The Bar

DID MY RELATIONSHIP STANDARDS BECAME TOO HIGH BECAUSE OF WATCHING MOVIES? (Where the female lead is given a princess/ queen treatment)

Hm, nah.

I mean, I have a mother that is essentially sort of a martyr, and a father that is borderline narcissistic. My traumas and issues set the bar too low I have z-e-r-o expectations on men. I knew early on I cannot depend on anybody for my survival. I only have myself, and I have to learn a lot of survival skills early in my childhood. Also being given a huge responsibility on my siblings when I was still, essentially a child myself, made me averse to taking care of other people when I stepped into adulthood.

I have avoided relationships, platonic and romantic, because I do not want commitment. Most of my time is spent on books; fairy tales, and love stories with happy endings, even if I do not believe in happy endings, it simply does not exist. It is not real life.

AND I love it, because it’s not real. Ironically, the traits of these male leads in my books set the standard of how I wanted to be treated, and I am 60% sure will commit to these kind of men, if ever they exist in real life, and only if they are willing to give 100% of their commitment to me. See, impossible, right?

Before I even commit to a serious relationship with my ex (now my husband), I have a shelf-full of book boyfriends, that are way older than me, written by women in their 40’s-30’s, set at some point in history where women’s rights are non-existent, and mysterious, moody and brooding males are hot commodity. Bonus if they are bloody rich, because who wants a broke ass potential love match.

Only the aspect of them being rich is what appeals to me, and that they are basic heroes who at the minimum, does not lift their hands on their woman. And I’m set for life. I can live my days doing what I want, being provided for, siring a babe or two, that thing. What, a coupe of children vs a lifetime of non survival, yessir, count me in.

Gahd, there is no bar to be seen there either.

This is a random post, get what you are able to and dispose of the rest.

Review: Babel – Part Two

by RF Kuang

This is the last post I will write about Babel. But first, what kind of reader/audience am I? As far as I know, as a reader you can be anything, surprisingly readers are often stereotyped, at least in mainstream media, as kind of anti-social, introverted, nerdy kind. And though all of these things may apply to me, the most important for me and bears significance, is I am an emotional reader.

Even if I identify as a fairly practical, rational and logical person. As a reader, I am hugely invested in stories that poke through my values and my perceived identity of self. Reading babel is no different, though I have been on quite a reading slump for several years, I feel intensely about the plight of Robin, Ramy and Victoire. Letty is another side of the coin that mirrors my internalized colonialism, and which I thoroughly hate, but am aware enough of existing within me.

Spoilers ahead.

From the moment Robin killed his father, going to the Hermes Society being discovered, almost all of the members un-alived, Ramy shot by Letty, Robin and Victoire tortured, and then rescued by his brother, then killed. The whole segment is a whirlwind of secrecy, revelation, frustration, depression, death and grief. There is no breathing space to allow the next logical step. Every step is based on their desire to live, to be free, and I’m not even sure if they really desire to stop the war.

While reading the remaining chapters that are day by day account of how robin and company is holding out in the tower vs the government, I felt the stress they must have been feeling. Grieving and stressing and desperately hoping and fighting that the war be stopped.

Do you think, Robin’s act of destroying the tower, destroying all the silver, can bring about a change or at least a significant impact with regards of stopping the war, versus just delaying it?

I wanted to be hopeful, hoping in that fictional world, Robin and his companion’s sacrifice is not for nothing. That it crippled the whole country, and its impact will be felt for generations to come. Enough to warrant a massive change, or even stop a war.

Turbo paced Babel

The remaining chapters of the book, after my short comments in the previous post, picked up in pace. Things and people began to move differently and the characters hiding in the shadows began to emerge slightly into the light and yet lacked to reveal their intentions and their roles in the story that Robin is involved in. I got confused for a while, because I momentarily forgot that this book is written in the third person. An outside onlooker, an omniscient bystander or observer that is privy in the main character’s thoughts and emotions. After more than months of silence from the Hermes Society, it is reintroduced again by Victoire and Ramy. It went downhill from there. In slow motion.

The way it is written is interesting in my limited reading experience. I rarely encounter dark academia books and if it not for the social media hype, I would have never picked this up. I started reading this armed with a few biases and review from book readers I watch on Tiktok app. There are several POVs I would have loved to read this from. But on the top of the mind is the most obvious, as a reader from a colonized country, this is where the point of connection seems to be the strongest, and personally, more relatable. This is how Robin Swift was introduced. He was saved, groomed and armed with white education by his white savior, that is also secretly his father. His existence itself is a form of experimentation to exploit the culture and language he was born and grown into. Only to be used and harvested by forces with malicious intent with goals of warfare and submission.

If one wishes to choose non violent approach to stop a war, is holding the tower hostage effective when the forces you are up against is something that is violent, unafraid and prideful that knows exactly that there is just one outcome. What is RF’s motive in writing the ending as it is? What am I, as a reader expected to feel? How was I supposed to interpret the last few pages in relation to the story as a whole? Is the goal to feel that violence can only be fought by violence? That there is no dilly dallying when it comes to getting what one wants? How is the act of destroying the tower will impact the colonizing powers in terms of attacking China?

I’ll write a part two.