R. F. .Kuang: Katabasis
Oct. 4th, 2025 11:00 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakThis is the third novel of R. F. Kuang I've read (after being impressed by the The Poppy Wars, first volume, but also emotionally so exhausted I didn't read the rest of the trilogy, amused and captivated in an emotionally distant way by Yellowface, and turned so much by Babel that I only read the first twenty pages or so and then gave up), and I think my favourite so far. There is academic satire but also genuine emotion throughout, there is great ambition epically realised (i.e. writing a trip to the underworld in the grand tradition of all the obvious suspects, but specifically one that reflects the present), and the horror parts hit home in a way that feels not derivative but specific for this particular version. (The novel is set in a universe where magic is real, but isn't concerned with how this altered history or not, just what it means you can study it at university.) Our main character, Alice Law, is the kind of messy, complicated and morally ambiguous (and not in a "nice" way) woman the author specializes in, though for me personally preferable because I had the sense of the narrative being on board with what it was saying about Alice's strengths and weaknesses through her initially very skewered perspective. Also she had a genuine learning process through that trip through the Underworld, and... but that would be spoilery.
One caveat: my own university time was decades ago, and while some elements felt familiar, most felt familiar only through British and to some degree American media, because German universities work somewhat differently. (By which I don't mean there aren't professors exploiting their assistants around, of course there are, but the structures aren't the same.) This said, I thought that the way the novel initially introduces Alice and her motivation to enter the Underworld in search of her Professor as being a mixture of guilt (since she thinks the circumstances of his death were her fault) and academic obsession (she thinks that only he can ensure her academic future, and ensure the last few years of her life where she knocked herself out to please him haven't been pointless) only to reveal through the course of the story, the encounters Alice has and flashbacks there is more going on with both her motivation and her end goal worked really well for me on a number of levels, one of which was the depiction of (English speaking world) university life somewhere between black humour and horror and yet empathic in a way the depiction of the publishing scene in Yellowface wasn't.
Just why Alice is going on this journey as the ultimate example of sunk cost fallacy is just one of the narrative red threads; another is what's going on with her rival/frenemy Peter Murdoch who joins the quest at the last moment. It's not just that Alice sees Peter as their late professor's true favourite for whom all this academic stuff is easy, but that they got close a few times as friends only for him to withdraw suddenly without explanation, so she doesn't trust him in the least. I usually know a set up when I see one, so I wasn't surprised when the novel two thirds in eventually delivered the explanation of what was going on with Peter in a way that made sense of the two contradictory versions of him the narrative presented so far - the helpful quest comrade and the unreliable jerk from Alice's memories, but I was surprised by the explanation itself (I had tried to guess), which wasn't what I had predicted but far better. Anyway, the Alice and Peter dynamic is one of the emotional cores, especially since their quest becomes increasingly dangerous, necessitating trust between them, but it also becomes increasingly clear just how much a mental number their late and unlamented professor has done on them.
Of all the famous expeditions into the underworld, I would say Dante's model of hell is probably the most influential, though again, in an original way. Not least because this Underworld mirrors the academic obsessions of its main characters. And the horror - I think when we were presented with what has become of two former academics, the Kripkes, who provide a lot of the menace, why and how, I felt scared in a way I hadn't since the last time I read one of Stephen King's greater novels. (It's that kind of horror.) Speaking of Stephen King: there is animal harm. (This is not a "No more reading this!" for me, but I know it's different for others.)
Other than Alice, Peter and their late exploitative Professor, there are not many characters getting more than cameos, with the great and memorable exception of Elsbeth, whom I bet is the favourite for many readers. (Dead academic woman fighting the underworld odds by becoming essentially post reformation Xena.) I found where each of them ended up by the time I finished the novel very narratively satisfying, and this, too, is why I like this one best of the Kuang novels I have read so far. And it is the first of hers I absolutely want to read again.
Also improving my week: This trailer for Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein:
One caveat: my own university time was decades ago, and while some elements felt familiar, most felt familiar only through British and to some degree American media, because German universities work somewhat differently. (By which I don't mean there aren't professors exploiting their assistants around, of course there are, but the structures aren't the same.) This said, I thought that the way the novel initially introduces Alice and her motivation to enter the Underworld in search of her Professor as being a mixture of guilt (since she thinks the circumstances of his death were her fault) and academic obsession (she thinks that only he can ensure her academic future, and ensure the last few years of her life where she knocked herself out to please him haven't been pointless) only to reveal through the course of the story, the encounters Alice has and flashbacks there is more going on with both her motivation and her end goal worked really well for me on a number of levels, one of which was the depiction of (English speaking world) university life somewhere between black humour and horror and yet empathic in a way the depiction of the publishing scene in Yellowface wasn't.
Just why Alice is going on this journey as the ultimate example of sunk cost fallacy is just one of the narrative red threads; another is what's going on with her rival/frenemy Peter Murdoch who joins the quest at the last moment. It's not just that Alice sees Peter as their late professor's true favourite for whom all this academic stuff is easy, but that they got close a few times as friends only for him to withdraw suddenly without explanation, so she doesn't trust him in the least. I usually know a set up when I see one, so I wasn't surprised when the novel two thirds in eventually delivered the explanation of what was going on with Peter in a way that made sense of the two contradictory versions of him the narrative presented so far - the helpful quest comrade and the unreliable jerk from Alice's memories, but I was surprised by the explanation itself (I had tried to guess), which wasn't what I had predicted but far better. Anyway, the Alice and Peter dynamic is one of the emotional cores, especially since their quest becomes increasingly dangerous, necessitating trust between them, but it also becomes increasingly clear just how much a mental number their late and unlamented professor has done on them.
Of all the famous expeditions into the underworld, I would say Dante's model of hell is probably the most influential, though again, in an original way. Not least because this Underworld mirrors the academic obsessions of its main characters. And the horror - I think when we were presented with what has become of two former academics, the Kripkes, who provide a lot of the menace, why and how, I felt scared in a way I hadn't since the last time I read one of Stephen King's greater novels. (It's that kind of horror.) Speaking of Stephen King: there is animal harm. (This is not a "No more reading this!" for me, but I know it's different for others.)
Other than Alice, Peter and their late exploitative Professor, there are not many characters getting more than cameos, with the great and memorable exception of Elsbeth, whom I bet is the favourite for many readers. (Dead academic woman fighting the underworld odds by becoming essentially post reformation Xena.) I found where each of them ended up by the time I finished the novel very narratively satisfying, and this, too, is why I like this one best of the Kuang novels I have read so far. And it is the first of hers I absolutely want to read again.
Also improving my week: This trailer for Guillermo del Toro's adaptation of Frankenstein:
no subject
Date: 2025-10-04 09:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-05 04:12 pm (UTC)Re: Peter, I had assumed Grimes was blackmailing him with something or had hypnotized him as an explanation for his behaviour, but the illness reveal worked so much better, for all the reasons you name.
no subject
Date: 2025-10-05 12:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-05 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-10-05 07:15 pm (UTC)The National Theater version still haunts me, and I think I saw it four years ago.