babel, or the necessity of violence -- 59% review
Monday, June 19th, 2023 17:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mutterwingwhirri've been sitting on this for far too long. and i know i won't cover everything this book made me feel, but. i need to try to get some thoughts down while it's still fresh.
babel is a story that doesn't pull punches. the machine of empire is, despite being speculative fiction interacting with the magic of silver, whole and complete. it's the stuff that all the textbooks leave out when we learn about the british empire in school. it's the emotion, it's the disgust, it's the hatred and violence and the desires to survive, to assimilate, to blend in. and love. it's so very full of the love of the illusion created by empire to justify its own perpetuity. how tantalizing it is to live on the outskirts of its promises. it doesn't pull punches. this book is not for the faint of heart. every heartbreak experienced in this book is escalated by a footnote that drives that hurt further, systematizes the mindset that makes these hurts possible.
where even do i begin?
i think i want to frame this book as a story about survival-- especially because of how it ends, but also because that thread exists. i've been rereading the book after finishing it and i'm surprised now at how many spaces have been left to talk about what survival inside the empire looks like. so let's talk about how the topic of survival in this book makes itself known.
we start with a boy on the brink of death, being cured of sickness with the miraculous magic of silver. grateful to his savior, and not really knowing why he was spared, robin signs a contract and is taken into custody by an englishman, a professor at oxford. and, bewildered by these circumstances, robin applies himself diligently to the work he is assigned, learning languages and absorbing lessons without really understanding the reason for doing so. somehow, his dedication to his lessons is locked in his mind as payment for having been rescued. he survived, and he should be grateful, and this is how he can show his gratitude. and for a time, this is all he needs to do to survive. he fucks up once. he gets lost in a book and fails to show up to a lesson. and he is brutally, methodically beaten for doing so. "skipping lessons solicits beatings," his mind tells him, "so arriving for lessons will prevent future beatings." and he does this. he applies himself so faithfully to his lessons that six years pass this way. he's doing well. he's surviving. and during this time, he's given a dream to aspire towards: to someday do well enough to be admitted to oxford as a student. he's not even given a concrete means of achieving that goal; he's only told that applying himself to his studies will get him there. and it's really no difference for him whether he gets to go to oxford at the end of the day. studying hard keeps him here in london, where he can survive. slacking off will get him beaten, or worse, sent back to canton, where he will surely die. studying, and therefore oxford, is the only way forward.
then we get to oxford, and it is everything a scholar could dream of. walls covered in books just waiting to be used for research, intelligent scholars to converse with and learn from, and time. no need to work to justify living here, no penny pinching needed to make ends meet. everything else is taken care of. robin merely needs to adapt to this new environment (and really, there isn't much that takes effort to adapt to), and continue on as before. study hard, and he won't get sent back to canton. and he learns so much while he's here. it changes the way he thinks about the world and about language, and about the economy. he finds kinship with the rest of his cohort, who have all been similarly motivated to survive this strange and idyllic campus through their own experiences with exclusionary discrimination. and, critically, he first encounters griffin at a moment when griffin is scrambling to survive a dangerous encounter. the only thing robin has it in his mind to do is to give aid, to help them all survive, even if he doesn't know this is why he's doing it. laws, policemen, consequences-- they are the perpetrators of violence towards death. they fall away as robin takes the bar and casts his first real attempt at magic. and he succeeds! he achieves his goal. the hermes operatives get away, and robin gains a brother he didn't know he had. all is well. robin is given the opportunity to do more with the hermes society. and, as long as he keeps his head down and his mouth shut, it hardly impacts his life at all. he's surviving. and he is happy.
but death keeps plaguing him. he's nearly shot in a hermes escapade, and he's left to deal with his wound on his own. anthony ribben is declared dead after an overseas voyage. and then there's the matter of evie brooks. the stakes change. hermes demands more from robin, so much that it would endanger his living (functional position in society) and his life. and robin can't accept this. he walks away from hermes. he keeps his head down and his mouth shut. life goes on. it would continue this way if hermes hadn't enlisted his two best friends. but they do get enlisted. and suddenly robin has a very frightening choice to make: to confess on behalf of his friends, or to betray his friends for his own survival. and really, as scared as he is, it really isn't a choice for him. he has to survive. he has to come back to his friends. he has to try to live his life.
so much of this book hinges on robin's desire to survive by any means necessary. he loses his friends' respect for doing so, but he can't apologize for it. and... i don't know. i understand why he's so scared all the time. how can you function on your own if you're only ever scared of fucking up so bad you're sent off somewhere to wither and die? can you really ever act in violation of that instinct?
