Very nice discussion. Yes it was okay for me for precisely the reason you mention. I am Bengali, the depiction of one of the characters was completely off imo, and otherwise they came off as flat/ideological mouthpieces which was very jarring. Worldbuilding was alright but theming was too heavy-handed for me and I expected a lot more. I'm not white and I felt the same about Leti, its that oversimplification imo - reducing characters to their skin colour/gender whereas actually people are multi-faceted, multidimensional and their identities while very important are not the be all and end all of everything they do. This type of reductive writing is not for me. 😅 I think that comparison blurb with JS&MN and The Secret History was completely off. Both are my favourite novels, Susanna Clarke and Donna Tartt are favourite writers and this was nowhere near for me. Strange comparison, barring the footnotes and the group of friends, I didn't see any parallel with JS&MN and TSH respectively.
Enjoyed your thoughtful review. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows full well the challenges of what is lost in translation. I loved the themes this novel explores - languages, translation, colonialism, capitalism, and race. Sure, the author is rather heavy handed on these themes, but I was fully along for the ride. My main complaint is that while the writing is good, the characters are not fully fleshed out. Like the Poppy War, this reads more as YA than adult. There are hormonal teens in dorms and there is no sex or sexual tension at all? Huh. Many of the characters felt like pawns moved around for the sake of the story, so I didn't care when they died. I'm ok with the ending, and looks like the author left an opening for a sequel.
I just finished listening to the audiobook, and to be honest, I find your analysis of its themes in this video more interesting and well-put than in the novel itself. I had so, so many problems with this book; and I hate not liking leftist fantasy books, as there aren't actually that many of them! 😅 As far as the characters are concerned, I feel like the novel didn't really understand intersectionality (or just politics in general). The problem with Letty isn't that she's white, it's that she's white, rich and conservative; if anything, I wondered how they were all friends to begin with, since they had such different worldviews. On the other hand, the people of colour in this book seem to be automatically radical revolutionaries, even though in real life that is not the case at all (look at people like Rishi Sunak for example, who, among *many* other things, wants to deport immigrants to Rwanda, and called Britain a country with a "proud past"). It's always more complicated than that; the point that the Left has been making for ages is that working class people from all around the world have much more in common with each other than with the ruling class of their respective countries. The ideology you believe in and through which you look at the world isn't tied to your race.
Regarding your point about the left talking about how the working class from arouond the world having much more common with each other, the book does tackle that, but it happens maybe way too late already, during the part where they took over Babel and the strikers went to their side.
Love the review... hated the novel. But I think you gave it a fair shake... For me its just that the negatives you mentioned were much more annoying not just minor inconveniences. I also did not find it as thought provoking. Almost like preaching to the choir kinda feeling. There are definitely some interesting passages on translation in the first 100 pages that I enjoyed BUT after those went away, I just found it extremely predictable, moralistic, simplistic, up its own a**, and tbh also kind of boring after page 250-ish when the big twist happens. In regards to Letty or however u write her name, as a Mexican (I.e. not white) I also found that character kind of being manipulated by the author. It was so frustrating to see what went on there. Just very simplistic and not nuanced whatsoever than this. Ig I just enjoy my fiction a bit more nuanced (I know u do too which is why i was kinds surprised by thr review). There's no "devil's advocate" in the novel, and I feel that for moral novels to be good there must be at least some nuance, some character that problematizes the issues within the novel
I have similar feelings on the book. It is maybe the most thematically rich of RF Kuang's bibliography and almost a scholarly work, which I took a lot of joy in, but just having to cram all these ideas in a single book also meant that the characterization suffered a bit in its nuance. That also goes for your point of racism being the decisive factor in character decisions despite there being a lot of intersectional identities present in the text. As for Letty, as a non-white person I definitely see what Kuang was going for - a well-meaning character who doesn't fully understand her own privilege and status, but again it was not executed perfectly and could have done with some more nuance. I'd be really interested to know your thoughts on The Poppy War series which was RF Kuang's debut work. It's definitely a commitment and technically not as polished as Babel but I found it much more compelling and visceral.
I was disappointed by a few things. First, you probably shouldn’t be able to chart the character arc and plot beats around a character because of their colour, but you absolutely can in this. Both when it’s trying to be subversive or otherwise. And just at a technical writing level it was compared to The Secret History, so I was disappointed by the lack of “literary” components in such an obvious work of commercial fiction. It has some brilliant ideas, some of them well done, but the shortcomings make it a pretty aggressively mediocre book, imo.
