Ever since the release of Babel and Katabasis, there is a very specific audience of people who not only insist on engaging with her work despite already knowing they do not like it, but they make the same critiques of her writing that doesn't really do anything but reveal their own lack of media literacy.
Firstly, just to get it out of the way: whether or not you engage with someone's writing style and like it is not the focus of my argument. Taste is subjective, and the talent present in a piece of work does not mean you must like what they make (ex: Monet is a talented painter, but I am not a fan of his work. My dislike for this style doesn't negate his talent).
That's obviously very trivial, but I keep seeing people who argue that her writing is too academic to be understood, or her themes are too "in your face". Putting aside the fact that these two critiques are almost oxymoronic, although she grows to have more and more academic references which inspire her work, and Babel quite literally had footnotes to provide some context to certain historical points she made, the writing itself is not something that would be difficult to understand by the average person who went into any stream of post-secondary academia. Rather, the people in their 20's stating that her work is difficult to understand only prove to show that they lack the reading comprehension skills they should hold.
Further, it is not entirely true; The Poppy War is a perfect example of a novel that does not entirely hold an academic feel to its writing, and there is a reason. Kuang herself has stated that the mindset she was in whilst writing the trilogy was that of an angry 19 year old who was learning China's history and was opening her eyes to some horrific tragedies. All of the emotions accumulate into what Rin becomes. Part of the tragedy within the story is the realism of what that anger and emotion does in a time of war, and the story follows an arc that we seetime and time again in history.
But as she has grown and learned more, R.F. Kuang seems to change her focus on where her anger is directed. We see that directly with novels like Babel and Yellowface. Babel, the more academic of the two and where I personally see most of her critiques directed, is focused on an entirely different reality: Robin lives during a time of relative peace, and instead of the racism and bigotry taking form in constant acts of war crimes, they are in systems of oppression, ideas of superiority and an imposed expectancy of gratefulness that seemingly comes off as servitude. Robin's reaction to this world is still an anger that we may all resonate with, but its slower, less erratic and requires a different response than that of Rin's. It also makes sense, not simply from a marketing standpoint, that Kuang focus on something a little different and portray her writing in a different manner. She herself has grown and learned. My main argument against this critique is that if you compare a lot of novels with similar themes to Babel, you will see that even if the other novels are just as effective at portraying those themes, they do not delve as deep. That is the necessity for the context that Kuang provides in her footnotes.
The novel critiques systems of academia for upholding its roots of systemic racism, while also discussing the intimacy of language to cultures, as well as a discussion on the entrapment that a lot of immigrants feel when confronted with this expected gratefulness of being accepted in a society that "did not have to accept them." Robin consistently battles with the concept of needing to feel grateful that he was brought to England and could study at Babel, despite the constant reminders from his elders and peers that he will never be one of them, and that in essence, he is being used for his resources.
Many people take this main thesis of the book and boil it down to R.F. Kuang simply saying that "racism is bad." Well, if you look at it that way, of course the novel feels heavy handed. The book is not "doing too much", there is a lot that goes into this well circulated system of colonization and oppression, it's the reason it has managed to last multiple centuries. Rather, Babel serves as a way to walk people through what may drive certain groups into acting in specific ways, as well as provide an almost first hand account of these experiences. It provides empathy in a world that is similar to our own, which is a step in the right direction if I may say so.
Finally, being vague on such topics which require us to understand their severity in both fiction and reality serves no one, especially not the author. Chapter 21 of The Poppy War is notoriously horrific because Kuang spared no feelings and sugarcoated nothing. Rather, she took excerpts from that tragic event and used it verbatim in her novel. Babel simply follows suit, but instead of war crimes, she described day to day aggressions and the influence of stereotypes and propaganda. Suzanne Collins follows a similar style in portraying the same themes, and she is never vague, rather she holds the reader's hands whilst explaining why the system is exploitative and how the revolution was a long way coming.
The difference is Suzanne wrote the Hunger Games with a younger audience in mind. Kuang did not do the same for any of her novels; her intended audience are adults, those who can swallow the realities of the world we live in with the context it exists within.
