✺ Notes on R.F. Kuang's Babel ✺
Very didactic, but I got emotionally invested in these characters /5 Ideal for a young/new adult who's engaging with postcolonialism for the first time. Further Media Recs: Postcolonial Literature: ♖ Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih ♖ Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga ♖ Abeng by Michelle Cliff ♖ Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie ♖ The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy Academia and Disillusionment: ♖ Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh ♖ The Magicians by Lev Grossman Violence as Political Action: ♖ The Marrow of Tradition by Charles W. Chesnutt ♖ The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) ♖ Philosophy Tube's Violence and Protest
Ranting and Spoilers Below The Cut
The single most devastating use of Plato's Apology. ('The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways – I to die, and you to live. Which is better God only knows.')
This book is very didactic. Although it didn't bother me too much throughout most of it, the bits where Abel Goodfellow explains what it is the laborers want and how they're affected by the industrial silver revolution are bordeline unbearable.
I've seen a lot of people complain that this book is thematically heavy-handed, condescending, or, at worst, written 'for white people'. My general take on this is that, if you're already well versed in postcolonial thought and literature, then this book won't tell you anything you don't already know. There are plenty of books that deal with these themes in ways that are far less heavy-handed (I've listed some examples in my further media recs), and if you've read them then Babel is likely to feel very in-your-face and obvious. To quote a highly educated friend of mine: 'You're telling me 19th century Oxford is racist and colonialism is bad? No fucking shit.'
However, not everyone has had the chance to engage with postcolonial theory. If you didn't take humanities courses, or go to college, or even if you live in a part of the world where the topic isn't as commonly discussed (ironically, often the nations that are most affected), then I think Babel would be a great introduction point. I could see this being an especially formative book in the lives of old high school/young college students. With that in mind, I don't think the book is condescending so much as that it's written for younger or less familiar audiences.
The magic system of this book is so cool, the concept of exploiting those gaps in language is fascinating I really love it. Also it gives Kuang an excuse to shower me with etymology fun facts which I eat up every time.
I think this book's biggest strength is it's characters and the bonds between them. I got so invested into these kids and their stories, their relationships with one another. It executed on the found family thing in a way that really struck a cord with me, they made me feel how the books I read as a kid made me feel.
Maybe because it elicited those feelings in me, and maybe because of the whole 'younger audience' thing, I seriously misjudge the sort of book this was and did not realize Major Character Death was On The table. Robin killing Professor Lovell caught me off guard but ah, you know, he sucked and I guess it makes sense. But Ramy???? I did not see that coming, I think I froze in the middle of the sidewalk with my mouth open, gaping like a fish. Honestly I don't know why this surprised me so much, the book's alternate title is literally 'Or the Necessity of Violence'.
Anyways, then Kuang proceeded to kill off everyone except Victoire.
There's a bit in the book My Left Foot where the author talks about how as a kid he'd write these expansive cowboy stories with tons of different characters and then by the end he'd get overwhelmed and wouldn't know what to do with them all so he'd just kill everyone. Anyways, something about the sudden death of the Hermes Society + Griffin reminded me of that.
Reading about them immediately after the murder of Professor Lovell had me stressed out, these morons were acting as suspiciously as possible and making the worst decisions (unfathomably stupid, the lot of them). It was really annoying me at the time cause 'in real life they'd get insta caught they're so lucky they have plot armor blablabl–' but then they did, in fact, instantly get caught. Never send an academic to do a henchman's job.
I love the edge of possession in Letty's feelings for Ramy. The first time they're explicitly addressed, Robin tells Ramy: "she wants you". Later, in Letty's chapter, she thinks of him as "Ramy, her Ramy". This isn't love for an equal, it's an aspiration to ownership. Even after he's rejected her outright, she still thinks of him in those terms. Hers. To do with and dispose of as she pleases. Idk, I guess just find Letty interesting, I'm always fascinated by the psychology of villains.
Dude the silver on the chains to keep enslaved people docile is just straight horror holy shit
The decision to leave Ramy and Robin's relationship that was is so devastating. We never see them be together, get mostly ambiguous hints at their feelings for each other, but the seeds are the there, the groundwork is there. In time, as they grew up and came to know themselves who knows what might have happened. But they'll never get the chance. The book just ends with this sense of things things cut short and left unfinished, which really drives home how young they were when they died.
I'm woman enough to admit I cried at the end of this. Victoire ending up alone, Robin's decision to die, being alone in his final moments... Even thinking about it now it makes my chest hurt. Especially because I got so invested in their friendships, and because reading this took so long, I kept thinking back to who they were then and how it started and it's all feels very 'it's not what one would have foretold'. (Get through a write up without quoting Brideshead Revisited challenge: impossible).
I do take issue with some of the footnotes. Not so much the ones providing historical context or additional information (that's fine, and I found much of it quite interesting), but more so the ones that provide extra information about the characters themselves, or stuff that happened while you weren't looking. In my opinion, if those character moments are important then Kuang should've worked them into the actual text of the story (in which case footnoting just feels kinda lazy) OR, if those moments aren't important to the book, then she needs to learn to kill her darlings and cut out the filler. Either way, an executive decision needs to be made. There's no reason why a conversation between Robin and Mrs. Piper about using silver to treat people should be footnoted, or the encounter with a boy at Prof. Lovell's house.
The whole Griffin backstory stands out to me as a very bad instance of misused footnotes. I think it would've been fine to leave Griffin/Evie/Sterling's backstory as merely implied. Indeed, I think the body of the text gives you more than enough hints and details to make those connections for the reader without it having to be spelled out. But, if Kuang really wanted to discuss it outright, then she should've found some way of doing it in the story itself. Again, either than information is necessary or it isn't.
Also, by the end some of the footnotes start to feel a little defensive, like maybe Kuang's preempting attacks from people that might try to poke holes in her story. Like when Robin/Victoire exit the tower to talk to Abel, and the footnote tells us:
*Professor Craft had drawn Robin’s and Victoire’s blood and replaced their vials in the wall; they were now as free to enter and exit the tower as ever before.
Like come onnn doesn't that feel like a lazy attempt to patch over a potential plothole? Again, this should've just been included in the body of the text. Or, if Kuang thought it so obvious it need not be mentioned, then leave. it. implied. Another instance of this comes again later when Abel is discussing strategy and the footnote interjects:
*If this organizational competence strikes one as surprising, remember that [...]
1) don't assume what strikes me as surprising, you don't know me. 2) while the info on the Ludites that follows is interesting enough, the opening sentence reeks of "I know you might think this is a plot hole but actually–". R.F. Kuang, can you please stop shadowboxing your critics we have a story to finish.
Robin's mom calling him by his real name at the end (a name we never hear) is very sweet and sad and tragic and I think that's the perfect note to end his story on.
The book's ending is also solid, the fact that we don't find out if the mission will succeed. We don't know if the destruction of Babel will work in the story, just as we don't know if resistance attempts at decolonization in the present will ever be totally successful. Was it all worth it? Ask me a little later, and I'll tell you.
