Babel is a book that was recommended to me by someone whose opinion I hold in high regard.
Admittedly, the premise of the book is inherently interesting, a sci-fi alternate history exploring the reign of a British Empire using literal magic for colonialism? That's a concept that's bubbling with potential.
While I definitely wish to do a thorough review of the book, I do NOT think that this subreddit wants to hear about Babel anymore lol. To that end, I'll try to give my brief thoughts on it before moving on to some of my aforementioned strange observations.
The world building? Great (Historical inaccuracies and annoying academic references aside).
Characters? Biggest fumble. Not a single character is able to overcome their first draft.
Plot and progression? Utterly predictable and has a severe case of "unearned melodrama".
NOW, I really wanna get into my observations.
This book establishes a world where the British Empire feeds it's colonialist ambitions and projection of power through the use of silver working and the study of languages. As a consequence of this byzantine system, the book simplifies the issue of imperialism and inadvertently has the hilarious side effect of kinda justifying colonialism (imo):
1) Irl, the power of the British Empire came from a combination of it's strong naval tradition, island location, manipulation of local rulers, curbing or placating other European powers, vast exploitation of both material and human resources and many many lucky coincidences.By consolidating all of this and placing the power of the Empire solely on one physical material just cripples it's world building.
The book nailed it's own coffin when it turned something as complex and multifaceted as imperial power and gave it a quantifiable and physical form. This is proven at the end of the book when a couple of academics just destroy the entire Empire within a month or so just by sitting on their asses inside a tower (the major center of silver working )
2) My 2nd (and possibly controversial) observation is, in the book, whenever any of the authoritative figures of the Empire are confronted into a debate regarding the ethics of colonialism, they are quick to fall back on the usual trite that the colonial apologists spout. It goes "They already had the means and power to use their resources but they didn't. Now that we're actually figuring out how to use them, we're supposed to share them? No, this is the free market, this isn't how it works".
Okay? While this argument holds absolutely no water irl, it's an entirely perfect argument for this world. China had the silver, India had the silver, both China and India had a perfectly good understanding of the history and etymology of their own language but for some baffling reason they NEVER discovered or used silver working in any degree or fashion. Apparently, only Europeans are smart enough to properly exploit this literal magical power.
This isn't a case of the irl overexploitation of raw resources and forced subjugation of class consciousness and demands, this is straight up stupidity and goober behaviour.
TLDR: Book overly simplifies imperialism and inadvertently destroys its own world building and history.
by Misbahussad