BOOK REVIEW: Babel by R.F. Kuang: How I Felt Every Word

Babel by R.F. Kuang | Language is never neutral 

⚠️ Spoiler Disclaimer:

This review contains major spoilers, especially from Book II onward. Please proceed only if you’ve read Babel or don’t mind knowing where it goes.

I picked up Babel by R.F. Kuang for one simple reason: the subtitle. The Necessity of Violence. I didn’t come here for vibes, random booktok recommendations, or fear of missing out. I came here because I wanted to understand, very plainly, why violence becomes unavoidable in a revolution—not in theory, not in slogans, but in lived experience. 

Back then, I was the kind of person who believed everything could be resolved through calm discussion, logic, and reason—that with enough patience, we could reach understanding. But this book changed the trajectory of my thinking. I realised that refusing to acknowledge the necessity of violence in some circumstances is, in effect, siding with the perpetrators and the corrupt systems that exploit injustice.

Babel by R.F. Kuang | Chapter One

Book I (chapters 1–4) immediately pulled me in—not through action, but through academic immersion. I highlighted so many words and passages because Kuang clearly understands how students—especially literature and linguistics students—think, obsess, and drown in texts. Full disclaimer: I am one of them. I live and breathe this world, and seeing it reflected so perfectly in Babel hit me to my core. This book isn’t solely plot-first; it’s substance-first. And that worked on me instantly.

The world-building doesn’t rush. Instead, it teaches you. Languages, etymology, translation, history—everything is layered slowly, deliberately. I didn’t just feel like I was reading a common historical fantasy novel; I felt like I was also studying from a worldly long paper and I absolutely loved and enjoyed it.

One of the things I loved most about this book was its footnotes. They deserve appreciation in their own right. The footnotes are insanely everything—in the best way. They made the book feel academic without being cold. They grounded the story in real linguistic logic, real historical violence, real power dynamics. It felt reliable in a way that even Robin Swift, as a narrator, is not.

Speaking of Robin—the main character—he got me immediately. Not because he is simply obsessed with books, but because he forces himself into academia as a form of survival. His devotion to learning is shaped by obligation: the pressure to justify the privilege he has been granted, the fear of disappointing a man positioned as both benefactor and father figure, and the unspoken understanding that his place in this world is conditional. Robin works relentlessly not out of pure passion alone, but because excellence becomes his shield—his way of earning safety, belonging, and legitimacy in a space that was never built for him.

As an English literature student, and as the eldest daughter in a family that places significant expectations on me, that hit uncomfortably close. I recognise that impulse—to take advantage of every intellectual opportunity not out of pure obsession, but out of responsibility, out of fear, out of the need to earn one’s place. Robin’s relationship with books mirrors the way academia can feel less like passion and more like a moral contract: you are allowed to be here, so you must never waste it. And even when his worldview begins to crack later in the novel, that instinct—to overwork, to overlearn, to comply through brilliance—does not disappear overnight. That, to me, is what makes him painfully real.

Also, the part where Robin immerses himself in language more deeply than in conversation—where he understands, inhabits, and lives inside language in his mind long before he can articulate it aloud—hit me like a lightning bolt. That is such a thing for literature and multilingual students: the way knowledge can feel intimate, internalised, and sometimes even more alive on the page than in the real world. Kuang captures this so precisely, so unflinchingly, that I felt like I was seeing my own academic obsessions reflected in another life.

When Robin admits that he can read languages better than he can speak them, it exposes something deeper than fluency. It names the gap between understanding and articulation, between intellectual mastery and social belonging. That gap is not a failure of knowledge, but a condition of academic for a lot of us.

By Chapter Two, I was already annotating like a mad person. I kept writing “let me in” over and over again. Not because I didn’t understand what was happening—but because I wanted to stay. I wanted to fully inhabit this academic world, to feel what it’s like to be overwhelmed by knowledge, new ideas, and possibilities—and yet, to enjoy it, to be swept up in it the way Robin is.

Babel by R.F. Kuang | Page 29 & 92

Babel’s Oxford is exactly how I imagine my ideal life: libraries overflowing with books, papers scattered across desks, endless debates about language, literature, and meaning, writing essays and treatises that ask why and why again, diving deeper with every footnote. There is no urgency beyond learning, no measure of productivity except thought itself. Kuang romanticises academia here in a way that feels intoxicating, but she also slowly dismantles that romance with academic spheres later on, revealing the pressures, biases, and brutal hierarchies that underpin it.

Because even in this supposedly “safe” academic space, racism is everywhere. It’s casual. It’s structural. It’s woven into every interaction Robin has, even when he’s being “saved” or “rescued” by white authority. In his mind, he believes Professor Lovell is a father figure—but the way Robin tells the story makes me seriously doubt whether Lovell ever truly sees him that way. From what I can see, Lovell treats Robin not as a son or as a person with his own agency, but as an asset, an investment, a tool to be shaped for his own ends. Any affection is performative at best; the underlying power dynamics and expectations reveal the merciless logic of privilege and control.

