Reviews tagging 'Body horror'

Babel by R.F. Kuang

60 reviews

snowiceblackfruit77's review

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dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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elysiumreads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

This was everything I enjoyed from The Secret History and Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

The book obviously wants to make a point about intersectionality and the ethics of the British empire and it is has an essay-like quality to it, but due to the setting of the novel I didn’t find it disruptive or alien. The underlying ‘essay’ is well structured so it flows well. I had the opposite issue reading The Goldfinch by Tartt, where I felt like there was an attempt at an underlying ‘essay’ but it surfaced in bursts, at surprising times and from characters that weren’t normally that eloquent, so it felt quite jarring.

As a foreigner who studied languages and lives abroad, this hit home many times. 
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angelsplash's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

What a ride! I cannot find the words to describe the feeling of reading this book! Not only did this book get me interested in the history of languages, but also interested in a completely different country and time period! The first half of this book is mostly happy and fun, it practically flows! And then the shadows creep in, and suddenly the whole thing is shadows and an angry type of sadness. 

I fell in love with the 4 main characters (yes even that one). It was such a journey to see all of the ways they connected and differed and how it ultimately comes together. 

My only issue, which is really quite small, is that sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm reading from the perspective of the characters and more like I'm reading the authors' thoughts instead. For example "For a country that profited so well from trading in spices, it's citizens were violently averse to actually using them." Which read as a joke I had sworn I'd seen on Tumblr but with more casual language. This happens a fair few times throughout the book and causes some characters to be talking encyclopedias. They remember exact dates and names of every relevant fact and correction. And while it makes sense, since they are scholars, it doesn't quite read like that. It doesn't quite carry their individual voices as well as I'd hoped. Again, very minor problems.

At risk of any spoilers, I will stop her, but just know that this book was just on the cusp of a perfect 5 Stars! It moved me to tears and everything came to a mostly satisfying conclusion! Highly recommend to just about everyone!
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aliyah_d's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

 
TL; TR: Babel is a young adult fantasy novel that fantasizes about being an academical paper. It's a collection of rightful indignation, studies and observations articulated in a fictional story that verges on rambling. Babel is a recollection of the author’s complex relationship with British academia, lost in a quest of self-valorization that amounted to nothing for me as a reader. The book's premises were fun and engaging but Kuang stretches them in the wrong directions, rendering them unfulfilling. Still, the book might be a solid introduction to the complex politics and economics of colonialism when it comes to historical fiction: the prose is effective and clean, the characters bare bone but clear, the story neatly outlined. Still, the missed opportunities to the already initiated are glaring and frustrating. 

Full review (spoilers ahead):  

My relationship with this book evolved every hundred pages or so in a way I had never communicated with a book before. The first hundred pages made me worry I had fallen into a power fantasy tale whose sole premise was to paint a scenario where Colonial Britain faced retribution for its sadistic and gluttonous imperialistic expansion (which it is, but not solely). The magical system seemed like a barely characterized after though, the white people failed to distinguish themselves from one another as they were made to fit a one-dimensional trope (characters and historical figures alike), the underutilized footnotes aiming to reinforce who moronic and overtly racist they all were (as if the main text didn't highlight that enough with a full condemning paragraph every time they spoke) felt gimmicky. I felt a bit uncomfortable at times by how condescending the tone of the narration was, forever expanded by the snarky footnotes. The novel, although tightly written, felt simple and hollow the mightier it thought of itself.  

From there, I cannot say it ever fell apart as I didn’t witness any sort of worsening nor buildup, and this is when Babel first lost me: it stretches itself thin for... what? I'll give it to Kuang, her writing is effective and accessible, consistent, which is not an easy feat to maintain for seven hundred pages of content. It also means you shouldn’t expect her to treat certain events that require a different kind of sensitivity or details any differently. There is a lack of storytelling quality in Kuang's writing: she chooses to highlight the wrong interactions and linger on the most uninteresting details all the while actively skipping moments that could build our main characters and their relationships. There was enough space for tangent on the delicate work of translation, the (astoundingly romanticized) depths, joys and sorrows of the academical world AND showing examples of Letty's nearly systematical deflective victimization in arguments instead of just telling us "She does that sometimes which is weird".   

