In new novel Katabasis, RF Kuang blends myth, romance and academic satire

The title itself contains the plot, as the Greek term ‘Katabasis’ refers to a journey to the underworld. While the book draws from Christian, Buddhist and Hindu imaginations of hell, besides ancient Greek and Chinese mythology, the setting is contemporary. All hell breaks loose, quite literally, when Alice Law, a talented but insecure woman enrols for a doctorate in analytic magic at Cambridge and witnesses her research advisor Professor Jacob Grimes’s death in a laboratory accident. Though she detests him, it seems that she has no choice other than descending into Hell “to beg for his life back from King Yama the Merciful, Ruler of the Underworld”. Professor Grimes was her committee chair and she needs him not only to defend her dissertation but also to get “the golden recommendation letter that opened every door”.

Her unexpected accomplice in this quest is Peter Murdoch, both a peer and a rival. He, too, is one of Professor Grimes’s advisees. The changing equation between Alice and Peter dials up the emotional quotient of this novel and balances it well with the intellectual stimulation that it offers. The power-hungry professor knows how to play them against each other to consolidate his own position and hamper their confidence in their abilities. And, in their feverish desire to earn his good graces, they become oblivious to his petty games and lose out on the opportunity to get to know each other.

Ironically, it is Hell that offers them an opportunity to see each other without masks. The author gives them an unconventional but epic love story that is moving because of its treatment even though it might seem cute and banal at first.

From looking at each other “with the brotherly fondness of foot soldiers… united by their love for a common general” to jointly facing deadly creatures thirsting for their blood, the arc of their romance is as worth following as the excursion through the Eight Courts of Hell — Pride, Desire, Greed, Wrath, Violence, Cruelty, Tyranny and the City of Dis.

The world-building is complex and convincing, with just enough detail to draw one into the fantasy that the author has built. In keeping with the academic convention to review the existing literature in one’s particular sub-field and the incorrigible tendency to drop names of books that one has read in everyday conversation, the author weaves in references to several poets and philosophers such as Dante Alighieri, Virgil, John Milton, TS Eliot and Jean-Paul Sartre.

The referencing is often playful. In one of the funniest scenes, Peter tells Alice, “Just assume we are one person. Your ends are my ends and vice versa. What hurts you hurts me. Our goals are staying together, and pursuing what is best for ourselves as a joint unit.” Alice suspects that he has borrowed the idea from somewhere. Peter confesses that source is German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Instead of engaging with philosophy, Alice asks, “Wasn’t Kant a virgin?” and goes on to say, “I believe it was Kant who thought it immoral to masturbate.” Verbal repartee, which is their love language, lightens the mood of an otherwise dark and menacing novel.

The author sharpens her claws to deliver the most scathing remarks on what ails academia today, with young, overworked and underpaid scholars surviving on “canned soups and crackers”. The book talks about funding cuts, shrinking departments, nepotism, and most importantly sexism and sexual harassment within the hallowed walls of academia, where people have to often trade their soul with the powers that be in order to earn validation and tenure.

This book needs to be read, not only for its rigorous jostling with questions about the vast unknown of the afterlife in delicious prose but also its clear-eyed focus on the here and now.

Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, educator and researcher based in Mumbai
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