My true love of books is Scifi, I love when an author uses an interesting premise as a way to explore a real world topic. So when this book used a magic based on translation as it's premise to explore colonialism, I was all in.
I loved the first two thirds of this book, especially the setting of Oxford and the use of a coming of age story as a framework to enter the reader into the world. I think the way that the four main characters are forced together by being outsiders was brilliant. I enjoyed the way that conflicts between these characters were driven by their different outsiderness, be it being non-white under colonialism, or by being a woman under patriarchy, or both. It gave me a lot to think about.
But the last third of this book, oh boy. I have two issues, one minor over pacing, the second about the ending itself.
In regards to the pacing, I don't really have the words to describe this in literally terms, but if this was a video game, I'd say this section felt like it was on rails. Everything happened too conveniently, and in a rapid fire that didn't make sense narratively. It was as if there was a bullet point list of all the things that needed to happen to Robin, so they just happened, one after the other, logic and believability be damned. They get caught, they immediately find Hermes, then are immediately betrayed, Remy dies, then they are imprisonment, then a perfectly timed miraculous escape happens, then immediately onto the siege that was the story game.
It happened way to quick and precise in a way that didn't feel earned.
But my problem is really the wanton destruction of the ending.
Now, I can recognise that part of my problem is due to the time in which I am reading this. Living in 2025 and watching in real time as flawed but important scientific institutions in charge of making the world a better place through study, research, providing aid etc are being diminished and destroyed is a big factor in why I didn't jive with the ending of this book.
To watch Babel destroyed just so that the biggest colonial power is hobbled, but ultimately still a colonial power that will eventually return to the same path. It makes the destruction feel very pointless. This is an institution that made massive advances in medicine, construction, exploration. Yes the spoils of those advances weren't shared, and yes the advances were made through exploitation, but is the message of the book that the world is better off without that medicine, without those buildings, or faster ships?
Colonialism wasn't stopped by these actions, only slowed. So what was the destruction for? It didn't make a more just world. Women like Robin's mother would still die preventable deaths, but this time not just because of the uncaring colonial powers, but now because the tower that created the cure has been destroyed. Is the message of the book really that even the most beneficial institutions, if built on exploitation, must be utterly destroyed?
by adomental