Quick-take: Academia. Languages. Magic Silver.

Dan's Review

Set in the mid-1800s, Robin, a China-born Englishman attends college at Oxford to embark on the lucrative career of studying languages to build magic silver bars. We follow his progress of being adopted from China and through his first few years of college.

I don't know how to review this book. I feel like I was just given a university lecture on history and languages with a side of fantasy fiction. I did not sign up for this, but I found it all interesting regardless.

There is no shortage of debate topics in this book, which seems to be the main goal. R. F. Kuang has lots of opinions, and it feels like she is lecturing to me through her characters. One particularly fascinating one was about the job of translators. Should they be as faithful to the original work as possible? In a sense... accuracy above all else. Doing this might make the finished work less enjoyable.

On the other hand, how about some extra flourish and reinterpretation so that it sounds more modern and native? Effectively, the translation is so thorough the reader can no longer tell it was ever translated. More "data" is lost this way, but more people may enjoy it.

The debate then swings to the crux of the matter... every translation "loses" something. There is no such thing as perfection, so where do you draw the line as a translator?

There were many instances of these debates in the book. The students talking to their professors. The students talking among themselves. R. F. Kuang frequently has a character take a side. I was along for the ride to form my own opinion. I never gave translation this much thought before.

Interspersed between debates, I was picking up a history lesson --the times and politics of Oxford in the 1830s. Quick summary: Outside of the Babel department, it was not a good era for women or non-white men. The main supporting characters, a white woman, a black woman, a man from India, really drove that point. They were having a hard time getting any kind of respect or service. Even inside Babel, they still had difficulty with their white male peers.

On to their field of study: Linguistics. I have a theory about this book. I am curious if this is true. I wondered if R. F. Kuang was inspired during her time as a student at Oxford being teased for majoring in something potentially "useless"?

She turned language and culture studies majors into the most prestigious and wealthiest of all the majors. They are the top of the social hierarchy with infinite money at their disposal. They even have their own beautiful marble floor library dedicated solely to their use. Oh, and one other tidbit: Her exact major, sinology, is the most valuable and foundationally critical to running the city of Oxford. When that nugget appeared, the book felt a bit like reading fanfic.

Back to the story... The magic is not explained until a 3rd of the way through as it is not the focus of the book (silver works economics and the reader getting schooled on linguistics seems to be, as well as the crew grinding through classes and having difficulty not being white and male). The magic has an interesting hook, but I have trouble accepting it. I don't mind spoiling it here because it is a bit nebulous. It requires writing words in different languages on silver bars. The bar then emits power on what was "lost in translation" between the two. It only works if the translator has a very deep understanding of each language written on the bar. It is an interesting idea, but the author does not explore it very much other than making it a point that her own field of study is extremely important. I also wonder if it is not used much because magic by "lost in translation" has an incredible amount of power and plot holes.

Score: 3/5. A slow burn. An interesting lecture. I don't need any more. About a 4th of this book could be chopped to give it more focus.