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A review by chery
Babel by R.F. Kuang
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
5.0
December 19, 2023
I have never read such an intense, brilliant, and life-changing piece. Babel, I’m convinced, is one of the best pick of my December read, if not all-time. Babel and its richness in insights, set in Oxford and positioned Babel as the focal point of England’s colonial and revolutionary era, with a vocabulary derived from languages worldwide to form a unique ‘match-pair’, a creation only a genius could ever come up with. The silver-lining, the silver bars that changed the trajectory of the world. P.S. I was slightly disappointed that we couldn’t have a chance to discover what Robin’s very own match-pair would be, a personal invention he could use as a weapon, or anything of the sort. Alas.
I have never read such an intense, brilliant, and life-changing piece. Babel, I’m convinced, is one of the best pick of my December read, if not all-time. Babel and its richness in insights, set in Oxford and positioned Babel as the focal point of England’s colonial and revolutionary era, with a vocabulary derived from languages worldwide to form a unique ‘match-pair’, a creation only a genius could ever come up with. The silver-lining, the silver bars that changed the trajectory of the world. P.S. I was slightly disappointed that we couldn’t have a chance to discover what Robin’s very own match-pair would be, a personal invention he could use as a weapon, or anything of the sort. Alas.
They were men at Oxford; they were not Oxford men.
And they never would say it out loud. It hurt too much to consider the truth. It was so much easier to pretend; to keep spinning the fantasy for as long as they could.
I’m down bad for Kuang whenever she implies this in her writing—stirring minds with philosophy; and, God, the frustration. The hopelessness it evokes is all it takes for me to succumb to. I kept holding on to hopes that, at the end of the line, Robin and Victoire could find peace. A beginning of a new era, to live, to relish every aspect of their success and embrace what they had forsaken and sacrificed. They deserved everything, for the changes they made in the pursuit of the greater good.
May 12, 2024
To tell you the truth, I haven’t been able to move on from Babel. It’s been six months, but I find myself still immersed in its pages. The raw, agonizing beauty of Robin’s thoughts captivates me like nothing else. I found a comfort character in Victoire Desgraves, though she barely has significant contributions to the storyline and as a plot key (debatable). I think it’s a brilliant piece regardless of its shortcomings, which Booktwt discourse recently fussed about: It failed to grasp the revolutionary aspect of British colonialism while focusing more on the silvery works and didn’t quite highlight the monopoly of opium in China. But I love it regardless, simply because it was well-written, all things considered (plot-wise aside). And I cannot move on! I just cannot.