Book Review | In RF Kuang’s Katabasis, getting your PhD is one hell of a ride
Part fantasy, part philosophical treatise is author RF Kuang's latest novel that takes readers along for a descent into the courts of hell. Read on to know more
Smart and ruthless, Alice Law is on the verge of defending her PhD dissertation on analytic magic and making it to the top of the proverbial ivory tower of academia. Only condition: she has to go through hell to get her advisor’s letter of recommendation!
This is the all-seeing narrative of RF Kuang’s Katabasis that informs us without a hint of irony, means an actual trip through the many courts of the underworld. Why? Professor Jacob Grimes is dead after a miscast spell goes horribly wrong, and Alice has taken it upon herself to retrieve his soul; and her chances of landing a tenured job. That is, until Grimes’ other advisee – and Alice's academic rival – Peter Murdoch wrangles himself into her plans for the dangerous descent.
Clocking in at over 530 pages, Katabasis (Greek for journeying into hell) is a bit of a monstrous undertaking, which draws from classics like Dante's Inferno and the Aeneid. On the face of it, the premise of Kuang’s latest novel after 2023's Yellowface (her sixth in almost as many years) almost lets you believe that the author is veering into comedy.
But, if you’re familiar with her work at all, you’ll know that nothing is as it seems. The magic in the book isn’t wands or spell casting, but the logic and paradoxes. Across this body of work, the author has been preoccupied with overachievers and the many, many pitfalls of success. What better setting, then, than 1980s Cambridge that is rife with sexism and an ever-present disdain for emerging feminist thought?
The book is a biting critique of the crushing pressures and uncertainties that the world of academia constantly insists upon. In classic Kuang fashion, the world is engaging, painstakingly created, and brimming with more information than one knows what to do with. At times, it feels like you've stumbled into a conversation with an obsessed academic. What's refreshing, but mostly frustrating, is the fact that both Alice and Peter are unlikeable albeit in turns. Though the book is largely in Alice's voice, we get a birds-eye view that makes us privy to the convictions of superiority that both characters hang on to desperately, to justify the abuse meted out to them by Grimes as well as their grudges, and even their feelings for each other.
If you’re able to forgive the flaws and delusions, the lengthy expositions might be a roadblock. The constant explanations, lecture notes and philosophical references work better in some places than they do in others; with so much happening, the story sets these issues (many of them central to the character's development) on the back burner for long enough that the payoff feels like a footnote. However, as with the rest of her work, Kuang's sharp prose redeems the story, always pulling the reader back into the narrative.
Could Katabasis have benefitted from spending a tad longer on the edit table? Yes. Is it worth the rollercoaster? Also yes. Because, in the end, the book boils down to the way some very smart and stubborn characters show unwillingness to deal with base human emotions. In their quest for redemption and revenge, however, the unravelling and remaking of the characters and their motivations makes a compelling case, both for Kuang and for hell.
Title: Katabasis
Author: RF Kuang
Publisher: HarperCollins
Price: ₹699
