Reviews with content warning for Pandemic/Epidemic - Babel

Honestly this book is like catnip for me. A historical setting (with a heavy focus on imperialism and colonialism) plus a sprinkle of fantasy elements, and above all so much about language and translation embedded into the storyline, just sign me up please!

It is not without flaws. At times the handling of its themes is very heavy-ended, everything is spelled out for the reader and you can see the author's hand very cleary, so much so that you feel a bit pulled out of the narrative. The portrayal of some characters could use some more depth and exploration, in places it felt a little surface-level and stilted.
The ending is maybe a bit too open-ended for my liking.

That being said, the book is still a marvellous feat of the dark academia genre. I loved the reading experience, it was fascinating and gripping, it kept me on the edge of my seat with its twists and turns and put me on a roller coaster of emotions. Just, why did you have to crush my heart like that, R. F. Kuang? My poor boys.

Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation - a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them.

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chiwirite's review against another edition

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

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

5.0

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daniela_09's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

4.5

This is the fantasy and dark academia I wanted The Secret History by Donna Tartt to be.

Babel is immersive, passionate and critical as expected of R. F. Kuang's incredible writing.
I felt like I was transported to Oxford in the past with sprinkles of magic. You could tell how much research goes into this book and it was so heart-warming reading about the friendship and found family of Robin, Rami, Victoire and Letty.

This is my 3rd book of Rebecca Kuang and I can’t wait to read Yellowface soon 💛

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asifsyed's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

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

4.0

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signeskov's review against another edition

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adventurous dark informative reflective sad medium-paced

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

5.0

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rinku's review against another edition

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challenging dark informative reflective slow-paced

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

3.5

It’s honestly kinda hard for me to rate and write a review for Babel. I gave it 3.5 stars now and my critiques are kinda similar to the ones others already have written about: The way the central themes are talked about feels a bit shallow, and the pacing is just not so good.

Babel follows Robin Swift, a Chinese boy that is taken to the UK by an Oxford professor. There, he gets prepared for studying at the language institute in Oxford which uses a kind of word magic that is used throughout the whole UK and thus also to control the British colonies. Robin needs to navigate this new life while also figuring out what he wants to stand for.

The general setting and magic system were interesting, but I think the magic could’ve been utilized more. I still liked to see how the UK looked at that time and how the magic has changed it. Another topic I enjoyed was etymology and it was so great to see the love for words and books in this novel. Classism, racism, and colonialism are all discussed, but especially the discussion of the former felt a bit shallow and too simple for me. At the same time, I had the feeling that losing your (mental) health for your work/studies was romanticized which always gives me some neoliberal vibes, if I’m honest. Still, there were some parts of the first two-thirds I liked, like when

Spoiler

Robin killed his father and they had to hide his body, this whole section stressed me so much

. The part about the opium was interesting as well and I guess I’ll read The Poppy War one day to delve deeper into this topic.

In the last third, the book got much more interesting and made give 3.5 stars instead of 3 stars. We get our classical

Spoiler

low point with Ramy getting shot, Hermes destroyed, and Robin and Victoire locked up. It was such a great moment when Griffin saved them but of course, he had to die as well. This part of the story was so dark, and I loved it

. My favorite moment of the novel happened towards the end when

Spoiler

Robin and Victorie took over the tower. It showed that non-violence can’t be the answer if you want to change something and deals with the moral questions around political violence. After it, it was so interesting to see how the city started to fall apart and how the revolution started. Sadly, the worker revolution wasn’t talked about in depth as I wished it was

. Furthermore, I really enjoyed the ending itself with

Spoiler

the tower getting destroyed and Robin having to prepare for his death, I always love moments like these in novels lmao

I also don’t know what to think about Kuang’s writing. She definitely has talent, but the writing was a bit too pretentious for my taste? Additionally, I wasn’t the biggest fan of some of the foreshadowing in the novel that just felt cheap, and the predominance of telling. I was so annoyed how often it was mentioned how intelligent the characters are, but we honestly didn’t see too much of it lol.

Looking at the characters, I have similar problems with them like I had with the other elements of the book. Robin was an okay-ish protagonist. I found his struggle between the two worlds he’s part of interesting, but I couldn’t always understand his behaviour, like when he

Spoiler

helped Ramy and Victorie flee and got punished instead of them. Before, I hadn’t the feeling that he was the kind of guy to do something like this

The side characters though were a bit flat. The other three Babel students are just as pretentious as Robin which annoyed me. He also calls them way too fast his family, we barely see the development of their relationship. Another topic I want to talk about is Letty’s character. <a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdFkRdgPDU>Cindy recently said in her review of Yellowface</a> that the racist white female main character seemed to her like a low-hanging fruit, and I see a similar problem with Letty in this book. To no surprise,

Spoiler

she turns out to be a traitor as well in the end

. This feels to me like a too black and white worldview, to be honest.

All in all, there were some aspects of Babel that I really liked, like the etymologic lessons or the emotional last third of the novel. But there were many aspects that felt just mediocre to me because they weren’t discussed in much detail/nuances as I hoped they would.

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