Yet didn't he have a right to be happy? He had never felt such warmth in his chest until now, had never looked forward to getting up in the morning asYet didn't he have a right to be happy? He had never felt such warmth in his chest until now, had never looked forward to getting up in the morning as he did now. Babel, his friends, and Oxford - they had unlocked a part of him, a place of sunshine and belonging, that he never thought he'd feel again. The world felt less dark. pg. 131
This was so disappointing.
Everyone is flying with excitement over this book. I was quite skeptical about it based on the description, but picked it up and started reading it. I was delighted. For about the first 130-150 pages or so. Then the book quickly became tiresome and just went on and on and on.
Let's try and break this down, it's a lot.
BASIC PLOT: Robin Swift (he's Chinese, but his Chinese name is never mentioned in the book, on purpose of course - colonialism is evil) gets taken from his house in China where his mother lies dead from the cholera by a white British professor (view spoiler)[secretly his biological father (hide spoiler)] in order to study translation at Babel, the Oxford school tower.
He makes friends for the first time ever after being released from his isolated upbringing and intense studies in London into the academic world of Oxford. His friends are Ramy (Muslim from India), Victoire (Black girl from Haiti), and Letty (white girl from England). Eventually the work he is doing for The Crown makes him feel like shit because he is helping England enslave, colonize, and kill people.
Chaos ensues.
THE GOOD POINTS:
Firstly, Kuang is a skilled author. Her book is very readable. You want to read it. You want to keep going. Even though about 75% (I'm not exaggerating) is a lecture from classes on language, translation, the evils of colonialism, the evils of white people... she manages to still make it a readable book. It takes great skill to do this.
Secondly, Kuang is very smart. She's not only educated, she's intelligent and this comes through every word of the text. It's always a joy to see someone flex their intellect.
Thirdly, the magic system. I found it fascinating and clever. Interesting, well-constructed. It involves enchanting bars of silver to affect people and objects. Takes the place of technology in the book.
THE BAD POINTS:
Sigh.
NUMBER ONE: The worst thing about this book is Kuang's inability to let readers reach ANY conclusion on their own. She insists on explaining every single tiny thing to you. The book is 542 pages but it could easily get down to 300 or so. The reason it's so long is because Kuang's way of writing is crafting a paragraph in which something happens or a character has a feeling. Then giving you a second paragraph immediately after it which carefully, painstakingly explains to you how you should feel about the first paragraph or how you should interpret the first paragraph.
It's exhausting.
The message of the book is that slavery and colonialism is bad, everyone is racist, racism is systemic, a person of color can NEVER trust a white woman under any circumstances, etc. etc. etc. Basically every single 'woke' concept popular right now. I hate and despise the term 'woke' but I am at a loss to describe this any other way. It's not liberalism, it's not exactly anti-racism, it's every single talking point right now on college campuses. It's a pretty niche, academic view of the world, which is appropriate since this book is about academia.
That's fine. I can even hear you agreeing. "Slavery IS bad," you say. "Colonialism IS terrible. Everyone IS racist, it's systemic, and there's no such thing as a non-racist white person."
OK, let's say you are a liberal. Let's even say you are a liberal who agrees with all these premises. (Not all liberals do, it's important to remember liberals are not a monolith.) Let's say you are even still in University or fresh out and these ideas are still very prominent in your mind. Do you know slavery is bad? Do you know colonialism is evil?
Well, it doesn't matter what you know. She will tell you. She will tell you over and over and over and over and over again.
Literally every single page tells you slavery and colonialism are bad, people are racist. I wish I were exaggerating, but I'm not. LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PAGE.
This can get tiresome even to people who strongly agree with her.
The book is only MASQUERADING as a novel. Really, it is a treatise. It's a manifesto. It's a ritual affirmation of Kuang's belief system. Robin, Ramy, Letty, Victoire... even the evil professor Richard are not real characters. They have no characterization. They are mouthpieces for Kuang. They are pawns on her board, her reenactment of the First Opium War necessitates having a British, a Chinese, an Indian, and a Black Frenchspeaker. Oh, and a colonizer. Robin and his three best friends are not living, breathing characters. I found it hard to sympathize with any of them (view spoiler)[with the exception of that first brutal beating Dick gives Robin, back at the beginning of the book when I still had hope this was going to be amazing. That was horrible and enraging. (hide spoiler)].
