{"id":388170,"date":"2025-09-01T00:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T00:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/388170\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T00:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T00:55:11","slug":"r-f-kuang-latest-book-is-clever-and-absurd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/388170\/","title":{"rendered":"R F Kuang latest book is clever and absurd"},"content":{"rendered":"

R F Kuang, best-selling author of Yellowface, Babel, and the Poppy War series, takes readers to hell in a brilliant new book about memory, identity, truth and contradiction. Katabasis is bitingly funny dark academia, bursting at its binding with philosophical Easter eggs, social commentary, cultural analysis, and the perfect amount of absurdity.<\/p>\n

Katabasis: funny dark academia <\/p>\n

Set (at least initially) within Cambridge University\u2019s Department of Analytic Magick, Katabasis is articulated with magic of the linguistic variety. No subject is safe from the author\u2019s wit as she draws parallels between philosophy\/magic, university\/hell, and hierarchies\/relationships.<\/p>\n

Alice Law has been researching Hell since the unfortunate demise of the notoriously difficult (but highly accomplished) Professor Grimes. In this universe, Hell is a physical place that scholars can report upon\u2026 if they survive long enough to return. Dante\u2019s account is cleverly described as being \u2018distracted with spiteful potshots\u2019 while Orpheus\u2019s notes are \u2018in shreds, like the rest of him.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alice is determined to go to Hell, fighting against time (and the deterioration of rotting body parts) to find her professor\u2019s soul and put it back where it belongs. Her daring plan is informed by extensive research, classic texts, and undiluted determination. Alice\u2019s plan does not include the presence of her academic rival, Peter Murdoch.<\/p>\n

Peter \u2013 described as a lanky, dishevelled genius\u00a0\u2013 exudes the easy optimism of someone who has never known hardship. Like Alice, Peter intends to retrieve Professor Grimes from the courts of Hell. Insufferably helpful, he insists the two join forces. Reluctantly, Alice agrees to embark upon a shared journey, armed with chalk and the requisite pentagrams. Together, they risk their imagined futures for the sake of blinkered pasts, resulting in an exceedingly tense present.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Getting to hell is the easy part. Finding Professor Grimes is a mission unto itself. Alice and Peter are both intelligent (or delusional) enough to be capable of great things, but neither can be entirely sure whether they are lost souls wandering Hell, or intrepid explorers forging a new path. They realise quickly why no modern Hell scholarship exists\u00a0\u2013 those who venture into Hell are unlikely to survive.<\/p>\n

The classically-documented dangers of Hell pose great risk as it is, but the deeper Alice and Peter delve, the more unknowable danger they realise they are in (and it\u2019s not the kind they are likely to recover from).<\/p>\n

\"\"Katabasis by R F Kuang.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to extricate a soul from Hell without knowing where to find it. Alice and Peter must reflect on Grimes\u2019 moral failings in order to determine which court of hell is most likely to hold him. This uncomfortable, but necessary, exercise compels the students to unravel flawed premises and draw new conclusions, culminating in an emotionally complex application of the sunk cost fallacy. This (and more) forces a re-shaping of their increasingly flimsy convictions, some of which form the deteriorating basis of their previously solid self-concepts.<\/p>\n

Applying academic rigour to the trials of hell, Alice and Peter traverse hyperbolic space and tolerate one another as best as two competing scholars are capable. Peter\u2019s effortless competence irritates high-achieving Alice to no end, and there are unspoken tensions lurking beneath the surface of their mostly-pragmatic relationship. <\/p>\n

Reframed by logical examination, a change of context and a re-aligned purpose, Alice and Peter reach new levels of emotional intimacy, until Alice makes a discovery she can\u2019t un-discover (no spoilers).The transformative dynamic between these well-developed characters is just one of many intense pleasures inherent to this unique reading journey.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read:<\/strong> La Boh\u00e8me review: now relocated to 1930s Berlin at the Sydney Opera House<\/a><\/p>\n

Katabasis: hell is a desolate wasteland, a writer\u2019s market, a bazaar<\/p>\n

In the Katabasis universe, Hell is a desolate wasteland, a writer\u2019s market, a bazaar. It is its own institutional structure, complete with transcripts, libraries and texts. Peppered with paradoxes, Hell is an infinite, boundless space populated by faceless shades, creepy bone-things, and dangers unknowable. From identifying the meaning of the good (harder than it sounds) to a unique application of the prisoner\u2019s dilemma, the tartaran setting provides unique opportunities to explore questions like; what is desire? What\u2019s the difference between violence and cruelty, or complicity and loyalty? Is it possible to reconcile two opposing beliefs to find the truth at the base of a paradox?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Weaving an action-packed plot with philosophically-driven character growth, Katabasis explores the subtle mechanisms of inequality, the unsteady scaffolding of external validation and the psychological imperative to valorise tyrants. An examination of the role of memory in relation to identity (a la Derek Parfit) is brilliantly executed with multi-layered genius through setting, plot and character\u00a0\u2013 turning abstract thought experiments into vivid phenomenological experiences.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Katabasis: humour-infused adventure<\/p>\n

Littered with ontological nods ranging from the obvious to the obscure, academic rigour is built into the fictive foundations of this story, resulting in a vast intellectual playground for the reader\u2019s imagination. Never didactic, this humour-infused adventure makes light work of heavy themes through suspenseful pacing, addictive characters, heart-stopping revelations, and a high-concept premise.<\/p>\n

Read this book if:<\/p>\n