Sadly, Osamu Dazai has to step aside now that Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution by RF Kuang has replaced The Flowers of Buffoonery as my favourite novel. I have long been partial to fantasy stories since I was a little kid, but it’s not just the magical systems that Kuang constructs that beguiles me so. (For another excellent example of this, I would recommend her book Katabasis, which just came out this year.)
Babel, for me, is incredibly compelling because it is not purely fantasy—and I know, I know! What I’m about to say may attract the ire of many fantasy readers, but it must be said: Babel does not romanticize notions of “good versus evil” like many other stories do when they offer social commentary. We see a lot of the nuance and anxieties ridden in the characters, and there were times when I was reading the book when I was made incredibly conscious of my own biases, social location, and moral compass. What would I do in their place? Would I be any better? Would I have the courage? Is this truly what is necessary? And I think a lot of this owes to the fact that Babel is largely a fantasy-reworking of something that really happened: British colonialism.
For the record, I’m a British citizen. I wasn’t born there, but most of my immediate family is from there, and so I had quite the different experience learning about the Empire than did many of my friends, whose families hail from other parts of the world: India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, Quebec, Kenya, Botswana, Ireland, Scotland, etc. I cried when the Queen died. I’ve sung the anthem proudly. I’ve held Churchill up as an icon. I’ve defended many of the notions and institutions of British “culture” that, around the world, has caused great harm. And I have, though maybe quietly, lamented the fact that British power and influence has waned dramatically over the last hundred years. (Literally, one hundred years ago, Britain was still a powerhouse!) Hell, even my favourite show growing up in the early 21st century, Doctor Who—which has often had progressive messages, certainly for its times—has had characters portrayed as laudable utter phrases such as:
No, no. Only Britain’s “great”.
—The Doctor in The Voyage of the Damned
and
We may be losing the Empire, but we can still be proud!
—Wilfred Mott in The End of Time, Part 1
You want to know how much I love that show? I didn’t even need to look those quotes or episodes up—I’ve got it all bloody memorized! So, don’t get me wrong: this isn’t to take away from Doctor Who. (It’s had enough taken from it already.) Rather, I want you to see just how deep, how subtle that imperial attitude is in British culture. That even the Doctor has a line like this—you know, someone who’s not actually British but an alien from outer space—should serve well enough to demonstrate this.
And when I look at a lot of the rhetoric around Brexit, including rhetoric I’d have used at the time, I daresay the empire was still an undertone: a humiliating loss that was compounded further by demographic changes in the country and a reliance upon Europe. Why else would Nigel Farage, a key player behind Brexit, say that the day the UK left the EU should be called an “independence day”? People felt like they were “losing” an idea of their country. But here’s the thing: that idea wasn’t lost. It was bullshit to begin with.
Brexit and Babel actually have a lot in common. On the surface, the ideas sound noble: either it’s about protecting something great, or spreading something that’s great. Such is the justifying logic of all empires. And yes, on the surface, there’s a lot of talk about British values or Judeo-Christian values (another favourite of mine), but what does it come down to? Love? Liberty? The pursuit of happiness? Free markets? That last one is close, but no cigar: the answer is money. In the case of Brexit, let’s be honest, how different are British values from European values? And in the case of Babel, as in the case of the real-world British Empire, we see pure, old-fashioned economic extraction done “the hard way”.
Did you know, for instance, that Britain was the OG drug smuggler? The East India Trading Company would find ways to smuggle opium into China to make up a trade deficit. China didn’t want much from Britain, but the British went mad for teas, spices, and other “exotic” oriental accoutrements. Tea alone is a shit-load of money leaving the British economy for China’s. And when the Chinese put measures in place to protect their citizens from opium, we get the Opium Wars, which concluded with the British (and the French the second time around) forcing the Chinese to adopt a policy of free trade. How about those British values? And that’s what empire is about. That’s what capitalism is about. The freedom to do what the bigger, violent guys says.
I got to thinking about all of this because in Babel there’s a character named Letty, who is the only native-Brit among her cohort of people of colour—neither Robin, Ramy, nor Victoire were British or even white for that matter, and each of them were extracted from their homelands to study translation at Babel, ultimately for the benefit of the British Crown. How does translation help the Crown? Well, that’s where the magic comes in. Their identity as foreigners, immersed in another language completely, gives them an edge that the native-British scholars don’t have. But through a curious series of events, they join the Hermes Society, which is a revolutionary movement of translation scholars that fights back against the Empire.
SPOILERS AHEAD:
And Letty betrays them .There is a “proper” way to fight back against the Empire, but what they’re planning to do is not the right way. She can’t take it. She can’t examine her privilege. She can’t reckon with the lie that she’s been told her whole life: that we’re “the good guys” here! She couldn’t entertain that future and the price it might cost them, so she ratted them out. In doing so, ironically, she ended up making it so that the survivors’ choices were either imprisonment, torture, and slavery in service to the Crown, or burning the whole fucking thing to the ground. Guess what they chose?
The novel doesn’t present this choice with any lack of moral ambiguity. There are arguments and debates, people leave the movement, people die. There is a moral cost to their revolution, that much is clear. But then, what is the alternative? To reason with people who won’t be reasoned with? Certainly, the Empire does not engage in good faith. It’s never been about that, so good luck with it. And this is sometimes the reality of historical process: sometimes, when there’s a bully, instead of appealing to his more enlightened nature (providing they have one), do they not just need a good punch to the face? Maybe that’s not prudent. Maybe that goes against some abstract moral code. Maybe that won’t stop them entirely, and maybe it will end poorly for you. But maybe they’ll think twice before they bully the next person, and maybe that’s enough.
I love how Kuang didn’t simplify this. These are important questions to consider when proposing radical social change. There is some measure of success but also tragedy in the story. And that’s partly why, though I’m not proud to say it, I can relate to Letty. I have to contend that there is a part of me that is like her, that would love to cling to the myths that can justify my own comfort. But this fantasy isn’t a fairy tale. As I said, there is a moral cost, and there is a cost to either side. But these are not costs paid for a common cause: the causes are different, so which cause do you choose?
Photo by Pieter Brueghel the Elder – Google Arts & Culture — bAGKOdJfvfAhYQ, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22178101
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