Babel, or The Necessity of Violence

I don't think a book has ever made me feel more heartbroken.

Like, heartbroken is a pretty strong word, and yet that it what this book got me feeling. Poor characters. Poor Robin, poor Ramy, poor Professor Lovell, poor Griffin, poor Letty, poor Victoire...
The ‘poors' go on and on. Unfortunately, nobody in this book gets a happy ending.

And yet this book is soooo good! It reminds me of Charles Dicken's Great Expectations. The arc of Robin reminded me of that of Pip's: innocence, fall, redemption. Except, again, Pip gets a happy ending.

And then the magic! Kuang thought up a really unique and original magic system. Who else would have come up with the idea to link language and silver and turn it into magic?

I was disappointed when Ilse Dejima and Anthony and the others died. And poor Letty and Ramy.

But anyway, I think this book is serious movie material. If I owned Netflix, I would buy this immediately.



And, uh, I see some people hating on the book because it has themes of racism. I don't think the book was political or anything–why does racism always have to do with politics? Racism exists; it is a human trait.
I think this book handles the theme very well. It portrays everthing in a very historically-accurate way and doesn't get preachy–just shows what happened in history. Kuang leaves all interpretation to the reader, she is just presenting factual statistics and historically-accurate experiences for us to interpret.
Racism is a real problem–and the book isn't pushing the reader in one way or the other. Of course, the book is in favour of our socially=oppressed protagonists, but it doesn't get all...political, ya know?
I think Kuang handled it in the best way possible, and her book reflects ugly truths about reality. I think this book pushes us to examine not just racism, but prejudice in our societies, and challenges us to be leaders in the way our culture looks at other races and foreign cultures.