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Kristopher Medlang

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Babel

by R.F. Kuang (Goodreads Author)

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Kristopher Medlang said: " I was disappointed with this book. I picked it up after seeing it on the nytimes notable sci-fi/fantasy list for last year. Some spoilers below.
Good: The book contains some compelling world-building, especially the tower of Babel with it's Carroll-es I was disappointed with this book. I picked it up after seeing it on the nytimes notable sci-fi/fantasy list for last year. Some spoilers below.
Good: The book contains some compelling world-building, especially the tower of Babel with it's Carroll-esque interior expanding once characters enter, as well as the silver work and the way languages are used to change the world. For me the most thought provoking concept in the entire book was the basis of how silver bars worked with the slight differences in meanings between translations creating powerful energy relating to the definitions of the words. Quite fun to think about.
The not so good: Unfortunately, where the book let me down was in the characters, the plot, especially its erratic pacing, and the bland dialogue.
The characters only achieved the level of flat archetypes who never exhibited enough nuance to feel real. Ramy is a cocky smartass, Letty is a tight, hystercal perfectionist. Robin is nervy wallflower. Griffen is edgy. Victoire was...not sure, maybe a voice of reason? Professor Lovell was a cold, stoic jerk. Each of the characters' actions and dialogue became immediately predictable once they were introduced, so much that reading about them became tedious. As Robin is the protagonist, we spend a lot of time with him and his thoughts which ended up being a slog of a place to visit as his overriding characteristic was his fecklessness. Paragraphs of worrying and self-doubt do not an exciting read make. And, as the characters were so poorly developed, any evolution in their thinking or change of behaviour was jarring yet unmoving.
The plot was shaggy in an unpleasant way. At 500+ pages, and without much actual substance to what's going on - it was all surface level events of going from point a. to point b., no real intricacy - the reader is faced with pages of padding and repetitious scenes. Why several instances of the core four characters studying, bickering and laughing, when one would suffice? And the ultimate event of the occupation of the tower and the siege, padded out with again more bickering, circuitous doubt and shapeless paragraphs of Robin's musings, felt interminable. The book is ultimately weird in that there are instances - the death of Lovell, the raid on the old library/capture and torture of Robin/the escape and death of Griffen - where it accelerates so much, but by then as a reader, I was so lulled by the general meandering of the book, I wasn't enthralled, just numb.
In summary, there were some really interesting ideas in the book, but bland characters who said bland, pat things, intermittently sprinting and plodding through a plot which by no means warranted the book's page length. ...more "

Mar 09, 2023 04:24AM · see review