Reviews - Babel | The StoryGraph

62.5k reviews for:

Babel

R.F. Kuang

4.34 AVERAGE

badavinci's review against another edition

4.0

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

wordsandwanderings's review against another edition

4.25

dark emotional mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

alexbrownbooks's review against another edition

2.25

Maybe if I were feeling kinder toward the world in general, I would rank this more highly, but sadly, I'm just not, and I've spent too much time ranting about this book to everyone I know to be generous. My broadest impression is this: R.F. Kuang didn't trust herself enough to tell a real story, and she wouldn't have trusted her readers to understand it if she had.

loganbaileycrews's review against another edition

5.0

ha. ha ha. ha. don’t read this book unless you want to CRY! don’t read this book if you’re a yale student or maybe you should actually! uhhh too real and one of the best blends of reality and fictional imagination i’ve ever read. just incredible and demanding of the conscience

noranaziz's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ babel.

ੈ♡˳ final rating: 4.75/5

“he wondered if there would ever be a day that came when all this was unnecessary, when white people would look at him and simply listen, when their words would have worth and value because they were uttered, when they would not have to hide who they were, when they wouldn’t have to go through endless distortions just to be understood.”

robin swift never had a life of his own. even his name—we are never given his original chinese name—is pushed aside for the sake of the high and mighty English. after his mother’s death, robin is taken to london to live a new life with the esteemed professor lovell of oxford, where he studies extensively for years—in latin, greek, and chinese—until he is deemed worthy of attending oxford himself. once there, he flourishes; oxford is his heaven, enough to keep him complacent with their nefarious schemes against his own homeland. in the end, robin must come to a difficult decision: should he keep his head down, enjoying the luxuries he’s been given—or should he fight for a revolution, however violent it may be?

there is something so unique about kuang’s work that i could immediately tell it was written by an academic, and a smart one at that. babel simply could not be written by anyone else; although it’s a work of fiction, bringing a fanatical twist on languages and the art of translation, it’s also rich with european and asian history and deep themes like colonialism, racism, and sexism. for instance, ramy, robin’s closest friend that he meets at oxford, is discriminated against far more than robin just because of the color of his skin. as a muslim myself, i was intrigued by ramy’s presence—i’m not used to positive perspectives of muslims in media—and i worried that kuang would butcher islam greatly, but was glad to be proven wrong. it’s clear that she put in much thought and research into babel, and that’s more than enough to be an automatic 4 stars.

now, what makes this book a near 5-star for me is the fact that it drew out raw emotions—grief, sadness, anger, heartbreak, even laughter—and expressed them in a real way. yes, i understood ramy the most out of the four students, but i also understood robin’s initial hesitation in revolution, victoire’s steadfastness to life, and even letty—who is unlike them in the fact that she is white, not colored—held some sympathy in my eyes. every character, even the minor ones, were fleshed out beautifully in a way that i could see through their faults to their own cores and know them, truly understand them, and that, i believe, is something that few authors have the ability to do. kuang is one of the rare few in that regard.

you may be wondering now, why did i not rate this a perfect 5 stars? there are two main reasons:

1) it could’ve been a lot shorter and still get the same message across

and 2) there were some parts that confused me quite a bit—perhaps it was a bit too academic for me.

babel can be described, for the most part, in a single word in arabic: hazeen—حزين—which comes from the root word huzn, written as حزن. it is a sorrow so deep, a grief so powerful, a misery so profound, that it is all your heart can bear before it finally cracks, pulsing frantically in a vain attempt to live. but for what? there is nothing else to live for—nothing else, that is, except for the small chance of justice. and that alone, perhaps, is worth the fight—to have a taste of humanity in this world.

in the words of kuang herself,

“if we push in the right spots—then we've moved things to the breaking point. the future becomes fluid, and change is possible. history isn't a premed tapestry that we've got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. we can form it. make it. we just have to choose to make it.”

katfairy's review against another edition

5.0

Very well written, engaging, and thought provoking. It could have had a shorter set up and got to the action a little quicker, but once it did it was hard to put down. I will say that even though I thought it was really good, it did leave me feeling fatalistic. I might have overly sympathize with Robin, like “what’s the point?” Lol! 4.5 stars only for the slow start and build-up, but upstaring for the emotional roller coaster it provoked.