That's why I compare Kuang's book to The Underground Railroad. Not because both books are about overcoming your oppressor, about racism, about people of color freeing themselves from racist trappings. No, it's because both Whitehead and Kuang use their characters as mouthpieces to express their opinions. This is in contrast to an actual novel, where characters have character and have defining traits and live and breathe and you can imagine them outside of the book. There's none of that here.
NUMBER TWO: She has tacked on a two-paragraph (view spoiler)[queer framing (hide spoiler)] here that has NOTHING to do with the plot and feels very last-minute. I have no idea why she did this. If she actually wanted to write a (view spoiler)[queer story (hide spoiler)] then she should have done so. It should have been a thread of the book. It should have been a subplot of the book. Instead, she's just off-handedly mentioning it as an afterthought. Maybe two or three times. I don't know how you should feel about this, I'm not (view spoiler)[queer (hide spoiler)] but it was jarring and surreal to me. Why was it even included? If she thought it was even a little important, why didn't it feature in the plot at all? Seriously baffled. Kind of reminds me of when J.K. Rowling was like, (view spoiler)["By the way, Dumbledore's gay." (hide spoiler)] And you were like "What the fuck?"
NUMBER THREE: The MC, Robin, is SO weak and SO dumb. (Naïve?) I was willing to believe this when he was a child. I was even willing to believe this for his first semester at Oxford. After that, not so much. He's SO DUMB. SO DUMB. His weakness becomes exhausting, you just can't respect him by the end of the book. At least I can't.
He'd be obliterated, but luckily almost every single character in this book is just as dumb. So many stupid people, the book is filled with fucking morons. I'm sure this is to advance the plot. If Robin was smart, things would move along much quicker and the story would be much less 'tragic.' If either Robin and his friends (the forces for good) or Evil England and it's Evil Empire (the forces for evil) had any brains, this book would have reached a much swifter conclusion. Unfortunately, everyone is dumb as a brick, ironic since the majority are supposed to be Oxford scholars.
Kuang tries to laughingly play this off, making jokes about intellectuals who have their heads in the clouds, but it almost defies belief.
"They're academics,' said Professor Craft. "All we know is the life of the mind. We don't remember anything unless it's written in our diaries and circled several times over." pg. 486
NUMBER FOUR: It's predictable. If you know the main academic-liberal talking points, and you know what the Tower of Babel is, you can pretty accurately determine the entire plot of the book. With the exception of (view spoiler)[Robin murdering his father - honestly, I didn't know he had it in him. Well, he didn't have it in him, it makes no sense, but it moved the plot forward so I guess that's why Kuang did it (hide spoiler)] nothing surprised me. Of course (view spoiler)[the white woman betrays them, a main talking point right now is how white women are fragile yet evil. And of course the tower has to fall, it's Babel! (hide spoiler)]
TL;DR I genuinely wanted to love this book. It's kind of like a grown-up Harry Potter (again, I hope Kuang doesn't take offense at this comparison, I'm not talking about her in relation to J.K.'s hatred or fear of transgendered people.) People said The Magicians was grown-up Harry Potter, but that's such a dark and corrupt book. Kuang had more of a chance at this because she is capable of capturing joy, friendship, academic bonding, and mouthwatering food descriptions ALONG with adult concepts and feelings. Those cozier aspects are aspects Grossman had no desire to nourish.
And I think she's wants this to be a tragic book, like people will be sobbing by the end or something.
The unfortunate and extremely disappointing reality is that this is not a novel. It's simply a textbook, although one that's dressed-up in novel's clothes. The characters are paper-thin and bafflingly stupid. The plot is simply a retelling of the First Opium War (thanks to Hua Hsu, by the way - it was only because I was reading his book Stay True: A Memoir that I was able to put this together so early in the text), and the characters are simply chess pieces representing the different powers during this war.
