My Thoughts on the Novel, Katabasis, 2/26/2026….

This book took me quite some time to read. This is usually a bad sign for my enjoyment of a book, but I wound up appreciating it—not really liking it, per se—when I was through.

Katabasis is many things. Mostly, it’s a hero’s journey into Hell, the Underworld, with the hero, Alice Law, seeking redemption for an act she holds herself accountable for. Set somewhere in the 1980s, Alice is a graduate student in Cambridge, under the iron-fisted tutelage of Professor Jacob Grimes, whose death sparks her journey.

It’s also a love story—you may wonder how this could be so when someone is travelling through hell. Another one of Grimes’ graduate students, Peter Murdoch, has strong feelings for Alice, but Alice, who has similar feelings that confuse and stall her, does not reciprocate. They have been working together in the Cambridge Magick Postgraduate Program for the better part of four years; both are very close to defending their dissertations. But with the death of their advisor, both Alice and Peter feel that they must do something.

The language of this narrative is post-high school level. Not that this bothers me, but I wonder how it might dissuade possible readers of author R.F. Kuang. And the worldbuilding, especially the idea that magic can be studied and practiced on a post-graduate level using math, physics, and pentagrams, is at first fascinating, but how the mechanics are doled out throughout the story—especially in terms of Alice’s abilities—are, ironically, pedantic and episodic. It almost feels as if Kuang is almost making it up as she goes along (she is a plotser, so this can be forgiven). But every time Alice or Peter recalled a memorized theory or formula about magic, I found myself huffing in slight frustration.

Katabasis also takes the idea of Hell from several cultures, pieces of literature, and religions: it’s as if everyone was right in their theories about the Underworld. This was a blessing and a curse for Kuang: she had to keep several balls in the air while telling this story, and at times, methinks she dropped one or two.

All in all, I’m glad I read this book. I won’t read it again, though. My recommendation would be for readers who don’t mind having a thesaurus at hand while reading this novel, and who also might want Wikipedia open and ready as well.