While narratively, it makes sense for Robin to romanticize is Cohort and blissfully ignorant years as a Babel student, I felt like there was more than enough space in the novel to showcase how delusional he was while still giving us moments of pure love and happiness amongst the tragic four. I would have loved to be sad about their inevitable, terrible separation. At the end of it all, I could hardly feel anything about most of their fates both because the writing was lacking in those scenes and because the build up to it was insufficient. I would have been fine with one or the other problem and I got both. The epilogue would have packed a whole other punch if a fraction of a certain character, one that truly shined the last quarter of the book, had been showcased steadily throughout the novel. That might be Babel's biggest offense: the characters are props until the narrative needs them to be more and that's when you find yourself going "Wait, I want WAY more of you now and forever". But that was their moment, so you won't be getting anything more. Props and purely functional characters have their places in every story, but you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't give me a crumb of personality and quirks and expect me to feel emotionally attached to these vague ideas of people. Some of these characters simply deserved more.  
 
Similarly, the author seems to misunderstand which mysteries and plot points were worth nurturing, such as Eveline Brook one's whom I am constantly telegraphed by the author that her deal is a dreadful, awful little thing (Kuang's refusal to allow the readers to develop their own perspectives and feelings on the story she developed is exhausting ; also she genuinely doesn’t know how to build a twist).   
Yet, the following game changing revelation that should have been Anthony, Victoire and Ramy was treated as a complete side note. It should have been a slow and thrilling unwrapping, sent Robin in a form of turmoil, exploring his conflicted feelings here and there in the middle of a failed heist, friends rediscovering one another in a flash and instead we got... a quick observation. Three pages of clunky dialogue, then hop to the next scene we go, hop to the following plot point. Not that this revelation was well foreshadowed, but an expected twist should still pack a punch. Kuang did not pack anything. It was dry and uneventful because she didn't think it mattered or because she didn’t know how to make these moments shine. Her bare, slightly evocative at times but strictly functional writing style worked against her story here. That one was quite frankly the worst written part of the book (if we are willing to gloss over Griffin's whole "this isn't a novel, this is real life" rant which I believe even the most amateur writers know how to avoid).  

The novel's single most misuses force is Hermes and its agents. Kuang made them interfere so early in the story only to completely elude the shadowy institution from it just as fast, failing to make them relevant or very consequential throughout until the plot demanded it. I understand why she may not have wished to expand the resistance angle, but the crumbs she gave really brought the novel together and refreshed the scenery, expanded the discussions. Hermes is a prime example of what I mean when I said Kuang struggled to recognize the more interesting parts of her own story. 

As I find myself reaching the other half of the novel, my issues with Babel choice of narratives to pursue deepen, perhaps from an ideological point. I would have appreciated a wider take on racism that included non-white against non-white racism instead of always circling back to racism perpetuated by white people. It stands to note that every non-white person was imbued of a sense of deep camaraderie and understanding toward one another that they should have simply not possessed, especially religious understanding, as if perpetuating a sense of otherness amongst the colonies wasn’t a colonialist favorite, most polished tool.  

Adding to that, I don't think it would have detracted from the novel if the trip to Canton would have explore Robin's identity as a mixed-race child stolen from his homeland and coming back as a weapon of the English crown, a form of rejection should have been explored. Furthermore, something interesting was happening between commissioner Lin and Robin that shed light on the way China viewed and aimed to answer to England with Moreso the same weapons the British had been using to expand their imperialism in Orient, translation, but was cut short and set aside just as quickly, just in case you start thinking about imperialism as not strictly a British issue. I can't quite articulate what went wrong there, but weaving China so tightly to the narrative, another but quite different imperialistic power, yet always reverting to England as sole gluttonous, capitalistic, colonialist forces to dissect and stop seemed like an easy cop-out.   
I felt there was, again, more to be spent on the inner workings of imperialism elsewhere (always quickly mentioned and brushed aside), without sabotaging the main study of this book. It could have enriched it, but it was consciously avoided. 
  
In quite the same way, making nearly all the white British characters devoid of any ability to empathize with non-white characters at ANY level and always blindly favoring the crown, or wrapped their allyship in faux-pas, white savior complex or straight shallowness (minus a single character), as if the mere concept of allyship was just a mirage, made many turns of the book predictable and the narration less dynamic and felt like another cop-out.  
 
