Pages & Pressings

“There was no answer, only wondrous and inexplicable grace, and the only thing to do in return was simply to live”

Alice Law and Pete Murdoch journey to Hell to retrieve the soul of their professor Jacob Grimes for a recommendation letter.

This book was a surprise from R. F. Kuang who seemingly loves to make me cry. I had so much fun with this silly little tale.

Let’s just say I found myself in this narrative far too much for my liking. We have two brilliant, genius people with the most terrible social skills. As people who have rigorously maintained their academic prowess, Alice and Peter only know how to do well at school. They constantly blunder their interactions with each other; Peter being generally nice and sociable, but flaky. Alice being socially awkward and only interested in pioneering for women in academia. The prose in Katabasis was very light-hearted and funny, making me crack up laughing at times. R. F. Kuang’s genius being how she can be silly but somehow having a beautiful meaning in the end.

This isn’t just a silly journey to Hell, we witness Alice learning to be in love with being alive. Alice spends the entirety of Katabasis being neurotic and single-minded as they try to find Professor Grimes in hell. Both Peter and Alice have already given 30 years of their life to make the trek and justify it with “at least we’ll be able to be successful when we make it out”. They’re, excuse my pun, hell bent on recovering Grimes despite the fact that he’s an awful person because he’s the only person they believe can make them great magicians.

The most important theme I discovered happens near the ending where Alice, after the trials she goes through, learns to lets go of all the stress that she’s put onto herself. This is something I can absolutely relate to. When your worth as a person is tied to how well you can perform academically, of course it’s going to take a toll on your mental health. Alice has only suffered under Professor Grimes and she learns many valuable lessons in Hell that changes her life. After everything, Alice chooses happiness.

I knocked off a star simply because I did get a little lost within the highly academic concepts that I feel are a little much to the average person. While I believe Kuang explains everything you actually need to know, I was a bit overwhelmed with all the terms. However, I was too enraptured by this story to really care. I had a great time venturing into Hell with Alice and Peter, and R. F. Kuang really knows how to write lovably unlikeable people.