About the race side: on the other hand, Babel is very obvious with the ideas it tries to convey, maybe even heavy-handed, so perhaps the choices there were made more in favour of these ideas rather than realism or interesting character development. On the other hand, when you are poc and have such a strong embodiment of your oppression I imagine it's much easier to make choices based on that than on your profession, interests and so on. After all, isn't it the point of Robin? he was more and more forced to acknowledge his race and make choices based on it as the book went on
Man, the way you describe the book it sounds mostly fantastic XD - unfortunately I hated it, I feel like much of it becomes this larger than life straw man that the author can browbeat their viewpoint about... That 'mordor evil', cartoonish lack of subtlety you describe is so fundamental to everything in the book it just becomes inane. Which is ridiculous for topics I'd mostly agree with the author on, there's just zero trust in the reader to figure a single thing out themselves - and maybe (as some have argued) that's a *good* thing, don't allow people to twist your message? But for my tastes, it doesn't work at all. ... which also feels like it plays into your Lettie point, do I just hate it because it points at me and says "hey your culture is bad!" - I don't think so, but it's also probably not my place to critique this in a way. The racial point is a fascinating one though, I haven't seen anyone describe it like that.
There's also a question of expectations - I was hoping for JS&MN or The Secret History, which it gets compared to all the time, and I don't see either at alllllllll. It feels to me *much* more in conversation with Harry Potter, and were that the level we'd started at, it probably could've worked far better for me.
It seems from the comments that many readers got into it expecting it to be a bit more "mature" (e.g., more of a "literary" novel - possibly because of some comparisons in the blurb?); I definitely agree that it's very much YA-adjacent!
@@TheBookchemist Yeah, and I think that's fine, but I was definitely expecting something different. It may be all marketing's fault - which is an annoying reason to dislike a book.
This is the best,most thoughtful review of Babel that I have seen on UA-cam,great job!
Thank you Kat!
Very nice discussion. Yes it was okay for me for precisely the reason you mention. I am Bengali, the depiction of one of the characters was completely off imo, and otherwise they came off as flat/ideological mouthpieces which was very jarring. Worldbuilding was alright but theming was too heavy-handed for me and I expected a lot more.
I'm not white and I felt the same about Leti, its that oversimplification imo - reducing characters to their skin colour/gender whereas actually people are multi-faceted, multidimensional and their identities while very important are not the be all and end all of everything they do. This type of reductive writing is not for me. 😅
I think that comparison blurb with JS&MN and The Secret History was completely off. Both are my favourite novels, Susanna Clarke and Donna Tartt are favourite writers and this was nowhere near for me. Strange comparison, barring the footnotes and the group of friends, I didn't see any parallel with JS&MN and TSH respectively.
thanks for the review, I liked the thoughts on imperial magnificence and addressing critics of it.
Brilliant as always! Well done, sir!
Enjoyed your thoughtful review. Anyone who speaks more than one language knows full well the challenges of what is lost in translation.
I loved the themes this novel explores - languages, translation, colonialism, capitalism, and race. Sure, the author is rather heavy handed on these themes, but I was fully along for the ride. My main complaint is that while the writing is good, the characters are not fully fleshed out. Like the Poppy War, this reads more as YA than adult. There are hormonal teens in dorms and there is no sex or sexual tension at all? Huh. Many of the characters felt like pawns moved around for the sake of the story, so I didn't care when they died. I'm ok with the ending, and looks like the author left an opening for a sequel.
I do agree with you on the characters!
I just finished listening to the audiobook, and to be honest, I find your analysis of its themes in this video more interesting and well-put than in the novel itself. I had so, so many problems with this book; and I hate not liking leftist fantasy books, as there aren't actually that many of them! 😅
As far as the characters are concerned, I feel like the novel didn't really understand intersectionality (or just politics in general). The problem with Letty isn't that she's white, it's that she's white, rich and conservative; if anything, I wondered how they were all friends to begin with, since they had such different worldviews. On the other hand, the people of colour in this book seem to be automatically radical revolutionaries, even though in real life that is not the case at all (look at people like Rishi Sunak for example, who, among *many* other things, wants to deport immigrants to Rwanda, and called Britain a country with a "proud past"). It's always more complicated than that; the point that the Left has been making for ages is that working class people from all around the world have much more in common with each other than with the ruling class of their respective countries. The ideology you believe in and through which you look at the world isn't tied to your race.
I very much agree with your take! I think it's a very well-intentioned novel, but also a little confused.
