When star author Athena Liu dies suddenly, June Hayward pockets her latest manuscript, about Chinese laborers, and then rewrites it and releases it under the name “Juniper Song” (her first and middle names). When the book becomes a smash success, June is accused of misleading people into thinking she might have Chinese ancestry, and finds herself haunted by Athena’s ghost wherever she turns. The book raises questions about racism in the publishing industry, diversity as performance, and ownership in art, but immerses it all in June’s inescapable trainwreck of an unreliable first-person narrative. There is barely a single likeable character in this book but it moves along incredibly well.
Tag: author-r.f. kuang
Babel, by R.F. Kuang
This book is subtitled “or the Necessity of Violence: an Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution,” which clues the reader into the fact that there will be linguistics nerdity, class struggle, and obviously magic. When words are translated between languages, nuance is sometimes lost; in Kuang’s alternate history, this elided nuance becomes actual magic. What follows explores the British Empire’s domination and exploitation of other nations through the lens of language: how those in power try to make it just another tool of oppression, and how native speakers of those languages are forced into choosing between buying into the system and benefiting from the oppression, or rebelling against it, and losing everything. Robin, the narrator, is taken from China to England at a young age, so that the British magicians can train him to use his language to serve the empire. His gradual awakening to how he is being used, and how he can use what was given him to fight back, makes for a gripping and urgent read. This book made me want to flip madly through to follow the action, and at the same time want to linger over each page, savoring the insights and turns of phrase. A fantastic and beautiful read.