A review by amyradak
Babel by R.F. Kuang

adventurous challenging dark 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? It's complicated

3.0

This book was very well written, and I appreciated the very important points made about the horrors of colonialism as well as the xenophobia, racism, sexism etc. of the very insular academic world of 1830s England. These themes and others made for a very rich book club discussion. I also LOVED the Oxford setting, and found myself happily sinking into the campus environment as Robin, Ramy, Victoire, and Letty advanced through their education at Babel college. 

That said, by the end of the book I realized that I did not enjoy the reading experience . Beginning at about the 70% mark when
Robin murders professor Lovell
the book did a complete 180 from the a compelling, well-told dark academia novel to a chaotic, frenetic series of murder cover-ups, mental deterioration, and terrorism plots. We learned next to nothing about Hermes until the last 30% of the book, at which time we became fully immersed in Hermes underworld and their life-or-death game of trying to remain hidden while bringing colonialism down from within the walls of Babel. Everything began to move so fast that key pieces of the plot were not fully fleshed out and required quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. By the end, people were outright murdering each other out of hatred and mania. Robin changed from a meek, mild-mannered student - not into a dedicated, rational champion of the anti-colonialism cause, but into a bloodthirsty homicidal maniac. I understand that the point of the novel was to make the reader consider whether violence is necessary to take down insidious institutions like colonialism, slavery, and imperialism. And I'm not saying it isn't necessary. I'm simply saying I didn't enjoy reading about it, and I also didn't enjoy that by the end of the book almost everyone had so much blood on their hands that I couldn't in good conscience root for them. I think I identified most with the mindset of Victoire who couldn't stand to see the casualties being wrought on civilians by Robin's actions, and who simply wanted to live too much to
go down in flames with Babel itself
. I did get very emotional at the end when everyone in the tower at Babel had to choose whether to
run or stay inside Babel while Robin brought it down on them
, and it was very hard to watch Robin go through with his plan. Overall, the last third of the book was a too bleak, violent, and chaotic for me to consider this an enjoyable reading experience.

Quotes I bookmarked

Ch. 1: "He understood the necessity of gratitude. Of deference. One did not spite ones saviors."

Ch. 7: "They argued endlessly, the way bright young people with well-fed egos and too many opinions do."

Ch. 8: "I don't think you two quite understand how hard it is to be a woman here," said Victoire. "They're liberal on paper, certainly, but they think so very little of us...Every weakness we display is a testament to the worst theories about us, which is that we're fragile, we're hysterical, and we're too naturally weak-minded to hand the kind of  work we're set to do." 

Ch. 9: "We hold the secrets, and we can set whatever terms we like. That's the beauty of being cleverer than everyone else. "

Ch. 9: "...for he had never been happier than he was now, stretched thin, too preoccupied with the next thing before him to pay any attention to how it all fitted together."

Ch. 12: "It was actually easy to put up with any degree of social unrest, as long as one got used to looking away."

Ch. 17: “These trade networks were carved in stone. Nothing was pushing this arrangement off its course; there were too many private interests, too much money at stake. They could see where it was going, but the people who had the power to do anything about it had been placed in positions where they would profit, and the people who suffered most had no power at all.”
 
Ch. 19: "It was relaxing in a way, to imagine the very worst that could happen, since it took the terror out of the unknown."

Ch. 20: "But you think the thing is martyrdom. You think if you suffer enough, for whatever sins you've committed, then you're absolved." "...Every time you come up against something difficult, you just want to make it go away. And you think the way to do that is with self-flagellation. You're obsessed with punishment."

Ch. 20: "It would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Lettie, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comforting."

Ch. 23: " abolition happened because white people found reasons to care, whether those be economic or religious. You just have to make them think they came up with the idea themselves.  You can't appeal to their inner goodness. I have never met an Englishman I've trusted to do the right thing out of sympathy."

Ch. 24: "They both thought this was a matter of individual fortunes, instead of systematic oppression. And neither could see outside the perspective of people who looked and spoke just like them."

Ch. 25:  "Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against it's own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence"

Interlude: "They'd beaten the system. Why in God's name did they want to break it as well?"
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