Babel Q4: Colonialism at home and abroad

NeilNjae

Lovell, Jardine, Matheson were all portrayed as unsympathetic, warmongering characters. Did they have any redeeming features? Did Kuang attempt to make these real people or melodramatic villains? She also makes the point that the rapacious colonialism of the Empire was being applied to the factory workers and farmers of Britain, and only then was it being resisted. What does this say about the insularity of people, not seeing the injustice around them?

Is the whole portrayal of colonialsm too one sided? Is there a benefit to empire? Look to how much of British culture, language, law, and so on remains in the British imperial ex-colonies. Why are they retained if they are purely the tools of oppression?

(Should I mention "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas"?

RichardAbbott

I kind of got bored with the one-dimensionality of lots of the characters. And it seemed inconsistent - at one stage the main three are saying how they never met an Englishman they liked or trusted, but a very short time later they are both liking and trusting the factory workers and their leaders.

This was a facet of the book that made me lose interest and start skimming.

Apocryphal

Yes, it really wasn't very interesting as a study of colonialism - kind of ham-fisted. The question of empire (and class distinction, and 'us vs them' in general can be quite interesting, but what makes it really interesting is to acknowledge that there isn't enough to go around, so we either live in a society where everyone is equal but has very little, or a society where some have more than others. If it's the latter (which it almost always is - maybe, in fact, always) then the interesting part is - how does that division get decided upon? I'm don't think we really get to the root of that in this novel. I thought the question was much better handled in The Orenda, where we could see the differing opinions among the Hurons on native interaction with the French.

RichardAbbott

@Apocryphal your words reminded me of another film, in this case Enemy at the Gates, where Danilov says to Zaitsev
"We tried so hard to create a society that was equal, where there'd be nothing to envy your neighbour. But there's always something to envy. A smile, a friendship, something you don't have and want to appropriate. In this world, even a Soviet one, there will always be rich and poor. Rich in gifts, poor in gifts. Rich in love, poor in love."
Which seems to me a very good few-sentence summary of the quandary!

NeilNjae

@Apocryphal said:
Yes, it really wasn't very interesting as a study of colonialism - kind of ham-fisted. The question of empire (and class distinction, and 'us vs them' in general can be quite interesting, but what makes it really interesting is to acknowledge that there isn't enough to go around, so we either live in a society where everyone is equal but has very little, or a society where some have more than others.

Those aren't the only two options. The USA and UK are both very unequal societies, and are becoming increasingly so. Norway and Sweden are far more equal. The excesses of the 1890s Victorian era gave way to something far more egalitarian by the 1940s.

I agree that this novel stopped at saying "Colonialism is bad!" and didn't put forward any alternative vision. But on the other hand, must you have an alternative when pointing out obvious injustice and harm?

RichardAbbott

@NeilNjae said:
I agree that this novel stopped at saying "Colonialism is bad!" and didn't put forward any alternative vision. But on the other hand, must you have an alternative when pointing out obvious injustice and harm?

I guess the problem is that you risk simply setting up a row of straw men rather than having different viewpoints presented credibly. True, Babel did occasionally put up an opposite side but this was generally put in the mouths of fairly loathsome characters and largely amounted to "but look what we've done for the natives, they ought to be grateful". Harking back again to The Orenda, I think it handled different perspectives much better (though I personally didn't like the levels of explicit violence, which is another thing altogether).

So back to my main point, what is RF Kuang trying to do and/o who is she trying to convince? It kind of feels like anyone that already broadly agrees with her will say "yes, sure" and anyone who doesn't will feel that she is writing very simplistically on the matter. Kind of preaching to the choir material, I suppose I'm saying.

Apocryphal

Yes, it’s not so much that she needed to show an alternative, as it is that she needed to make the subject matter more interesting. It was a rather ‘paint by numbers’ treatment of colonialism. Which I guess is how the structure of the novel was treated, too. It’s a pretty ambitious novel project, though, especially for a young author, and one still in grad school? It’s kind of amazing what she did achieve. Even mature authors would struggle with this.