I rather not even delve into the shaky foundations of this novel (there's a magic that's been around since ancient Rome, but the course of history is barely changed by it?), as I'm willing to exercise a certain form of disbelief to meet this book halfway. So, I rather talk about the way Kuang refuses to address intersectionality as a multi-ways concept and the way Imperialism weaves sexism, classism and racism, instead circling back to "yes but racism (from white against non-white) is clearly way more important", which seems to be often incarnated by Letty's character and subsequent intervention since this rubbed me the wrong way. As it stands, I didn't like a lot of things about the way Kuang chose to write anything regarding Letty. There's a constant coldness and apathy towards her identity and struggles, if not downright contempt and hatred for upper class white women in general, that just oozed from the page every single time she is described and that often deep into misogyny to make a striking point. That’s why as soon as the novel began to dwell into how Robin and Ramy failed to integrate the constant discrimination that Letty and Victoire experienced in Oxford and everywhere else, it was promptly pushed aside.   
And while Letty omitting the very existence of Victoire in her chapter is so simple that it is genius... the whole novel omitted the singularity of Victoire's position in the group as a black woman, always recentering her as a non-white PERSON, not a non-white woman, and always highlighting how she evidently had more in common with her two non-white male peers de facto, so it felt incredibly disingenuous. This is made even worse by Kuang making Robin and Ramy incredibly more egalitarian toward women that men of their times and upbringing would have allowed, perhaps so the uncompromising criticism of Letty's white feminism could resonate without concession, which, again, is disingenuous. 

Final thoughts: I appreciate Babel for inciting me to dive and reflect on history and precise points of history at that, which is something few other fictional authors from my shelves give me a chance to do. Kuang's footnotes increased in maturity, wits and usefulness around four hundred pages in and became a welcome surprise by the end of the novel that I will gladly revisit by themselves. They provided great insight into prominent colonial figures and the institutions belonging to both her story and our real-world history (with some accuracies that belong to the period the story takes place in).  
  
The dissection of capitalism, of the levels of colonial domination, the political confrontations and schemes followed by the brutal disillusions and the repressions that ultimately led to the necessity of violence was often delightful. I wish this would have been given more space in the novel, so it felt like a proper, increasingly more real eruption and less of a sudden explosion. Do not mistake me: the inherent exploitativeness, misery and barbarity of colonialism dripped from the first page of the book, as soon as Lovell arrived in Canton and that suffocating cruelty persisted throughout Robin's childhood then academical instruction. What I wished was for the lingering dread to emerge as raw, uncompromising anger way sooner within the narrative. I needed that transition from martyr to avenger to... something begging for what was lost to happen two hundred pages earlier. But the novel really shone in those moments. 

And as I explore the frustrations and joys this novel offered me, I find myself wondering: for how is this for? Was it even meant for me, a French Haitian woman pursuing a literature college degree in a country that enslaved my ancestors' one, sucked up the resources dry and left it to rot? I’d say no.  

Babel is a (Young adult) fantasy novel that wanted to be an academical paper. It's a collection of (rightful) indignation, studies and observations articulated in a fictional story that verge on rambling. I wasn't following the story of Robin Swift, I was uncovering the author's diary, recollecting her complex relationship with British academia, lost in a quest of self-valorization that amounted to nothing for me as a reader but that I understood as an individual. It doesn't give me much to reflect on the colonial era and it doesn’t give me anything to dream about as a fantasy. I'd say Babel is a gentle starter for teenagers discovering imperialism, socialism, capitalism. I don’t think it does enough to challenge the people it might want to challenge, if any, and it doesn’t give any new perspective to those who already agree with its premise.  

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ankan_tove's review

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adventurous dark mysterious reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I love this book but one thing K didnt like was that Rf Kuang chose to tell us characters where bad istead of showing, or sayings things were bad when its obvious. 
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themoostconfused's review against another edition

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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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dragonlilly's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

4.0

Quite an excellent book, especially with R. F. Kuang's studies and research. The book is long with slower paced sections, and bursts of crazy events throughout, but it all felt right. The characters were well built (although summarizing their relationships with one another during the school years was a bit off-putting, rather than having consistent scenes and conversations but I get it in the context of a more informational-style story almost), the story was consistently interesting, and while there were repetitive bits, the themes examined within this book were well explored. It took me a while to be convinced by the magic of silver, but I eventually accepted it and was interested in how it worked and how it accelerated the British Empire's power. 