Robin’s Chinese roots are never presented neutrally. They are exoticised, scrutinised, and instrumentalised within every interaction he has. The 1800s setting frames it historically, but it doesn’t lessen the sting—the structural and systemic biases are baked into the world. White supremacy here is not always loud or overt; it’s embedded in the institutions, the classrooms, the libraries, and the very frameworks of knowledge. It appropriates language, labor, and cultural insight, using them to consolidate power and reinforce imperial dominance. Kuang shows how oppression operates quietly, academically, and methodically—making it even more insidious.

This is where Babel starts showing its teeth. Language is never just a tool for communication—it is a vessel of authority, a mechanism of control, and a way to shape reality itself. Translation is not neutral; it carries with it the weight of history, hierarchy, and exploitation. Academia, often imagined as a space of pure knowledge—a place for learning, research, and discovery—feels so innocent on the surface. But Babel shows just how far from that it really is. It’s wrapped up in power, exploitation, and control, quietly sustaining systems that extract, erase, and dominate. Kuang doesn’t just tell you this; she makes you feel it in every classroom, every footnote, every lecture—like the whole world of scholarship itself is both beautiful and dangerous at the same time.

Book I ends with Robin meeting his doppelgänger, who we later see as Griffin Lovell, and my reaction was genuinely: wait, what the fuck just happened? That moment didn’t just surprise me—it reframed everything I thought I knew about the story. Suddenly, all the slow, painstaking world-building, the academic immersion, the small details about Babel and Silverstone—they clicked. Suddenly, the slow pace makes sense. The foundation has been laid.

But I won’t lie—parts of Book I did feel dragged. There were moments I felt genuinely overwhelmed, like the weight of all the academic detail, world-building, and footnotes was pressing down on me. I didn’t always have hours of leisure to sink fully into it, and at times I had to push myself just to turn the page. And yet… even with all that, I could sense the promise in it, the foundation of something powerful. This wasn’t a weak start—it was deliberate, immersive, and worth the effort.

I took a break after Book I—typical me, needing a moment to breathe after all that academic immersion and setup. But once I picked it back up, I couldn’t put it down. From Book II straight through to Book V, I read in one relentless stretch—almost twenty-four hours. Midnight to nearly eleven at night, barely pausing for air, food, or sanity (yes, slightly hyperbolic). Luckily, it was the weekend, so no sleep or “no peace” was manageable. It was just me, the pages, and the story consuming everything.

And then came the trip to Canton, and from there… everything in Robin’s life went downhill—and not randomly, but in the most deliberate, gut-punching, devastating way. The tension didn’t just exist; it hung over every moment, sharp and unrelenting. Anxiety wrapped around me like a vice, and I felt myself almost breaking under it. Every choice, every betrayal, every injustice landed like a blow, and I couldn’t look away and almost lost it entirely. (🏳️)

This is where the title fully clicked for me. I didn’t come into this book looking for violence—I came looking for understanding, for the why behind it. And Kuang doesn’t glorify it; she forces you to confront it, to feel its inevitability, its roots in injustice, and the moral impossibility of ignoring it.

You cannot talk heart-to-heart with a system. You cannot reason with an empire. You cannot debate away centuries of exploitation. When the opponent is structural violence, words alone stop working. Griffin puts it clearly on page 399:

“Violence shows them how much we’re willing to give up,” said Griffin. “Violence is the only language they understand, because their system of extraction is inherently violent. Violence shocks the system. And the system cannot survive the shock.”

Babel by R.F. Kuang | Page 399

Reading this, I felt it hit me like a revelation. All my naive ideas about calm discussion and reasoned debate—the ones I held before reading this book—crumbled in that moment. Kuang doesn’t just argue a point; she shows it, brutally, through lived experience and consequence.

Then came the worst moment: Letty pulling the trigger on Ramy. I cannot even put into words the rage I felt. Ramy—finally, a good representation of a Muslim character, written with depth, morality, tenderness, and righteous anger—is one of the most extraordinarily charming and most human characters I’ve ever seen in modern literature. He was witty, funny, knew exactly what he wanted in life, and carried a charisma that made him unforgettable. He gave everything: to Robin, to their friends, to the cause, to justice itself. But then—his life ends at the hands of someone who was described as loving or crushing on him, or almost obsessed with him, someone who was supposed to trust him and fight alongside him. Letty, his supposed friend, pulls the trigger. What the fuck.

