I AM DECEASED
I love this book so much. Every time I think about it my chest feels tight and I want to cry but I also want to go back and read it again and live in the story and never leave.
And I know the book isn’t perfect. Maybe it could be more subtle. Maybe the etymology lectures could get a bit annoying. Maybe there could be better character development. But guys, I don’t care.
Part of it is that it feels so personal to me. I spend so much time reading about other cultures, and while that’s great and necessary, reading a book where there’s Chinese and the main character faces discrimination specifically for being Chinese and they all go to China is just so special.
Also, so much of what R.F. Kuang writes, from Robin’s guilt at his privilege to his learning more about the all-encompassing horror of colonialism to the systems of higher education and the inherent problems in academia to just the micro-details of how characters react to things, is so deeply relatable to me.
It feels like she ripped out the most essential parts of my identity and my life and shaped them into a book just for me.
It’s also that the book discusses topics that are so important and ones I really love. European colonialism and imperialism! The intersection of misogyny and racism! The self-victimization of white women! The necessity of violence in revolutions! Academia! Linguistics! Everything is so well-researched. Come on.
I also love the characters. I honestly don’t know how people think they’re not fleshed out (not that that’s not valid, I just don’t get it). Robin and Griffin and Victoire and Ramy will live forever in my head and I love them all.
Rereading this book is so devastating because everything in this story, even the happy parts, maybe especially the happy parts, is part of a downward spiral and I know it all ends crashing and burning but also that’s why colonialism and capitalism are so horrible. They ruin everything.
And lastly, here are three quotes that I adore and capture the essence of some of the discussions that I loved the most in the book (there are so many more) (also slight spoiler?):
Power did not lie in the tip of a pen. Power did not work against its own interests. Power could only be brought to heel by acts of defiance it could not ignore. With brute, unflinching force. With violence.
Still, something did not seem right, and Robin could tell from Victoire’s and Ramy’s faces that they thought so too. It took him a moment to realize what it was that grated on him, and when he did, it would bother him constantly, now and thereafter; it would seem a great paradox, the fact that after everything they had told Letty, all the pain they had shared, she was the one who needed comfort.
I lived a life I shouldn’t have, I had what millions of people didn’t – all that suffering, Victoire, and the whole time I was drinking champagne—
FUCK NOW I WANT TO CRY AGAIN
Also thank you Mia for giving me a signed copy that led to me rereading it and realizing once again how much I love this book.
Author: Angela Zhang
