Play Book Tag discussion

This was such a disappointment. After reading Yellowface, which I really enjoyed, I thought this book would be right up my alley. Boy, I could not have been more wrong. I think R.F. Kuang must have really matured as a writer between this book and Yellowface. And gotten off Twitter and into therapy.

Babel promises to be a deep and intellectual read, colored by the author's own multiple degrees in linguistics, history, economics and Chinese studies from Ivy League schools in America and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK. I expected lush world-building, subtle and nuanced characters, and a sweeping tale about historical England, the British Empire, and the people who lived and worked within it.

Put any expectation of the same out of your mind.

Here is what Babel really is: take Harry Potter, make it dark academia, give all the characters extremely politically correct liberal Twitter takes circa 2019, and then set it all in the 1830s at Oxford for some reason. If that already sounds exhausting, you have no idea what I've just been through. Every scene is built to reiterate two things: "Colonialism is bad" and "Don't trust whitey." Not only do the characters talk about it over and over, ad nauseam, for scenes that go on for pages too long, reducing every piece of dialogue to righteously indignant social media soundbites, but we're also treated to footnotes about it. At every turn. In case we forgot racism is wrong, you see. And that's just the first 60% or so.

Main characters: Robin Swift (half-Asian Harry Potter, with all of the obliviousness of that titular character, except it's kinda forgivable when your protagonist is a 12-year-old, not so much when he's one of the best and brightest at Oxford University!), Ramy (sassy gay Muslim Ron, whose depiction made me so angry I should have DNFed this book around the 40% mark, but we'll get to that), Letty (white Hermione) and Victoire (black Hermione). They're a cohort at Oxford, in the translation department called Babel, studying translation and "silverworking," the frankly ingenious magic system where you inscribe silver bars with words in different languages and they can manifest the resulting meaning. How cool, right? Can't wait to see how these eager and brilliant young minds invent all this neat new magic!

Haha. Just kidding. They literally do it like, once, for an exam. The main POV character? Never makes any on his own at all.

Instead we're treated to an increasingly ludicrous rollercoaster ride of ham-fisted plots, themes with all the subtlety and nuance of a mack truck, and then around the 80% mark it turns into Les Mis fanfiction??? I literally can't.

And look. I get it. I really do. I too have been granted access to the Academy, feeling grateful to even get my foot through the door, only to realize the discipline I'd like to dedicate my life to stands on the bones of empire and white supremacy. It is maddening. But it's maddening in the 21st century, because we supposedly have already de-colonized, we stand for human rights now, we've fought racism and sexism and we strive for equality and we still fall short, constantly, in mind-blowingly awful and harmful ways.

But in 1830-whatever? Every single character we meet is a product of empire, and it just beggars belief a bunch of 18-year-olds would, on their own, step foot into Oxford University with all the morally correct Twitter takes fully formed in their brains. These are ideas that it took literal centuries of thinkers and writers and revolutionaries fighting for to take root. These characters drop words like "proletariat" and "bourgeoisie" a decade out from Marx and Engels, yet have no real grasp of the class struggle. In fact, they come front loaded with post-colonial social theory that didn't get going until the mid-20th century – which I know, yes, is shockingly, frighteningly late. But Kuang must know this and she makes no effort to account for it in her world-building. They just know all this, inherently, somehow. Which feels insulting to all the people who actually did fight and die to further the cause of global de-colonization.

And there's literally no acknowledgement of my bae Edward Said, partially because I guess he didn't publish Orientalism until 1978, an inconvenient century and a half after her laughable timeline, but also because I suspect the author slept through the class she must have taken when they covered him. Because a basic tenet of Orientalism is that the second you split the world into the two false binaries of the Occident and the Orient you are engaging in the colonial Orientalist project. Which is precisely what she did, over and over. The central conceit of this book seems to be that not only do these binaries exist, but you cannot be both, you have to choose, and the right side, according to her, is the Orient. This creates the weirdest cognitive dissonance I have ever seen in a work of fiction. Particularly when describing Ramy's motives for joining the scholars' revolutionary group, the Hermes society, the author uses some of the most stereotypical Orientalist language I have seen in recent memory: painting him as a duplicitous Muslim, hiding his true Islamic motives to please the English while secretly harboring hate in his heart, at which time he couldn't wait to turn on them through violence. This is framed as some high-minded moral stance, but – goddamn, girl, read the room.

I suspect R.F. Kuang stifled herself trying to write this book. In fearing she would be viewed as racist, her frantic attempts to cut off critics at every turn created some of the most deeply insecure prose ever committed to print. This book is afraid of its audience. I kept asking myself who this could possibly be for. You don't have to convince me colonialism and racism are bad! And anyone on the fence would not be persuaded by these hackneyed characters, these mustache twirling white villains. All I can think of is she feared bad faith critics on social media so badly that she ended up reducing everything to caricature, terrified someone somewhere might possibly misconstrue her meaning.