Babel by R.F. Kuang | Page 411 & Letty’s Interlude 

I get it. Kuang gives Letty a background—right in the opening of the interlude, we learn that “Letitia Price was not a wicked person.” Trauma, misunderstandings, reasons that explain her, moments that almost make you feel for her. I see all of that. But none of it gives her the right. Not here. Not ever. That act—killing Ramy—is unforgivable. My rage is pure, intense, and completely justified. I am not angry in a shallow way—I am furious because it was Ramy, because it was betrayal, because it was unnecessary, and because it destroyed everything I was rooting for.

However, contrast this with Robin killing Lovell. I can side with the reason behind why he did it and not condemn him the way I do Letty. I understand it—the stakes, the systemic injustice, the long history of exploitation, and the shock of realising just how wicked this person is. Robin’s act is messy, impulsive, and raw, driven by grief, anger, and the overwhelming need to stop someone who has caused so much harm. It is not neat or calculated; it is human, desperate, and imperfect.

But Letty killing Ramy? That is something else entirely. There is no principle guiding her hand, no systemic injustice demanding her action. It is selfish, impulsive, and morally corrupt. It is intimate betrayal masquerading as power, and that makes it irredeemable. The distinction is everything: one act is a human, desperate response to systemic evil, the other is personal destruction that shatters trust, friendship, and everything Ramy represented. My rage isn’t a double standard—it is a deliberate moral positioning. I can see when violence is necessary; I can justify it when it targets the system. But Letty’s act? That is cruelty masquerading as agency, and it deserves every ounce of fury it provokes.

From my understanding—even if it feels paradoxical—this is not a double standard, because the contexts are entirely different. It’s me choosing where I stand: I side with the resistance, with those who fight injustice and act against oppressive systems. I do not excuse enablers or forgive perpetrators. I understand that some violence is necessary to dismantle a corrupt system—but Letty? She acted for herself, not the system. That makes my rage completely justified.

Ramy’s death is not just a plot point—it is a gut-punch that reverberates across representation, loyalty, justice, and moral clarity. He is everything a modern literary Muslim character should be: complex, moral, heroic, fully human, witty, charismatic, alive in every sense. And then he dies at the hands of a fellow member of the Hermes Society—someone who had been his friend since the first cohort, who was supposed to love him, trust him, fight alongside him. That betrayal runs through the narrative, a pulse of moral anger that hits every reader who has invested in him. I feel all of it.

Robin, my baby.. My beautiful Ramy.. griffin too.. All of my favorite characters are dead, this book tore me apart. Their deaths are not cheap; they are devastating precisely because we know them, love them, and see the stakes of their lives so clearly. And the way Victoire survives—the only Hermes member left standing in this cohort (well, along with Letty, but to me, that bitch is dead)—oh my god, my girl went through so much… Long live Victoire. She carries the weight of all that was lost—the memories, the futures that her friends were never able to live. I count on you, girl. Please live, Victoire, and continue your fight elsewhere. Please be happy. Please have a good life. Her survival is quiet resistance in a story that otherwise takes everything.

What makes Babel so devastating—and so powerful—is that its politics are inseparable from its intimacy. Robin’s grief, confusion, rage, and longing are never abstract; they accumulate, rot, and explode in ways that are messy, human, and impossible to ignore. There is no neat calculus here, no sanitised moral logic. By the end, Robin is irrevocably changed, and so is the reader. That transformation is earned. Painfully so.

This book doesn’t ask whether violence is good. It asks something much harder: under what conditions does violence become unavoidable, when every peaceful option has already been absorbed, neutralised, or weaponised by entrenched power? That is the core of the story, and it lands like a hammer.

Babel made me uncomfortable. It made me furious. It forced me to reconsider the world of academia, translation, privilege, and resistance. And that is precisely why it works. I came to this book seeking one simple answer: why is violence sometimes necessary in a revolution? I didn’t get a clean answer—but I got something far more compelling. I got context. I got history. I got human cost. And that is enough.

This book is everything to me. And I haven’t even unpacked what it felt like to discover Robin’s real name, or the weight of Griffin’s letter (Fuck). The grief, the betrayal, the survival, and the moral complexity linger long after the page is turned.

In the end, Babel is not just a story about language, revolution, or empire—it is a story about the human cost of resistance, the weight of moral choices, and the lives caught in between. It is devastating, messy, and unflinching, and it made me feel everything: grief, rage, awe, and relentless reflection. As an English literature student, as a reader, as someone who believes in justice and in the necessity of standing against oppression, this book did not just tell a story—it forced me to reckon with the realities of loyalty, betrayal, and the stakes of moral action. Babel is a book that will haunt me, challenge me, and stay with me for a long, long time.

***

Babel by R.F. Kuang 

Babel (4.9/5)

(14 December 2024 – 13 June 2025, 546 pages)

All illustrations above are exclusively property of the author.