A review by readinginbed888
Babel by R.F. Kuang

5.0

As a classics student Babel made me fall in love with translating and with languages like not many books can because of how tedious and hard often translating can be.  Because i do this for school  I love finding comfort in literature which describes the love for etymology and history of language. Babel, not only it encapsulates the romantic aspect of academia but also it’s elitist, classist and often oppressive roots. By having this story happen in the highest part of Britain’s colonialism the author had the possibility to show how much the Empire depended on the countries it colonizes and how what can be sold as an enormous privilege actually isn’t and is oppression in itself. As I was expecting I appreciated the found family made up by the 4 students and loved the dynamics between them, no matter how much heart wrenching they were. The use of violence as the only way to achieve a revolution, the discussion of morality and grief were all other things this book tackles really well. My main complaint were he footnotes: at first were useful and interesting but after a while they became too many, too long and they could’ve easily written in the regular text. I get that the author wanted to make the text accessible to everyone but sometimes it’s stimulating to search something on your own: it felt like we were being spoon fed information that we as readers are not able to find out on our own. But overall this was my only complaint as i loved everything about this book.