Which ends up promoting the very prejudices the book spends its unnecessarily long page count railing against. All POCs in this book are framed as virtuous and right, all white characters gleefully, cruelly in the wrong. Opportunities to explore nuance are unceremoniously ignored. (Letty, oh Letty... And Robin, despite being obsessed with his Chinese heritage, actually looks so British his own half-brother mistakes him for their father!) The tragedy is that Kuang is such a capable writer these characters strive to break out of the rigid roles she's cast them in, only to have her shove them back in their places with totally baffling exposition. (view spoiler)[The bit in the epilogue where it stated Letty would "pursue Victoire to the ends of the earth" to destroy her?!?! WTF??? Letty did nothing the entire book but try to reason with these insane people – why would she do that????? (hide spoiler)]

Also, in a book hyperfixated on creating an opportunity for the "necessity of violence," none of our main players actually do very much. Every major plot progression is accomplished either by accident, happenstance, or inaction. It felt like Kuang was too uncomfortable with the idea of letting her saintly characters be held responsible for messy, morally ambiguous things, and instead created loopholes at every turn to let them keep the moral high ground. The most absurd of which is near the end when a literal deus ex machina comes around in the form of a labor movement joining the cause (with its leader, Abel, having one of the most unnecessarily sexy voices I've ever heard. Shout out to the audiobook btw – this narrator is giving the most and it's the only way I was able to get through the whole book!). Even the things the characters commit to doing feel toothless. It was especially egregious, when, after Robin argues passionately for the use of violence, he and his fellow revolutionaries... sit down for a letter-writing campaign in order to sway public opinion. I found myself wondering: what does this book think violence actually is???

Yet, overall, so much destruction is wreaked – mostly via negligence – and these scholars are kinda sorta responsible, in a wishy-washy way, and you end up wondering if any of this was worth it. It kind of seems like their own senses of entitlement indirectly caused a massive amount of undue suffering, yet none of them are ever forced to reckon with that. We just get a bunch of platitudes and some of the most overwrought, saccharine prose as Robin makes a totally unnecessary sacrifice. And the ending??? A setup for a sequel, I guess???? No, thank you. I'm so tired. I don't want to spend another second in this grim, unlikely, self-righteous world.

I wanted to muster two stars for this, because Kuang can write very well on a technical level, and the original premise is so good. But I just can't do it. I would have DNFed this book a dozen times over if I didn't have to read this for a book club, and I stayed on board just to see how much more bananas things could get. Which, it turned out, is very.

Good riddance, and I'm glad R.F. Kuang appears to have grown significantly as a writer since this effort (and is doing better mentally).

P.S. Justice for Letty. :(

Tell us how you really feel. Hahaha

Loved your review. Intelligent, thoughtful, and hard hitting.

I liked Yellowface a lot but this premise didn’t appeal to me. Now I’m glad it didn’t.

Very good review, I think I gave it 3 stars which for me means not bad but nothing special. I won a copy from a GR giveaway and there was so much hype about it that I was disappointed. And yes, the "gifted student goes to magical school, makes friends and enemies, fights evil " is everywhere now - Fourth Wing, for instance.

This book is also longer than it needs to be.

Jason wrote: "Tell us how you really feel. Hahaha

Loved your review. Intelligent, thoughtful, and hard hitting.

I liked Yellowface a lot but this premise didn’t appeal to me. Now I’m glad it didn’t."

Haha I tried to temper myself, truly, but after 21 hours of that audiobook, I needed to air a few grievances.

@Robin - Yeah, I was extremely surprised how derivative of Harry Potter it is. I guess a whole generation of authors who grew up on HP don't realize how influential it was on them.

I think if the author cut most conversations where the characters argue about empire and colonialism, the book would be at least a third shorter!

Great review Heather! I have been putting this book off since it came out. Every time I got it from the library I never picked it up. Your review tells me I did the right thing. I will be taking it off my TBR.

Wow this is the most entertaining review I’ve read in a long time! I somehow missed learning about the opium wars when I was in school, so the colonialism material was actually my favorite part of this book. I also found the translation information fascinating, since I started reading more translated books when I read this.

I didn’t think about Hogwarts when I read about these students, probably because I recognized a few dynamics from my own school days first. We had no magic or silver, but the students in my PhD program came from all over the world. I was in the minority as both a woman and an American. There were also many recognizable behaviors associated with academic politics among the professors. I don’t think they came from Rowling.

I love the connections you made between Harry Potter and the MC. Their orphan origin stories were similar. The magical battles between good and evil didn’t originate with Rowling, but they are the best known in this generation.

I think I read that she based some of the action scenes (involving townspeople, barricades etc.) on real historical battles that she studied before turning to fiction writing.

I have yet to read the book and fully intend to do so as I have it in ebook in the TBR Towers.

