Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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“That’s just what translation is…. Listening to the other and trying to see past your own biases…”

Babel or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution (A Novel) by R.F. Kuang

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Cbr17bingo Black Imagine a world in which a kind of magic exists that is only accessible to those skilled in foreign language, those who are so fluent they dream in those languages. In Babel, RF Kuang immerses the reader in a world that, despite the presence of “magic,” is strangely and sadly familiar. This is a novel about imperialism and racism, but it’s also about friendship and bravery in the face of odds stacked against you. It is a long novel (over 500 pages) but […]

A Grimdark Story Set in Fantasy China

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang

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Rin is a war orphan whose foster parents are planning to marry her off to an older man. To escape a fate that she considers to be worse than death, Rin works herself to the bone to study for the national test that will determine whether she can escape her rural province. Thanks to the help of her tutor and her own brutal work ethic, Rin excels and earns a place at Sinegard, the war academy of the Nikan Empire. Arriving at Sinegard, she realizes […]

Lost in Translation

Babel by R.F. Kuang

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After reading and enjoying the Poppy War trilogy, I was excited to see a new book by R.F. Kuang. I found the world of Babel intriguing right away. It is mostly set in Victorian era England, but where much of the technological progress of the industrial revolution has been replaced by a form of magic imbued into silver bars. The people working the magic into the silver are the translators of Oxford University. They work on finding translations of words from various languages into English, […]

“I feel like this isn’t about me”

Yellowface (2023) by R. F. Kuang

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I don’t really know what I can say about this book, which I think means it’s worked? I can say that it’s blistering, and brilliant; I can say that it fits the ‘Fiasco‘ square because it’s about someone who “reached for the stars and utterly failed…a disaster created by human actions” and in this case the disaster is a person who finds herself in a nightmare of her own making, but the disaster is also the publishing industry and the surrounding discourse, and also the […]

Tower of Cards

Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang

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There’s a lot that I liked about this book, so in true form for me I’m going to start with two things I really didn’t like. First, you get one subtitle, max. Zero is preferable, and two or more is asinine. Babel, or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution reeks of trying to have it not just both ways, but all ways. Pick a title and stick to it. Babel would have worked just fine on its own. Secondly, […]

Wherein plagarism is an insincere form of flattery

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang

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Yellowface is a story about a brilliant writer, Juniper, who lacks ideas. She is cursed with a very successful writer friend, Athena, who churns out best sellers like it’s no big thang. June and Athena are hanging out one evening, drinking and laughing and actually acting like the friends they sorta kinda are, when Athena chokes to death on a pandan-flavoured pancake. Though June is a bit rattled by this experience, she decides in teh moment to steal Athena’s latest, secret manuscript before leaving the […]



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