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dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Babel was recommended by another reader for its use of language as a weapon. Once I started reading Babel, I was alternately interested and bored. It starts with academia and moves into global revolution — with a point about the dissolution of the British Empire and the rise of the Global South and Asia. During the final quarter of the book, I speed-read the first sentence in most paragraphs, then filled in the gaps with Wikipedia and reviews. A very slow read, with only a handful of compelling characters. In the end, this seemed to be a preachy story that an academic aesthete may drunkenly relate over a glass of wine at a cocktail party at Oxford, but hundreds of pages too long.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Drug use, Racism, Xenophobia