Regarding your point about the left talking about how the working class from arouond the world having much more common with each other, the book does tackle that, but it happens maybe way too late already, during the part where they took over Babel and the strikers went to their side.
@@skyslashnova4308 That's true, but it feels a little forced by that point...
Love the review... hated the novel. But I think you gave it a fair shake... For me its just that the negatives you mentioned were much more annoying not just minor inconveniences. I also did not find it as thought provoking. Almost like preaching to the choir kinda feeling. There are definitely some interesting passages on translation in the first 100 pages that I enjoyed BUT after those went away, I just found it extremely predictable, moralistic, simplistic, up its own a**, and tbh also kind of boring after page 250-ish when the big twist happens. In regards to Letty or however u write her name, as a Mexican (I.e. not white) I also found that character kind of being manipulated by the author. It was so frustrating to see what went on there. Just very simplistic and not nuanced whatsoever than this. Ig I just enjoy my fiction a bit more nuanced (I know u do too which is why i was kinds surprised by thr review). There's no "devil's advocate" in the novel, and I feel that for moral novels to be good there must be at least some nuance, some character that problematizes the issues within the novel
Coz you not forced to adapt to some western culture who thinks they more advanced so you hate such feelings
I’m wondering if you’d be interested to review Minor Detail by Adania Shibli or Salt Houses by Hala Alyan?
I have similar feelings on the book. It is maybe the most thematically rich of RF Kuang's bibliography and almost a scholarly work, which I took a lot of joy in, but just having to cram all these ideas in a single book also meant that the characterization suffered a bit in its nuance. That also goes for your point of racism being the decisive factor in character decisions despite there being a lot of intersectional identities present in the text. As for Letty, as a non-white person I definitely see what Kuang was going for - a well-meaning character who doesn't fully understand her own privilege and status, but again it was not executed perfectly and could have done with some more nuance.
I'd be really interested to know your thoughts on The Poppy War series which was RF Kuang's debut work. It's definitely a commitment and technically not as polished as Babel but I found it much more compelling and visceral.
I was disappointed by a few things. First, you probably shouldn’t be able to chart the character arc and plot beats around a character because of their colour, but you absolutely can in this. Both when it’s trying to be subversive or otherwise. And just at a technical writing level it was compared to The Secret History, so I was disappointed by the lack of “literary” components in such an obvious work of commercial fiction. It has some brilliant ideas, some of them well done, but the shortcomings make it a pretty aggressively mediocre book, imo.
About the race side: on the other hand, Babel is very obvious with the ideas it tries to convey, maybe even heavy-handed, so perhaps the choices there were made more in favour of these ideas rather than realism or interesting character development.
On the other hand, when you are poc and have such a strong embodiment of your oppression I imagine it's much easier to make choices based on that than on your profession, interests and so on. After all, isn't it the point of Robin? he was more and more forced to acknowledge his race and make choices based on it as the book went on
Man, the way you describe the book it sounds mostly fantastic XD - unfortunately I hated it, I feel like much of it becomes this larger than life straw man that the author can browbeat their viewpoint about... That 'mordor evil', cartoonish lack of subtlety you describe is so fundamental to everything in the book it just becomes inane. Which is ridiculous for topics I'd mostly agree with the author on, there's just zero trust in the reader to figure a single thing out themselves - and maybe (as some have argued) that's a *good* thing, don't allow people to twist your message? But for my tastes, it doesn't work at all.
... which also feels like it plays into your Lettie point, do I just hate it because it points at me and says "hey your culture is bad!" - I don't think so, but it's also probably not my place to critique this in a way.
The racial point is a fascinating one though, I haven't seen anyone describe it like that.
There's also a question of expectations - I was hoping for JS&MN or The Secret History, which it gets compared to all the time, and I don't see either at alllllllll. It feels to me *much* more in conversation with Harry Potter, and were that the level we'd started at, it probably could've worked far better for me.
It seems from the comments that many readers got into it expecting it to be a bit more "mature" (e.g., more of a "literary" novel - possibly because of some comparisons in the blurb?); I definitely agree that it's very much YA-adjacent!
@@TheBookchemist Yeah, and I think that's fine, but I was definitely expecting something different. It may be all marketing's fault - which is an annoying reason to dislike a book.
She’s a genius lol
Movies have gotten so bad that i have resorted to reading exclusively, this is one of the greatest changes to my life and i thank hollywood for that
You know there's more than 100 countries that also male movies other than US right. Cinema is not Dead. You Just have to look other ways.
This book understands race in Europe just about as well as the Oscars did when they called Antonio Banderas a person of colour.