But while I did not read your full review and won't until I read my book, I HAD to stop by when I saw you give it 1 star! I admire your taking the time to explain it and now I can't wait to see what I think of it! Because I own it and I have to read it at some point, for that alone, but also because there are such divergent opinions on it.

Of course the Harry Potter/Luke Skywalker/Narnia story is a version of the old hero myth as described by Joseph Campbell.

I loved the writing in The Name of the Wind but there is a section where the boy goes to a school, learns to harness magic, makes friends, has an enemy who is a rich boy, a professor who champions him while another has it in for him, etc. Sounds awfully familiar!

There is a series about the opium wars that starts with Sea of Poppies. I thought the first book was terrific and did some very unusual things with language. But the second book seemed like the author wanted to teach us about the era, so he put in way too many documents, characters and explanations that didn't advance the story. I think the 3rd book was somewhere in between. But the trilogy certainly will give you a lot of info on the period.

Joanne wrote: "Great review Heather! I have been putting this book off since it came out. Every time I got it from the library I never picked it up. Your review tells me I did the right thing. I will be taking it..."

@Joanne - I think we have similar tastes and yeah, I'm not sure you'd enjoy this one. The lack of nuance and the repetition is just such a buzz kill.

@Nancy - I'm delighted to hear a counterpoint to mine (and am happy you don't mind my roasting this title a bit). I agree with everything you said – the actual intellectual information in this book was my favorite part, too. I just found it maddening so much of that stuff was usually relegated to footnotes! There's so much cool historical stuff the author clearly did research on that I wanted to see play out.

It's hard for me to unsee HP influence on authors of my generation and younger (I think Kuang is 28). It was such a cultural phenomenon I think so many of us still carry it around in our bones, for better or for worse lol.

@Theresa - I am dying to know what you think of this book!! Do you think you'll read it soon? I will say although I rated it so low I still think it was worth reading – my book club buddy and I have been furiously texting about it as we read, so it brings a lot to the table for discussion regardless of whether you find it enjoyable, I think.

@Robin - I will have to check out Sea of Poppies! I feel like I wanted to know way more about the fight over opium in Canton, and this book really only gave me a taste. (I understand her Poppy War trilogy is more in this vein as well, but uh.... I think I need a break from Kuang for awhile... lol)

Not before 2025.

I think it’s so much more interesting to hear different opinions.

I agree with you that she seems to be trying very hard to get ahead of potential criticism. It’s hard to tell a story with opposing sides, while being afraid you will be held accountable for the views of all of your characters.

I’m guessing that she had a lot of experience with this in school, and might feel the need to “represent” her race as well as defend her ideas. I understand this a little better after reading Yellowface. I felt like the whole book was a reaction to criticism or jealousy she saw online about this book or others. She came across to me as defensive, but I suspect that might be because she was often actually attacked (in anonymous posts online). It was fascinating to read, but it must have been really painful. She was advised not to read what people said about her online, but she couldn’t stop herself. I’ll say this for her - she has been very successful in stimulating a lot of discussions.

I'll add my two cents that I loved it. I absolutely see your points, Heather, but I didn't read it with those thoughts in mind. The magical battle of good versus evil was well done in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in the 1950s so I thought HP was "derivative" in that way (not derivative in a bad way, but just "based upon" that type of magical fantasy).

I will second the admiration for Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh. His recently released non-fiction, Smoke and Ashes: A Writer's Journey through Opium's Hidden Histories is also a good account of the Opium Wars as well as the history of British colonialism in India and China.

NancyJ wrote: "I think it’s so much more interesting to hear different opinions.

I agree with you that she seems to be trying very hard to get ahead of potential criticism. It’s hard to tell a story with opposi..."

@Nancy - I really loved Yellowface! I think it did much better what this novel is trying to do – create situations where big subjects like race and privilege can be deconstructed frankly. But I found far more humor and self-awareness in Yellowface than Babel. I think she manages to poke fun at herself more in Yellowface, which shows more resilience than what I sensed in this novel, which is a lot of defensiveness and insecurity (which is a detriment, because her prose is so strong!). I hope she continues to grow as an author.

@Joy - Oh absolutely, HP is by no means new or even that innovative in its themes. I just think there's such a specific style to it, even a bit of fourth-wall breaking cheekiness in its presentation, that really felt like Kuang was recreating in Babel, though whether intentionally or unintentionally, I don't know. Even some of the professors had silly names that were telling about their characters (i.e. Professor Playfair, who didn't play fair at all!) that felt very similar to HP naming conventions.

I will have to check out more of these books. The history is really interesting, and to be honest, if Babel were a non-fiction book I probably would have been delighted to simply hear about all the historical anecdotes she packs in and not had any problem with it... it just doesn't stand up well as a narrative.

Joy D wrote: "I'll add my two cents that I loved it. I absolutely see your points, Heather, but I didn't read it with those thoughts in mind. The magical battle of good versus evil was well done in the Lord of t..."

Smoke and Ash looks good, Joy-Thanks for the tip