Reviews tagging 'Animal cruelty'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

5 reviews

themoostconfused's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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

5.0

"That's just what translation is, I think. That's all speaking is. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases to glimpse what they're trying to say. Showing yourself to the world, and hoping someone else understands." (pg. 535)

I don't even know where to begin. R. F. Kuang has done it again. She has rattled me, shaken me to my core and I thank her for it. Going into it - having read the entire Poppy War series - I knew I was not bound for a happy, carefree book. Coming from an anthropology background, the extent of human destruction and hatred of "the other" it not news to me but it continues to move me every time. 

I can already sense that I will return to this book over and over again in the future and will recommend it to everyone I come across, although not without warning. 

The book's alternate title "The Necessity of Violence" captures the journey this book takes one on while reading quite succinctly, althought the extent of this might not seem obvious upon first glance.

In the process I have learned a great deal about linguistics and am planning on dealving into that further. But first I am going to have to digest what I have become witness to by reading this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Body horror, Bullying, Child abuse, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Islamophobia, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Body horror, Body shaming, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Alcoholism, Body shaming, Bullying, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gore, Gun violence, Hate crime, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Medical content, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation

evan_tually's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I chewed through Babel in a little over a week, and it’s the kind of book that eggs you on. The clock says it’s 1AM but there’s an inherent need to know what happens next. Its characters live and die by the colonial machine that is the British Empire, and it would kill you to wait till tomorrow to learn how they survive. A boy’s journey to resistance and liberation is painful to put down for a weekend. And towards the end, when you find yourself running out of pages, there’s simply not enough time for them to win, to thrive, and for their lives to be satisfying. How could they live? How could they love?

And yet, it’s over in a quick, confident decision.

In short, the book is fun to read. In my English classes I struggled with Victorian authors like Dickens and the Brontë sisters, but the way Kuang writes is so approachable. She maintains a Victorian-style voice peppered with contemporary dialog and colonial analysis. It feels old and new. Even though these characters would live over a century ago, their struggles are still relevant in our present struggles. Capitalism and colonialism have been and still are gluttonous. They’re still killing us.

Perhaps that’s why Kuang’s prose reads more easily than the authors of the time. She’s crafted characters and stories that are fantastical yet still informed by history. Much research went into its historical pseudo-accuracy, its magic system, and its linguistics. Kuang writes so lovingly and respectfully that you can’t help but empathize and relate Robin’s struggles to your own. You can’t help but wonder- what could I do for liberation?

For those who are very informed on history and politics, a lot of the themes won’t feel new. For some, Babel will feel like the first decolonial/anticolonial novel you'd introduce to someone. It arguably doesn’t add anything new to this discourse, and is more interested in fantasizing what acting towards our liberation looks like. And it does that well for the most part.

Where I take some issue with Kuang’s prose is the heavy hand she takes with her messaging. The result is little room for subtext, as when Griffin explains to Robin how Babel is not actually a place to discover knowledge:
‘How does all the power from foreign languages just somehow accrue to England? This is no accident; this is a deliberate exploitation of foreign culture and foreign resources. The professors like to pretend that the tower is a refuge for pure knowledge, that it sits above the mundane concerns of business and commerce, but it does not. It’s intricately tied to the business of colonialism. It is the business of colonialism. Ask yourself why the Literature Department only translates works into English and not the other way around, or what the interpreters are being sent abroad to do. Everything Babel does is in the service of expanding the Empire…’ (100)

One of Babel’s central themes is about how all parties under a colonial state are complicit in its colonial violence, regardless of the degree of direct involvement. A soldier who murders people to make room for settlers is aided by a scholar who negotiates on the state’s behalf. And the people who enjoy resources extracted from this land enjoy settler-colonial violence whether they realize it or not.But Kuang doesn’t necessarily let the reader come to this conclusion themselves. As Robin spouts revolutionary ideals to cover for his friends (263) or realizes his disgust at how British opium affects the Chinese (317), all this messaging is direct to the reader. The room for analysis is shrunk, and thus, by the end it can feel that Babel has overstayed its welcome. This further exacerbates feelings that none of the messaging is new, though, if this is your first time learning about these topics, it’s still a fun exploration.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Xenophobia, Blood, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty and Toxic friendship

athryn's review against another edition

challenging dark informative mysterious sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

I mostly enjoyed this book, especially the first half. I really found the exploration of languages and translation to be good.

It ultimately ended up a bit stale to me, like the author had a really good grasp of the translation and language stuff, and yet wasn't all that great at actually writing historical fantasy. The characters at Oxford really didn't resonate with me as much as I'd like. The constant modern phrasing in the dialogue just felt off. Don't get me wrong, I love a "fuck the British Empire" and "fuck capitalism" book, but this just ... I dunno. It feels overrated.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Racism, Slavery, Violence, Xenophobia, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, and Colonisation

Moderate: Bullying, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, War, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Animal death, and Car accident

bloomed's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Colonisation, and War

Moderate: Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, and Classism

Minor: Animal cruelty, Gun violence, Religious bigotry, and Alcohol

aseel_reads's review

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

i really enjoyed the social critique this book had on academia, colonisation, empire, knowledge etc. i actually really like the footnotes, there were not too many of them. it was definitely quite slow in the middle and the big thing that happened, i had been waiting all book for it to happen. i think it had a realistic ending and i like the blend of history and magic that the author managed. i do think i didn't care that much for the characters themselves, just their circumstances. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Xenophobia, Grief, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Murder, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism