them, because of the burden of guilt, would be too heavy for him. From the moment he helped the thieves with the silver in the first week of Oxford, he sealed his fate -  he was destined for sacrifice. Besides, the hero always is. (yes, robin is my hero). Moreover, He was fated to kill himself, from the very beginning he and his consciences are always fighting (Hermes vs Babel) and it overtakes his mind completely (like when he first helped them steal the silver bars) - he was fated for self-sacrifice. For instance, he wants to help Griffin more and know about Hermes, yet just few pages after (around page 143) he desires to be like Elton Pendennis and his friends, and be couldn’t feel anything but “envy” against them, just shows that he would have forever been in a conflict of which to choose; his desires or what was morally right, even though, yes, later he does realise what a bunch of annoying twats they are, nonetheless, he still retains such inner conflict until the fall of Babel. (I suppose you could argue that he would have chosen morally right, as he argues with Richard as to why his mother never got the silver bars but he fell from that hill the moment he climbed it).

Also the footnotes! They have to be either Robin or Griffin, it has to be, from the otherworld, or alternate life, i’m not sure, but something similar to how Death narrates The Book Thief, like that. It’s almost as if an older Griffin or Robin is speaking. 

“What the hell Richard?” I think Dark Academia has made me wary of every Richard that I will ever meet for the rest of my life. This man is the root cause for the misery of nearly every person in the book, his evil was contagious, I would argue.  An abusive man, who saw Chinese-born as inferior, yet had children with them -  the audacity of the man; in some ways he reminds me of Letty, they desire people of colour, yet still see them as inferior? I would argue that this would be an aspect of fetishisation -  he studies Chinese, yet wants to destroy them (the war) - make it make sense, please. 

Ramy, my poor, beloved, Ramy. There is so much to say about him, but I cannot put it into words - so in order to destroy and break myself even more, I will discuss his death. For a loud, proud and in some ways prideful, (THEY ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS)  his death was silent - not even a shout, he was there, then he wasn’t, and, personally, I think that is the most brutalist way to destroy a personality as demanding as Ramiz Mirza was - and not brutalist in the sense that it was gore-y, but more of a sense that sometimes silence can be deadly and the most powerful weapon, his death was so quiet, in contrast to how loud his persona was. It’s almost pitiful that someone who was so quick to talk back to people who perceived themselves to be superior just because of their race, was killed without a reason…well Letty, must have had one. (spoiler alert, she didn’t, well she did, but it was not valid in any way, shape or form) Though, I genuinely think that he was the only stable pillar in Robin’s life, had Ramy not been there, I doubt that Robin would have reached his fourth year, Ramy was everything and more to Robin, which makes all the more sense as to why he loved Ramy so much. There is another thing i’d like to add about Ramy, in his interlude, I felt so so so exposed, not only was it just that, but it was as if I was staring into my own reflection; in his interlude, he talks about how he was able to make his British accent more heavier to fit the crowd he was in, or strip away parts of his identity so he can be accepted, even if it was for a moment, within in British society -  and I, I felt so very much called out. Someone like Ramy, will always, always be in this grey fog, never brown enough to be called brown, neither will be white enough to be called English. The most cruel part of it all, is that there is always this inner desire to appease society, to delude oneself into thinking that you are one of them, only to realize, it is just an illusion, which is why, it makes all the more sense for Ramy to join Hermes, and the diaspora and fragmented identity of Ramiz shows that this is how it has been, and will always be. 

Letty was an actress -  there a bit in the book, where Robin states, when she begins crying, that he knew she was being genuine, because she couldn’t act, but I disagree. She was an admiral's daughter, and she would remain as such. She did exactly what her brother detested, she became as such. She forced her beliefs on to her friends, her friends of colour, and yet, she was angry with them for not understanding her perspective, when anything, it should have been her that should have been understanding; and Robin takes note of that too, when they tell her about Hermes, she begins crying, and Victorie, of all people, Victorie, consoles her, yet, in all reality, it should have been her consoling them. Furthermore, her activism was performative, and this is where I would compare her to Eloise Bridgerton, obviously not the extent of the murder and the cruel betrayal, but more so in the sense that they both were ‘all talk no bite.’ So when she saw that a rebellion was taking place, she ran away, to what she was ‘safer,’ as fast as she possibly could, and wanted no attachment towards it -  a pure and thorough coward. Letty also couldn't take the fact that Ramy said no to her -  her whole life, she was given whatever she wanted, and when she wanted a man that she was always told would be inferior to her, and he said no to which she couldn't do anything about, she really decided to pull the, “if I can’t have him, then no one else can either.” Also, Letty was bound to deceive them, you know why? Because when Victorie complained about her being forced to translate French

, when she felt that they shouldn’t be translated and that the language be respected, Letty countered that and complied in the system that minimised them all to just commodities to make more silver - and she wasn’t respecting Victorie’s wishes, simply put. (she also reminds me of the song Burning Down by Alex Warren)

I'll be so honest, Victorie was the least of the four who I really got to be in touch with -  or to fully understand, (perhaps its my fault for that though) which is why her being the “survivor’ (yes, Letty was alive, but she betrayed them), makes it all the more profound. Because she was the bridge -  that's how I see her, she was the only girl that Letty felt like she was close with, how they gossiped till midnight, got dressed up together for the ball, both experienced misogyny, and despite it all, they were each others pieces of solace, However, as Robin notes himself, race will always be defining factor. Women are oppressed, yes, but women of colour will always be even more so. With Ramy and Robin, how all three of them were part of Hermes, they were all different - not “Oxford men, but men at Oxford.” and she felt that even more than them, and hence why she was so quick to help Robin at covering Lovell’s murder -  she knew that if he were to be caught, the consequences would be dire -  something Letty could not seem to understand. She’s a lone bridge, with no one on either end anymore, but she will always carry the burden to carry the bittersweet memories. 

Robin, I firmly believe is an unreliable narrator, we see this when he narrates memories with his friends, and he comes to the realization of how he and his friend never realized their differences, which makes me think that he only wanted them to be close so that he could delude himself into thinking he had a family, because that's what he always wanted, a family. From the very beginning, their races, their languages that they studied, that all created a rift in between them, when Ramy and Letty would argue, when Victorie and Letty fell out - they were never close to begin with, Robin just fooled himself into thinking they were because his desires of a family. Even with Griffin he was like that, yet it became more of a business-like relationship than anything.

ANYWAY, The parallels between Griffin’s cohort and Robin’s cohort are insane. Sterling Jones (and in some ways Evie) is Letty Price, Griffin and Robin are the same, and Anthony and Victorie -  I don't want to compare Ramy and Evie because they were so remarkably different, but they are similar in the ways of their link to other people in their cohort. For example, both Robin and Letty loved Ramy, in their own retrospective ways, which is just like how Griffin and Sterling were like in regards to Evie -  and just like how Letty killed Ramy, so did Griffin. Another thing, when Robin asks Ramy about why he could never accept Letty’s feelings, when Ramy says to him, “you know why,” i feel like that can be taken in two different ways, either that she would never understand him on an equal ranking, because of their contrast in race and religion, or that he had feelings for Robin as well, but he simply never acted upon them - i guess we’ll never know, like how we will never know Robin's name either ):