Review: Katabasis

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is not going to be an easy book to talk about, mainly because in my view it languishes in the shadow of its fantastic cousin, Babel . Babel was the best book I read in 2022, and one of the best books I've read the past few years. I would not hesitate to say that at this point in time, Babel is Kuang's masterpiece. Still, that isn't really fair to this book, which deserves a chance to be judged on its own terms.

Its own terms, however, are what makes this book difficult to discuss, because I am in no way a philosophy major, and that is the main theme of this book. In fact, we dive so deep into the weeds of philosophy and logic that my head was spinning for a good deal of the narrative. Combine this with a satire of academia, and while this book may not be considered a slog (though I can see why people would feel otherwise), it is surely rather....challenging to get through. (Which is why it took me ten days to finish it.)

The setup for this book is simple: graduate student Alice Law takes a trip through a magical interdimensional portal to the realm of Hell to rescue the soul of her mentor, Professor Jacob Grimes. She does this because she thinks she is accidentally responsible for his death (she neglected to fully seal one line of a pentagram when the professor was working a summoning magick, with the result that a demon came through the portal and tore him apart) and she needs him for the recommendation that will make or break her career. Unfortunately, her rival, the highly regarded Peter Murdoch, has reached the same conclusion, and he insists on accompanying her. The two descend into Hell and traverse its eight levels (roughly corresponding to Dante Aligheri's account, although Peter and Alice's maps are different) to reach the Lord of Hell and bargain for the Professor's soul.

Along the way, we find out that Professor Grimes' soul is in no way worth bargaining for (it turns out he was a domineering, manipulating sexist shitbag) so the real journey undertaken here is the inner journey of Alice and Peter. Alice, to begin with, is a passive, guilt-ridden, not very sympathetic character. She does make the decision to go after Professor Grimes, but that's more out of panic and her sense of self-preservation than anything else. Peter, on the other hand, is the golden, god-touched white boy who can do no wrong. He has a secret of his own: a chronic illness (Crohn's disease) he has been hiding all his life, out of a sense of stubborn pride--he does not want to see what he thinks will be the pity of others. The study of magick and philosophy comes easy to him, and frankly, as a character, he seems too good to be true. This journey with Alice will break Peter down and rebuild him as a more complicated person.

The magick in this world is quite a bit different than Babel's beautiful, elegant system of linguistics and translation. Here, one gets magickal results from mathematical and philosophical paradoxes:

The paradox--the crucial element. The word paradox comes from two Greek roots: para, meaning "against," and doxa, meaning "belief." The trick of magick is to defy, trouble, or at the very least, dislodge belief. Magick succeeds by casting confusion and doubt. Magick taunts physics and makes her cry.

All it took was to tell a lie--and to believe, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that all the rules could be suspended. You hold a conclusion in your head and believed, through sheer force of will, that everything else was wrong. You had to see the world as it was not.

Now Alice, as she proceeded through her coursework, got very good at this. All skilled magicians were. Success in this field demanded a forceful, single-minded capacity for self-delusion. Alice could tip over her world and construct planks of belief from nothing. She believed that finite quantities would never run out, that time could loop back on itself, and that any damage could be repaired. She believed that academia was a meritocracy, that hard work was its own reward. She believed that department pettiness could not touch you, so long as you kept your head down and did not complain. She believed that when professors snapped at you, when they belittled and misused you, it was because they cared. And she believed, despite mounting evidence to the contrary, that she was all right, that everything was all right, that she did not need help, that she could just stiffen her upper lip and keep on going.

That right there sums up all the themes of this book, and every belief of Alice's that is torn to shreds as she and Peter proceed through Hell. As far as the magick in this book goes, it's more than a little handwavium, and better applies to the character of Alice than any magickal results she produces from it. Which would be fine if Alice was an interesting person to spend time with. Except that she really isn't, at least not until three-fourths of the way through the book when she believes that Peter is dead (and to be fair, he is, though he gets better), takes her head out of her behind, and starts kicking ass and taking names.

That's my main knock against this book, that the author doesn't really seem to commit to it, at least not the way she did with Babel. Now, Babel was not subtle in the least. It was a brutal and thorough takedown of racism, white supremacy and entitlement, and colonialism, and the reader knows this from the first chapter. At times the author's rage is palpable. The satire and deconstruction of academia in this book feels like it's padded with cotton, and as a result the author's blows land feebly, if they land at all. Possibly you as a reader will like this sort of authorial distance. I loved her not beating around the bush in Babel, which is why I adore that book. But this one is a painfully long journey to Alice's making up her mind to actually do something, and probably some readers will reach the draggy middle section, say "screw this," and go on to something else.

I didn't--possibly only because I bought the Deluxe edition (which is a lovely book, with gorgeous sprayed edges, and heavy enough to serve as a brick in the wall if I wanted) and felt like I had to finish it to maybe get my money's worth. In the end, though, that's only a "maybe." I must face up to the fact that, as far as I am concerned, Babel is the real deal....and this isn't.

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