Reviews with content warning for Slavery - Babel: An Arcane History

There are 4 months left of this year, but I am pretty condifent to have found my best book of 2023, as well as one of the best I've ever read: Babel by R. F. Kuang.

Set in the 1830s' Oxford, on a surface level Babel may seem like any other dark academia book where its main characters major in (ancient) languages, but there's so much more as nothing can ever exist in a vacuum; even the coziest corners of a university library are a reflection of the outer world, and little by little the students find themselves in a secret rebel society to fight against the injustices of the white supremacist British Empire (specifically the Opium Wars in this book).

Heavy content warnings for racism, xenophobia and colonisation, as well as violence and death — even though fictional as a whole, almost every individual element of the story still continues to happen in some way in our modern world, as our societal systems were built on this racist and exploitative history that should not be erased or belittled because we supposedly have "abolished the bad things so and so long ago". Through the character of Letty I was rightfully made uncomfortable about my whiteness; the call-out was a much needed reminder of how there is so much oppression I will never understand or have to experience just because of the way I look.

As much as I loved the plot and the writing, half of the time I was just fangirling over Kuang's expertise in liguistics and the massive amount of research that must have gone into creating a historical setting so realistic and interesting. I have studied 7 languages, and though I can call myself fluent in barely two of them, studying languages and new concepts, whole new worlds behind the words will always be a huge passion of mine. So yeah, I really loved all the educational footnotes, even the lengthy ones that took up half a page and even those with Chinese charactes I had no idea how to read (maybe some day I will).

There was also just the right amount of fantasy for my liking — it did exist, but not by any supernatural means or creatures — it was tied to languages, the every-day magic we all use because no words are ever just words. Here am I as well, trying to create deep meanings with complex sets of characters to convey you a message: Go read Babel, NOW. For your own good.

Content Warnings

jlye's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

I don’t want to give much away from the story so I’ll just say that I loved everything about this book. This is the second book I’ve read by Rebecca F. Kuang (first was Yellowface). Babel is a very different book and somehow even more brilliant.

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lovetlr's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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julieyael's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I hesitated to give a full 4 stars or a 3.75.
What made me rate 4 is the world building around silverwork and the translations.

I am naturally in love with languages, ethymology and linguistics. So to have them at the center of a fiction book was a dream come true.

What I liked about this novel:
- the general theme
- the reasearch done by the author to give a good foundation and credibility to the world and story
- the academic settings, with lots of details
-the footnotes, which may seem too much explanation but actually give the reader a nice idea of the background and the events on the side, without adding to the actual text of the story.
- the general writing (it was my first book by this author)

What I thought could have been improved:
- the characters are a bit shallow to my taste. It’s hard to relate and find a coherent personnality in any of them. I love a good character, but these all seem more like quick steches rather than full illustrations, if you understand what I mean.
Some of them are just names thrown at you, and some important characters don’t seem to have a clear purpose.
- the redundance of making the point that « white men are evil, colonization is bad, all people have rights ». Yes, it’s important and it’s a main theme of the novel.
But once the author had explained that once, she could have been more subtle in the 500 other following pages. The point is made clear, but it’s the way she does it that feels redundant and sometimes a bit condescending.
- there were some lengths in the middle of the book, but I am happy that the ending turned better. (Even if some things feel a bit too easy)

To conclude this rather long review: I am glad that I read this book, but not sure if I would read it again (it was more than 500 pages, and with some flaws)
I may have been slightly generous on the rate, so I might reconsider in a few days when the dust is settled😁
Anyway, I strongly recommend the reading, it’s worth the read, even with the imperfections😊

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jareadforfilth's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

There are not enough words, ironically, as this book is all about words. I’ve just set it down and I feel so raw by this. Maybe I’ll be able to come back to this review once I’ve properly wrapped my mind around everything, but this book is exquisitely written, brilliantly cultivated, tragically beautiful and utterly insurmountable. It’s smarter than I’ll ever be and I’m sure even once it’s all settled, there is much that I missed because RF Kuang is that girl 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 but it’s just beyond anything I’d expected.

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shayminxcx's review

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challenging emotional informative sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

I’m giving this book 5 stars because it was excellent and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said

Spoiler

I have a host of mixed feelings about the direction in the final part. Also, unless we’re being set up for a sequel from Victoire’s perspective, I feel that the audience could have been clearly told if the strike or resulting log of it had any impact.

. I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

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rcd229's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Couldn't get the comparison out of my head that this is like really woke Harry Potter (particularly OotP, in some really spectacular ways and specific scenes) meets colonialism. The way things wrapped up strongly reminded me of something else, too, but right now I can't remember. Don't read this if you're uncomfortable with overt examples of (systemic) racism (which is the point of the whole book), but do if you want some context and insight into a very real period in history and the impact of colonialism and the affects that racism and misogyn have on both everyday life and the world as a whole. Character development was fantastic and the historical references were really interesting. As a linguistics minor, I was excited to read about all of the language study and the translations and silver working, but I do wish there was more about how it worked, though maybe I'm just being too technical. Have already recommended this to a friend looking for new reads!

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