Katabasis (2025) by R.F. Kuang

Author R.F. Kuang

Audiobook Review

Katabasis (2025)

by R.F. Kuang

   I'm not a fantasy novel guy- I haven't read Babel, R.F. Kuang's big fantasy hit, nor her multi-volume epic Poppy War trilogy.  I know those books were hits, that they won genre specific award, etc.  I did however read Yellowface, her first NON fantasy novel, and I liked it, I have to say I was deeply impressed by Kuang on a number of levels, most of which are contained in the intro to her Wikipedia entry, which is one of the best I've ever read:

Rebecca F. Kuang (born May 29, 1996) is an American writer of mostly fantasy novels. Kuang was born in China and schooled in Texas before she studied Sinology at Cambridge and Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar. In 2025, she was completing her PhD at Yale University.

   She went to college at Georgetown for college, but I get it, and more importantly, I feel like I get her.  First and foremost, this is an author writing these books in her spare time, while she is still a full-time student.  And I mean this with the greatest respect, but she isn't writing from a well of life experience. That's also part of the appeal, this tremendously acute perspective but also so youthful. 

  Yellowface wasn't a masterpiece or anything, but it was good, and it was fun and it was wicked- so few books in the world of literary fiction are fun in any way shape or form, and fewer are wicked.  It's a rare trait that I personally associate with English/British writers like Will Self and Ian MacEwan.  When I read that Kuang's new book was a "campus novel goes to hell" I sighed.  I don't like the campus novel, but I've read a few because of their propensity to make it to canon level status. It certainly has something to do with the fact that the primary audience for literary fiction is people who are literary professionals- teachers, students of literature, graduates, would-be writers, actual writers, professionals who write as part of their job.

 In my mind the weakness of the campus novel as a genre is that it is too "inside baseball," certainly the stakes are invariably low from an objective standpoint (Will person X obtain a successful academic career against odds y or will a struggling mid-career academic manage to rescue a sense of self from the compromises required by everyday life.)  In that sense, Kuang again proves herself a savvy author by transporting her Cambridge Analytical Magic undergraduate protagonist to hell.

  In the book, magic is real, but from a metaphorical standpoint magic appears to be a stand-in for critical theory and/or philosophy.  Kuang invents an entire backstory for the role of magic in this world that parallels the story of 20th century critical theory/logic/philosophy with the central players being magic analogues of the Anglo-american analytical/logical philosophy.  She also draws up a very interesting take on hell that combines Eastern and Western traditions in a thoughtful and consistent way. 

  She contrasts the literal journey through hell by Alice Law and her male counterpart, Peter Murdoch, with flashback chapters from both perspectives.  Those chapters were tedious, an excuse for a highly successful author being able to write her campus novel with what presumes is minimal pressure from her publisher.   I'm not sure Kuang really grasps the depths of the human heart but frankly I do not give a fuck.  There are enough of those books- give me a writer with a quick wit and a sense of adventure. In that sense, Katabasis does not disappoint.