Katabasis by R.F. Kuang Review

Though my secondary education was far from the gruelling, all-hours ‘hell’ reserved for Oxford and Cambridge, I still found myself resonating with some thematic elements in R.F Kuang’s new novel Katabasis. A take on dark academia (with a sprinkling of romance for those who fancy it), Kuang takes us on a journey alongside Alice Law and Peter Murdoch as they descend into the fiery underworld to save their professor from his untimely demise (that may or may not have been their fault).

I personally don’t consider myself much of a scholar; I took a semester of Linguistics which was plenty of time for me to decide a life of penning essays, researching for free and schmoozing grades out of office dwelling professors wasn’t the path I was destined for. And yet Katabasis had me itching to find out if the paradoxes, contradictions, and chalk markings of our protagonists were enough to garner the approval of Grimes, their Analytical Magick professor.

The book combines what we believe to be true of hell, with popular iterations, poems, fables, and philosophies all too familiar to Orpheus; while imagining hell as a university-adjacent world of pride, greed, and the price paid for an endless existence with no fulfilment. I enjoyed the journey far more than I expected to, and found myself turning pages long into the night, to learn of the fate of our two main characters, and their questionably immoral professor. The author cleverly disguises dark humour within a journey through the eight courts of hell, each one more sinister and harder to grasp. When I found myself considering if I could become a tree by quietening my mind, I decided it was time for bed.

Though the romance isn’t the main plot of the story, you can’t help but find yourself rooting for Alice and Peter, the friends, turned rivals, turned enemies - who are both battling their own inner turmoil and perspective on death and all his friends. It allows you to consider how much your life on this earth might claim a stake on your time following; regardless of your beliefs.

If you’re far enough away from your life in academia, or fancy yourself a paradox buff, you might just have more fun than Kuang did while penning this book. The conceptual world of hell she brings to life is one you might not expect. A sometimes over-complicated, yet easy to follow read, worth its global hype.