Babel
Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
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Babel
Koop voor € 26,22
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Verteld door:
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Chris Lew Kum Hoi
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Billie Fulford-Brown
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Van:
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R. F. Kuang
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.
Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.
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.
Babel is 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 its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.
For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide…
Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
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1. It is very well researched. Hats off to R. F. Quang, she really managed to make the world feel real through the details!
2. The magic system and world building based off it is amazing (though as the stroy progresses the match pairs make less and less sense in my opinion, but whatever)
3. The charcters are good - but only up until the midpoint, then they all suddenly become tropes.
4. Character arc was well executed, believable and progressed subtly.
Those things kept me listening, otherwise I would have dnfed. I was still disappointed and would not recommend for the following reasons (I won't spoil anything).
1. The author seems to be attempting to prove that show don't tell is an obsolete rule but unfortunately this didn't work for me at all. She doesn't trust the reader to think for themsekves and attempts to controll every interpretation of everything that is happening! I know that the style is supposed to replicate the style of 19th century books but we kept getting told who was good and evil the few things we were shown didn't back this up at all and were often even contradictory. All this did was make the villain end up as my favorite character because I was annoyed with the narrative voice trying to force me to think what the MCs were thinking.
2. There were too many "Why didn't the Eagles just fly them to Mordor" moments. Also there wasn't a single twist that I didn't see coming from a mile away but all the characters acted shocked.
3. This got much better later in the book but during the first third it felt as if the author was everpresent. Things happened so clearly just because the author wanted them to happen. Especially how Robin felt towards Oxford changed by the minute and not because actual things happened to change his view but because the author wanted him to make plot-progressing decisions so she altered his view unpredictably and illogically.
4. The middle part was basically entirely narrated in a summary instead of shown in scenes and 80% of it was so redundant too because it was just the same things over and over again (just Robin and co. being at Oxford). I nearly lost my mind thinking 'this is like the 7th chapter in a row that's just "students going to classes"'.
There were a couple more things that I didn't like but I can't mention them here without spoilers. All of these things made it extremely hard to get through the story and left me in a constant state of frustration while listening. I really wanted to love this book and maybe I'm stricter with this one that I would have been with others because it was popular so my expectations were higher. Still can't recommend.
Such a promising idea but sadly disappointed
Er is een fout opgetreden. Probeer het over een paar minuten opnieuw.
In einem derart langen Buch sind die Charaktere unterentwickelt und die Geschichte sehr dünn.
Das Magiesystem ist ein bisschen undurchsichtig.
Trotzdem hat mich das Buch zum Nachdenken angeregt und es spricht wichtige und komplexe Themen an.
Die linguistischen Details waren sehr erfrischend und sehr gut recherchiert.
Ganz ok aber kein Meisterwerk
Er is een fout opgetreden. Probeer het over een paar minuten opnieuw.
The first ever time that I feel like 5 stars aren’t enough to adequately rate this book.
Absolutely phenomenal
Er is een fout opgetreden. Probeer het over een paar minuten opnieuw.
Amazing and intricate story
Er is een fout opgetreden. Probeer het over een paar minuten opnieuw.
Some other reviews have complained about the amount of linguistics or etymology in the book, but not only do I not find it irritating, I feel it deepens the plot and shows off the incredible creativity and knowledge possessed by the author.
Even the voice acting has been done well, which is unfortunately not so common.
Can only recommend
Not able to put it down
Er is een fout opgetreden. Probeer het over een paar minuten opnieuw.