Besides that, Kuang hammers in every single point. She tells you exactly how to feel and what conclusions to reach about everything. She also repeats herself over and over. Slavery is bad. Colonialism is bad. Slavery is bad. Colonialism is bad. This is racism. This is racism. This is racism. Even if you agree with her - even if you are an academic who has had the same exposure she has to this kind of thinking - this becomes tiresome. Again, again, again, on every single page. I'm not sure if she thinks her readers are stupid? Or she wants to fit in EVERY SINGLE FACT she's learned into the book? Either way, it's unnecessary. Very heavy-handed. NO NUANCE. NO SUBTLETY. NONE. You're an idiot and she's going to treat you like one. You aren't allowed to draw any conclusions except for the ones she draws for you.
Everyone is also pretty moronic, for no discernable reason except it's necessary for the plot and, perhaps, the length of the book as well.
Only read if you want to be lectured for 542 pages. By a skilled lecturer, but still.
The room seemed at once both mundane and heartbreakingly beautiful: the morning light streaming through stained-glass windows, casting colourful patterns on the polished wooden desks; the clean scratch of chalk against the blackboard; and the sweet, woody smell of old books. A dream; this was an impossible dream, this fragile, lovely world in which, for the price of his convictions, he had been allowed to remain. pg. 275
NAMES IN THIS BOOK: (view spoiler)[ Richard m Betty f Elizabeth Piper f Adam m Robin m (Birdie) Chinese Ramiz Rafi (Ramy) m Muslim Indian Henry m Jonathan m Antoine m Haroun m Horace m Colin m Bill m Edgar m Edward m Anna f Elias m Mary f Bulkeley m Richard m Francis m James m Abraham m Henry m Sterling m William m Robert m Mark m Sarah f Victoire f Letitia f Letty Anthony m Charles m Vimal m Nathaniel m Victoria f Jerome m Gideon m Griffin m Philippa f Dick m Johanna f Johann m John m Heinrich m Alexander m Margaret f Anand m Ilse f Gabriel m Philip m Cathy f Elton m Vincy m Milton m Lincoln m Eveline f Evie Louis-Jacques-Mandé m Joseph m Silvestre m Hugo m Matthew m Adam m James m Luke m Gabriel m Minna f Samuel m William m Charles m Karl m Lin m Meng m Jemima f Fanny f Vaibhav m Frédérique m Lisette f Thomas m Theresa f Amelia f Margaret f Ibrahim m Juliana f Yusuf m Meghana f Abel m Maurice m Augustus m Jean Pierre m Emile m (hide spoiler)]...more
Her voice was certain, positive. She looked right at me, her eyes a mixture of pain and sadness, but not sad like "You're not going to win," she said.
Her voice was certain, positive. She looked right at me, her eyes a mixture of pain and sadness, but not sad like I'm-sad-you're-not-going-to-win, sad like I'm-sad-you-actually-thought-you-could-win.
I wanted to grab her and shake her. "You're wrong, Mom. I'm not a bike. You'll see," I yelled. pg. 240
Don't let the bright and cute cover fool you! This book will rip your heart out through your chest.
Mia comes over with her parents from China. For a while, they are living out of their car.
One day, her mom finds a Chinese listing for a job managing a motel. And that's how Mia and her parents end up living and working in a motel in Anaheim, CA in 1993.
Their boss, Mr. Yao, is an evil man. He's racist, and he treats them like indentured servants. Because they are undocumented immigrants, Mia's parents are very vulnerable and feel like they can't fight back.
I feel like 'seeing the evil world through a child's eyes' trope is SO overused, but here it works. Here you can see why it became a trope. Mia is morally outraged by racism and classism in a way adults just can't be. She has the righteous anger that only a 10-year-old child can have when she learns of injustice.
Compounded with that, she's treated as shit just like her parents for all the same reasons: she's Chinese (or more importantly in this context, I guess, non-white), she's poor, she's an immigrant, and she sticks out like a sore thumb.
She's an adorable combination of a comedic fuck-up (I feel bad calling her a fuck-up. Hmmm. Like Ramona Quimby, or Junie B. Jones, her well-intentioned actions sometimes have huge backfiring consequences that can be hilarious but also damaging) and a fighter for justice filled with a white-hot fury. I really felt for her. You really bond with her, and when she hurts, you hurt. She's an endearing character.
Lupe and I became inseparable. Whereas before, we were best friends bound by lies, now we shared a secret truth. pg. 84
There's so much covered in this book I can't even tell you. There's Asian-hate, there're microaggressions, there're regular aggressions, there's bullying, there're violent attacks on both Mia and her mom, there're racist cops, there's super-expensive healthcare that Mia and her family can't afford even when it's an emergency, there's a painful relationship with her mother who grinds her down, there's a hundred million ways to keep Mia and her family down instead of the hundred million miracles that are happening every day.