The history of colonization and all that is intertwined within that history is quite thoroughly explored, especially through the ways the characters interact with one another, and the individual difficulties they face as people who are seen as ultimately foreign to England and Europe generally, no matter how long they have lived there or become a part of that land. Yet, we also see the unique difficulties the characters face because of their different phenotypic appearances, genders, races, languages, and religions. So, while our main characters are able to come together to form an immensely strong bond, especially due to the prejudices they face, we can also see how unique all people are generally. Each character came from different parts of the world, grew up differently, and had wholly distinctive experiences that causes them to have their own opinions, biases, and views on the world. This creates conflict in the dear friend group, but they often come back together because they only have one another in the end. I also felt the characterization of these individuals was very consistent, and their actions always seemed to make sense. I liked Ramy instantly, and liked Victoire quite a bit, while the other characters grew on me.

The exploration of translation and etymology, along with the characters and story, was one of my favorite aspects, and the quotes I loved the most from this book all seem to relate to that theme: 

Ch. 6 - "'You don't think that an original language exists?' Robin asked.
'Of course I [Richard] don't. The most devout Christians think it does, but you'd think if the Holy Word were so innate and unambiguous, there'd be less debate about its contents'"

Ch. 8 - "'How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?'"

Ch. 33 - "The bars were singing, shaking; trying, he thought, to express some unutterable truth about themselves, which was that translation was impossible, that the realm of pure meaning they captured and manifested would and could not ever be known, that the enterprise of this tower had been impossible from inception... Language was just difference. A thousand different ways of seeing, of moving through the world. No; a thousand worlds within one. And translation - a necessary endeavour, however futile, to move between them"

 Ch. 33 - "'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.'" - Ramy
(My favorite quote, very likely)

Overall, great book! I just didn't absolutely adore this. I would certainly recommend this to those interested in history, translation, and the uniqueness among people, and those who can handle the slower sections, as I think that can easily bog people down a bit. 

Some spoiler notes I wanted to think on:
What was Richard Lovell reaching into his pocket for at the moment of his death?! I feel like this was an interesting thing that was missed upon. 

The reveal of what was in Griffin's note for Robin was very interesting. It seems Robin may have had other brothers in Hermes abroad! That could have been the hope to allow him to live and believe in a future. But maybe it wouldn't have changed his mind either, as all of his love and love for life was somewhat centered upon Ramy. Quite horrifying to think that Richard Lovell was just impregnating possibly dozens of Chinese women though, as this reveal shows. 

I enjoyed the picnic conversation between Ramy and Robin that was revealed in the last chapter. While I didn't feel any chemistry beyond solid friendship throughout the story, I thought this scene was very cute. Although, I guess Robin wasn't able to put a name to these feelings either until the end, so I suppose it being hard to notice could make sense, I just wish is was a teeny bit more obvious. I had honestly thought there were hints between Robin and Victoire earlier on, but it must have just been platonic admiration. 

Dang it Letty. Yet, I see in how her characterization led to this. 

Lots of unexpected moments in the story, mainly the deaths. It certainly captured my interest and made for some fast reading though. 

The standoff between Griffin and Sterling Jones was a bit comic, playing on them being the 'main characters' of their own stories at one point and in another book, this would be their ending. I didn't love this scene, just found it a bit funny. But Griffin's death was indeed sad.
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mo_bookshelves's review

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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clarkg's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective 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? Yes

5.0

I want to open this review with the caveat that my five star review does not come without criticisms. I felt that some characters were denied robust inner lives, while others' motives were so hammered out that it felt redundant at times. In some sections, the pacing felt a bit drawn out. That said, "Babel" is an inventive, thoughtful, and serious reckoning with the relationship between empire and academia. R.F. Kuang simultaneously manages to capture the relentless, insurmountable nature of the colonial project, while exploring the many shapes that resistance can take. The central points of conflict feel both historically situated and uniquely relevant to contemporary conversations about global imperialism. Whether or not Kuang herself would define Babel as "dark academia", I do not know. Either way, the genre is greatly enriched by her voice.
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laguerrelewis's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad 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

5.0

R. F. Kuang, you have such a way with words. Ba Dum Tss.

But in all honesty, this is a masterpiece. It is absurd that it works so well on so many levels—but in 2024, it’s anti-colonial call to arms rings the most topical. I was utterly enthralled by this book, and I am glad it is as popular as it is—though I won’t rest until there’s a copy on every shelf!
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