Katabasis
There are new things here. The journey into hell has been done, but it hasn’t been done quite the way R. F. Kuang does it ... We’re once again treated to the power of Kuang’s mind. It takes a smart person to write geniuses, and Alice and Peter are brilliant, if blinkered ... A more mature and less showy novel than Kuang’s earlier work ... Hell filtered through a scholar’s eyes.
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The novel dives deep into painful and all-too-real experiences ... The revelation of what Peter’s breezy genius actually costs him is one of the most compelling and gratifying elements of the story, and the gradual peeling away of Alice’s prickly exterior is equally rewarding ... The way Kuang captures Alice’s desire for oblivion is one of the more impressive threads of the book ... I’ve never seen that state of being captured quite so well ... There’s some minor repetition ... Katabasis shines with devastatingly real characters and absorbing world building. Kuang’s sentences are delicious, her insights well-earned and deeply affecting. She’s also funny ... Katabasis isn’t always easy, but it is always enjoyable, and that’s a near impossible feat. Only a writer as thoughtful and skilled as Kuang could make a literal journey through hell so fun and so poignant.
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A rich combination of dream vision, acerbic satire, intellectual playfulness, and human drama, Katabasis should more than satisfy readers who enjoyed Kuang’s earlier novels.
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