The only reason this book isn't a downer is a.) it's aimed at kids, so Yang pulls back from a truly horrific book. No worst-case scenario happens, and there's a very unbelievable (to an adult) (view spoiler)[happy ending (hide spoiler)] that's electric. And b.) Mia's relentless belief that she can do it! Whereas an adult would give up long ago, Mia never gives up. She fights and fights. She truly believes she can change the world in a way only children can. It's very touching and heart-rending.
I'm not one to cry while reading novels, but if you are a crier this is definitely a book you will sob while reading. There are so many scenes that just rip your heart out.
"Did something happen at school today?" she asked.
I bit my lower lip. I could feel my chin quivering.
My mother's face softened.
"It's okay," she said. "You can tell me."
The tears came gushing out before the words did. I ran into my mother's arms. I told her how I got a math question wrong and the other kids mocked me, saying I should have gotten it right because I'm Chinese.
When my mother heard that, she removed her arms. A new look took over her face - a look I did not like at all.
"They're right," she said. I took a step back, shaking my head. NO, she's not really saying that. She can't possibly be siding with THEM.
She can and she was.
"How can you get a math problem wrong? What were you thinking?"
My dad came in to see what all the commotion was about.
"What's going on?"
"Your daughter just got a math question wrong at school, that's what's going on," she informed him. I was always "your daughter" when she wasn't happy with me and "my daughter" when she was.
I looked down at the floor. I heard my dad offer, "It's okay..." To which my mother snapped, "No, it's NOT okay!"
She walked over, put her cold hands on my hot cheeks, and yelled, "Math's all you've got!"
That did it.
"I don't even like math!" I screamed back at her. "I like English!"
My mother's eyes widened.
"English?" she exclaimed.
I nodded. My heart thudded in my chest. One second passed. And then another. And then, softly, my mother breathed out a tornado.
"You know what you are in English? You're a bicycle, and the other kids are cars." pg. 145
A lot of the book is a gut punch. Sometimes literally, as people get physically attacked in this book, and sometimes psychologically. I think the psychological punches are the worst ones.
In case this sounds like a sappy, after-school special or something, IT'S NOT. I can't tell you how much it's NOT emotionally manipulative or trite. There was only one part of this book I thought was sappy and stupid (the part about Oreos, if you read it you'll know). I was like, "C'mon, give me a break, this is so stupid." But it was a single moment out of the whole book! The rest of the time, Yang plays you like a violin. She's very skilled. The book has a LOT of layers. It covers a LOT of topics, and it does so in a natural, organic way. It's excellent fiction-writing. I feel like this is the book R.F. Kuang wanted to write for grown-ups but failed at.
And I have to give props for Yang tackling racism (in part) in a way that has absolutely nothing to do with white people. Sometimes I feel like people act as if only white people can be racist and racism can only enter the equation when white people are involved. Not so, and I think the inclusion of Mr. Yao (Taiwanese) and his putrid feelings about Black people was a great idea. I don't see much coverage of this topic, it was interesting to me to see this portrayed in kid literature.
But even if I wrote a 6-page review, I couldn't cover all the topics Yang touches on in here. It's a veritable font of hot-button issues, deftly handled.
TL;DR I highly recommend this to any reader, adult or child, although it's excellent for children and definitely should be on any elementary school bookshelf in the library AND in the classroom library. I knew this book was praised, but I didn't expect it to be exquisite. A real gem. Almost unbelievable that Yang could write a book like this and NOT make it emotionally manipulative or after-school-special-y. She deserves all the praise she is getting for this.
NAME IN THIS BOOK: (view spoiler)[ Michael m Jason m Mia f 10 Hank m Black Billy Bob m white Fred m white Shen m Allen m Bethany f Guadalupe f Lupe Ming m Li m Yi-fung m José m Stuart m Peter m Rebecca f Tommy m Javier m Loretta f Ling f Dillon m Mo m Zhu m Joanne f Paula f Fung m Wealthy dog Ping f Yang m Ying f Zhang m Wilma f Polly f Ye Fei m Bobby m Juli f Qin f Lan f Biming m (hide spoiler)]...more
You know this is going to be a different kind of book when you open it up and see the dedication. Instead of dedicating this to a friend or family memYou know this is going to be a different kind of book when you open it up and see the dedication. Instead of dedicating this to a friend or family member, Ed Young writes:
TO: the strange virtue in deprivation, an unwanted and the least understood gateway to humanity and life's riches.
