Katabasis by R. F. Kuang

Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek. The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld.

Grad student Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become the brightest mind in the field of analytic magick.

But the only person who can make her dream come true is dead and – inconveniently – in Hell. And Alice, along with her biggest rival Peter Murdoch, is going after him.

But Hell is not as the philosophers claim, its rules are upside-down, and if she’s going to get out of there alive, she and Peter will have to work together.

That’s if they can agree on anything.

Will they triumph, or kill each other trying?

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I adored Babel when I read it two years ago (and which is another excellent doorstopper if you’re looking for inspiration), and I think that if you liked either of these two novels, then you’ll enjoy the other.  There are some similarities although the characters and stories are quite different.  Both are set in academic institutions with Katabasis at Cambridge and Babel at Oxford, and both are set in a world similar to our own but where magic, albeit subject to different rules, is possible.  I also couldn’t help but draw parallels between them, one sharing its name with a tower aspiring to Heaven, while the other features a descent into Hell…

Magick succeeds by casting confusion and doubt.  Magick taunts physics and makes her cry.

As with Babel, Kuang has developed a unique and unusual magical system in this novel.  While Babel looked at translation and etymology, Katabasis focuses more on logic and metaphysics, and magick relies upon “tricking” the universe into suspending its natural laws through paradoxical thinking.  If the usual rules of logic can be challenged by an idea or situation that appears contradictory, that’s your chance to cast a spell.  Kuang is clearly an intelligent individual, and I enjoyed the exploration and explanation of the various paradoxes, a couple of which I was familiar with, but most of which were new to me.  This style won’t suit everyone though, and that depends upon your tolerance for having such things explained to you.

The main protagonist, Alice Law, is a post-graduate student of analytical magick.  She is intelligent and competitive, and has found a rival in fellow student, Peter Murdoch, who, alongside being the darling of the department, is a bit of a dork but quite sweet with it.  Alice is an admirable character, although I’m not entirely sure if I liked her.  As a woman in a male-dominated field, she feels that she has to work twice as hard for the same level of recognition.  It makes her incredibly driven but some of the sacrifices she makes, even before going to Hell, seemed extreme and bordering on the obsessive.  It made it a little difficult for me to connect with her, as I couldn’t help but think it was the sunk cost fallacy in action.  She’s sacrificed so much that for her to give up now would mean it was all in vain, despite the harm it’s doing to her. 

Both Alice and Peter study under the same advisor, Jacob Grimes.  Grimes is considered to be a brilliant but difficult individual, and his untimely demise during a spell gone wrong leaves them both unmoored.  There’s no one to assess their work, oversee their graduation, or to assist them in their next steps, Grimes being a gatekeeper without whom they might never flourish.  That he’s a cruel and vile man is immediately apparent, even before you get the full sordid history from these two characters, both of whom have experienced it firsthand.  Despite this, Alice feels driven to rescue him as she was there when Grimes died and is responsible for the error that caused his death.  Peter’s reasons for joining her aren’t immediately apparent, although given the price they pay, you expect that he has good reason for doing so. 

No sins, no matter how heinous, deserve an eternity of punishment.

And then there’s Hell, which was not at all what I was expecting.  Rather than a place of eternal damnation, torture, and punishment, Hell is where souls are prepared for reincarnation.  As such, Alice and Peter’s journey is not so perilous as you might expect.  That said, it’s still not a place to visit casually, it costing half of one’s remaining life span to do so.  And their journey is not straightforward – they face trials and challenges along the way, and have no idea of how to actually find Grimes once they get there.  And while getting into Hell isn’t actually that difficult, finding their way out of it poses a much greater challenge.    

Katabasis is an intelligent and original novel that builds to a satisfying conclusion.  I don’t always enjoy dark academia (there are some notable exceptions), but I found this to be a fascinating read which didn’t feel as long as it is.  This isn’t a high-octane book by any stretch, but it is gripping and I enjoyed Alice and Peter’s journey through the courts of Hell and seeing them work together instead of in opposition.  Highly recommended.