Would LOVE to hear your thoughts on Babel. I really wanted to enjoy it and tried to focus entirely on the parts I like but GOD the way it was constantly treating me like an idiot did get grating
I will admit, I'm not super far into it, but my main gripes are yes, absolutely with the tone and general inconsistency of the narrative, but also with the general vibe of academic posturing, terrible writing overall, and with the way the main character (biracial white/Chinese) is written, but that one's more personal than the others. Specifics under the cut.
First of all, this book has made me realize that I'm not a big fan of the whole self-proclaimed "dark academia" thing in general. It feels to me more like a mishmash of words and stereotypes (students are sexily sleep deprived and tired, the campus is timeless and beautiful, scones, etc.) than it does an actual plot. A lot of problems I've seen other critics have with Babel is that a lot of the energy goes into shit that doesn't really matter and serves no broader function as to the plot/state of the world, particularly as an alternate history that includes a magic system that I will admit is genuinely interesting. Kuang seems more interested in describing the infighting between translation departments as opposed to how silver affects the working-class bones that the empire she's so concerned with is built on.
The narrative does feel extremely condescending and like it's treating the reader like an idiot. I've seen tweets that are like "it's called an academic style babe" which: as someone who is a grad student, and has read more of this writing than can possibly be healthy, this type of writing can be bad too. It can be confusing, over-filled with jargon, incomprehensible, and just plain bad. To me, Babel feels like a book that is confused about what it's trying to be, and Kuang is just not a good enough writer to juggle these genuinely good concepts that she's come up with. The narrative voice (and even though the book is written in third-person omnicient, the narrative voice is a character whether you like it or not) cannot seem to make up its mind about whether it's a history textbook, stating things like "London in the 1830s was exploding with print..." (31) "...in that era..." (18), or a personal look into Robin's head. The narrative always, always tells us things rather than shows them, and it just makes the book such a slog to read. We are told thing after thing after thing, and for me, this is the main culprit of the cardinal sin here: this book is boring.
Robin himself is another thing. My main issue with him as a protagonist is that he has all the character and motivation of a wet leaf. Things just kind of happen to him, and he drifts from place to place and does things without any glimpse at any interiority he might have or thoughts on the matter. "When thoughts popped up in Chinese, he quashed them. He quashed his memories too..." (18), "It didn't occur to [Robin] to beg, cry, or even to scream..." (39), "It never occured to Robin to run..." (42), "He'd been so desperately lonely, but had only now realized it..." (52). Of course, it's perfectly plausible for a character to not know with perfect clarity what they're feeling or thinking in the moment, but it's also necessary for them to have a little more reflection on it than none at all, which is what Robin does. The most glaring example so far is when he helps people who are breaking into the oh-so-important library without any real reason, but I'm sure there will be more.
The last issue with Robin is a very personal one, but I'm including it anyway because the train is already rolling: the portrayal of Robin as mixed race is genuinely borderline insulting. He has gone his entire life thinking that he's fully Chinese, thinking that it was a quirk of nature that "ascribed him features that could have belonged anywhere on the spectrum of either race, white or yellow," (30), and is only alerted to the concept that he may not be when one of his (white) Professor guardian's friends draws attention to his eyes, that apparently look just like the professor's. As someone who is mixed race in a very similar configuration (half Asian), this is such bullshit it could fertilize a field for a year. Kuang seems to think that being half white affords one the ability to "blend in" (54) among white or Asian people, but in my experiences, the exact opposite is true. I look noticeably Asian to white people and noticeably white to Asian people. Strangers approach me in grocery stores to randomly ask what I am. To pretend that Robin has gone his whole life in Canton and however many years in 1830s London completely free of this, is disingenuous, vapid, and like I said, insulting. This to me is the most egregious example of what is either an oversight by Kuang that should have been caught in much earlier stages of writing, or a complete unwillingness to do any kind of critical thought about this world beyond trying to impress "empire is bad" onto her readers.
So yeah. Those are the thoughts on Babel so far. I continue to be astonished at the fact that apparently 88% of readers liked this book, that it has a fandom/online presence (??) and that it won the Nebula Award for Best Novel.
hori could've done anything, he could've make dkbk canon, make them kiss and everything. what did he do? HE MADE FUCKING IZ///////CH CANON MAN FUCK THIS SHIT
when i saw the panel i thought it was a fanart and went "yav he he" (which has no translation but kind of means "in your dreams" in turkish??) and scrolled, only to see it again. AND IT WAS HORI'S DRAWING???? MAN FUCK YOU AND FUCK THAT
himiko pushed ochako further... yeah, SHE PUSHED HIM TOWARDS IZUKU???? IZUKU???? THEY BOY SHE NO LONGER HAS INTEREST IN??? THE BOY SHE LIKED IN THE *FIRST YEAR OF UA*???? what the fuck.
moral of the story if you think theres a star rail (left) or genshin design that looks bad there will always be an hi3 design that looks much much worse