Mmmm, highly excellent.
The book deals with a rich cat who lives high on a mountain, way above everyone else. Lord Cat wears the finest clothing of gold thread. He eats lavish meals.
[image]
When Lord Cat's servants asked if their master had finished his meal, they were scolded. "Are you blind? Can't you see that the bowl is half-empty? Take it away."
[image]
He yells at his servants who wash the rice grain in the river, urging them to go faster. The servants who wash rice are pandas.
[image]
The land gets struck with drought. But Lord Cat continues living his posh lifestyle. Until year two of the famine arrives, and everyone in the village moves away. Now Lord Cat is lord of nothing.
Still he refused to leave. What would life be without all of his possessions?
But after he is starving for a while, he is forced to leave his pagoda and wander as a beggar to all corners of the land. But no one is around to help him. So he travels farther and farther.
Eventually he finds two beggars warming themselves over a fire. They tell him there is a monk in a nearby temple who is feeding the hungry.
The next morning Lord Cat gets into the long line of people waiting for food.
Lord Cat's turn finally came. The monk scooped a spoonful of steaming rice into his bowl, filling it halfway.
It was the fullest bowl of rice he could remember having eaten.
"I must ask you," he said to the monk, "how have you managed to come across such fine grain in such difficult times?"
The monk heaved a sigh and said, "I am so fortunate to live at the bottom of Hunger Mountain, where for years a rich lord would wash his rice carelessly in the Great River. The wasted grains trickled down to my stream, where I collected and stored them over the years. Now I have more than I could eat in a thousand days, so I am happy to share with all in need."
[image]
Lord Cat looked at the now empty bowl in his hands. He realized he had been fed with his own wasted food. And for the first time ever, he knew what it felt like to be truly blessed.
THE END
This is a great book for many reasons. One, it has some great messages: anti-materialism, generosity to the poor, and the importance of examining your own life. Lord Cat is laid low, but this isn't a book about humiliating someone for their past lifestyle. Instead, Lord Cat figures things out for himself. He isn't shamed by anyone. He realizes what is truly important in life (having a full belly, and sharing your wealth if you have wealth) and realizes that owning fancy stuff is not important.
Food is so important and starving is so horrible and life-altering. Anyone who is familiar with hunger and starvation will realize this and this book will be extra-special to those people. You never forget the times in your life when you were so hungry you couldn't sleep.
Hopefully your child(ren) has never experienced starvation, but perhaps you as a parent HAVE, and perhaps you want your child to be able to appreciate a full belly. They can't... no one can truly appreciate it until they've been without (and I'm not just talking about skipping a meal here, I'm talking about true hunger), but you don't want to see your child suffer so you just read them this book and hope they absorb some wisdom about the hungry, the homeless, and poverty.
The illustrations of this book are also wonderful - Young employs a kind of "scrap illustrations" in which paper and cloth scraps are photographed to make the pictures. It's wonderful and rough.
The other Chinese animals in here are also great. Panda, rats, macaque, tortoises, and peacocks are all featured here. It's a fun kind of "Kung Fu Panda" atmosphere where all animals live together and share the same language.
Guojing's wordless graphic novel for children is about a little girl in China who leaves home "to visit grandma" but ends up on a magical adventure whGuojing's wordless graphic novel for children is about a little girl in China who leaves home "to visit grandma" but ends up on a magical adventure when she gets lost and meets a stag in the forest. http://i1.nyt.com/images/2015/10/28/b...
The story in this book is fantasy, but it reflects the very real feelings of isolation and loneliness I experienced growing up in the 1980s under the one-child policy in China.
When I was young, both of my parents had to work to support our family, so during the day, my grandmother would take care of me. But still, sometimes - if they had to rush to work or if Nai Nai was busy - they would leave me home alone. This experience was common in many families at that time. I belonged to a very lonely generation of children.
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