babel is a story that doesn't pull punches. the machine of empire is, despite being speculative fiction interacting with the magic of silver, whole and complete. it's the stuff that all the textbooks leave out when we learn about the british empire in school. it's the emotion, it's the disgust, it's the hatred and violence and the desires to survive, to assimilate, to blend in. and love. it's so very full of the love of the illusion created by empire to justify its own perpetuity. how tantalizing it is to live on the outskirts of its promises. it doesn't pull punches. this book is not for the faint of heart. every heartbreak experienced in this book is escalated by a footnote that drives that hurt further, systematizes the mindset that makes these hurts possible.
where even do i begin?
i think i want to frame this book as a story about survival-- especially because of how it ends, but also because that thread exists. i've been rereading the book after finishing it and i'm surprised now at how many spaces have been left to talk about what survival inside the empire looks like. so let's talk about how the topic of survival in this book makes itself known.
we start with a boy on the brink of death, being cured of sickness with the miraculous magic of silver. grateful to his savior, and not really knowing why he was spared, robin signs a contract and is taken into custody by an englishman, a professor at oxford. and, bewildered by these circumstances, robin applies himself diligently to the work he is assigned, learning languages and absorbing lessons without really understanding the reason for doing so. somehow, his dedication to his lessons is locked in his mind as payment for having been rescued. he survived, and he should be grateful, and this is how he can show his gratitude. and for a time, this is all he needs to do to survive. he fucks up once. he gets lost in a book and fails to show up to a lesson. and he is brutally, methodically beaten for doing so. "skipping lessons solicits beatings," his mind tells him, "so arriving for lessons will prevent future beatings." and he does this. he applies himself so faithfully to his lessons that six years pass this way. he's doing well. he's surviving. and during this time, he's given a dream to aspire towards: to someday do well enough to be admitted to oxford as a student. he's not even given a concrete means of achieving that goal; he's only told that applying himself to his studies will get him there. and it's really no difference for him whether he gets to go to oxford at the end of the day. studying hard keeps him here in london, where he can survive. slacking off will get him beaten, or worse, sent back to canton, where he will surely die. studying, and therefore oxford, is the only way forward.
then we get to oxford, and it is everything a scholar could dream of. walls covered in books just waiting to be used for research, intelligent scholars to converse with and learn from, and time. no need to work to justify living here, no penny pinching needed to make ends meet. everything else is taken care of. robin merely needs to adapt to this new environment (and really, there isn't much that takes effort to adapt to), and continue on as before. study hard, and he won't get sent back to canton. and he learns so much while he's here. it changes the way he thinks about the world and about language, and about the economy. he finds kinship with the rest of his cohort, who have all been similarly motivated to survive this strange and idyllic campus through their own experiences with exclusionary discrimination. and, critically, he first encounters griffin at a moment when griffin is scrambling to survive a dangerous encounter. the only thing robin has it in his mind to do is to give aid, to help them all survive, even if he doesn't know this is why he's doing it. laws, policemen, consequences-- they are the perpetrators of violence towards death. they fall away as robin takes the bar and casts his first real attempt at magic. and he succeeds! he achieves his goal. the hermes operatives get away, and robin gains a brother he didn't know he had. all is well. robin is given the opportunity to do more with the hermes society. and, as long as he keeps his head down and his mouth shut, it hardly impacts his life at all. he's surviving. and he is happy.
but death keeps plaguing him. he's nearly shot in a hermes escapade, and he's left to deal with his wound on his own. anthony ribben is declared dead after an overseas voyage. and then there's the matter of evie brooks. the stakes change. hermes demands more from robin, so much that it would endanger his living (functional position in society) and his life. and robin can't accept this. he walks away from hermes. he keeps his head down and his mouth shut. life goes on. it would continue this way if hermes hadn't enlisted his two best friends. but they do get enlisted. and suddenly robin has a very frightening choice to make: to confess on behalf of his friends, or to betray his friends for his own survival. and really, as scared as he is, it really isn't a choice for him. he has to survive. he has to come back to his friends. he has to try to live his life.
so much of this book hinges on robin's desire to survive by any means necessary. he loses his friends' respect for doing so, but he can't apologize for it. and... i don't know. i understand why he's so scared all the time. how can you function on your own if you're only ever scared of fucking up so bad you're sent off somewhere to wither and die? can you really ever act in violation of that instinct?
