Katabasis, the latest novel by R. F. Kuang, has been on the New York Times Bestseller List since its release. I mean, that’s no surprise, really: R. F. Kuang’s last few books (one might recall Yellowface and Babel) have also been runaway hits.
This one, though, has reached even more people than you’d think: and why?
“Hell is a campus.”
– Peter Murdoch, in Katabasis
That’s why. Katabasis depicts eight circles of hell, and each one is a new part of college life. Hell’s landscape is quite literally created and rooted in a university campus.
No wonder all of us are reading it, right?
I’ll make it even clearer. Alice Law, our protagonist, draws a pentagram and descends into the Underworld alongside her academic rival Peter Murdoch in order to save their Professor’s soul. We’ll really do anything to get a reference these days.
The book itself is by no means short — it’s a solid 559 pages. Don’t be surprised at the length though — some of the biggest hits for college students in the last few years have been a similar length. Think Fourth Wing, for instance (528 pages), or The Summer I Turned Pretty trilogy (928 pages).
opportunity… or exploitation?
Nor does the book stray away from larger themes — I mean, apart from academic dishevelment, the book follows two characters as they realise the cruelty of their world. Their whole life has been one of survival, but they’ve been taught that it was resilience and a result of meritocracy. Certainly, a lot of people can see themselves in the novel, their concerns or work-life balance depicted on a larger, more complex scale: Alice and Peter have been through hell before they even go into literal hell.
I’m sure lots of us have complained about schoolwork, deadlines, academic pressure. Here these concerns play out on a far larger scale. It is somewhat cathartic, actually, and I’m sure that’s part of why this is being picked up by so many of us.
Alice and Peter are not undergraduates, which brings another level to this question Kuang poses concerning opportunity and exploitation. They are working long hours for their Professor, furthering his work, not anything that they get to publish on their own terms. Their case is extreme, of course, highlighting the boundaries of this question, but it can totally be applied to real world scenarios too.
Having graduate students work on projects alongside their Professor is not inherently exploitative: it gives you something to write on your resume, as well as valuable experience… provided you are compensated accordingly and there are safe workplace practices. The experience of Alice and Peter is different — they are not just up late, in hysterics, working themselves to the bone. Alice is (small spoiler!) branded and tested upon. This — to prevent spoiling even more — is just one of these instances of pure exploitation and even abuse.
These ideas are not just confined to Kuang’s fantasy world. More and more university departments are turning to employing precarious faculty — workers with non-standard employment, so think of that one class you have where a PhD student delivers your lectures rather than a tenured Professor — rather than those with established contracts. This happens particularly at the undergraduate level, where younger classes are ignored in favour of having Professors focus on their masters students. This sort of employment is termed ‘hope labour.’
This article states: “Not for the first time, I watched as one of our PhD students was loaded into an ambulance and taken to hospital. He had collapsed in one of the university research labs about 20 minutes earlier.” This is just one of many examples of overworked graduate students. We return again to the question: when does upper education turn from opportunity to exploitation?
If you’re interested in reading more about that situation (and also some stats like over 30% of PhD students develop a psychiatric condition compared to 22% in defence and emergency services), that linked article is a great read.
katabasis asks: what is love, anyway?
To take a lighter topic, the novel features a romance involving academic rivals — a trope that is loved by many of us (second only to enemies to lover for many people, I’m sure. I’m a friends to lovers girl myself). It’s a slowburn, as well — very different from the fast-paced relationships in Icebreaker and Fourth Wing, but, if you ask me, that sort of pace ends up being more rewarding. This sort of trope certainly has sparked readers around university campuses to pick up the novel.
More than that, Peter and Alice have a love of learning, which I’m sure lots of university students can relate to. They are obsessed with their field, and do all they can to excel in it. Even if that means giving up half of their lifespan, which leads me to…
asking the important questions
Would you give up half of your lifespan in order to get the ticket to a dream career, almost a dream life?
That’s the first question Katabasis poses, right in Chapters 1 and 2.
This is something I thought about a lot in my early days of reading the novel. I asked my flatmate, my boyfriend, my friends: what would you do in this situation? Would you give up something as precious as time?
I said no. My boyfriend said no. My friends said no. But if I was asking the me of a few years ago… I think she would have said yes. And everyone I asked was an undergraduate — perhaps anyone relating more closely to Alice and Peter’s story would be more inclined to say yes.
descent & my final thoughts
What’s most interesting about the premise of Katabasis is that the very title means descent (in Ancient Greek), with this particular descent being usually associated with glory and pride. Something to show off about. This idea is also explored in the book, but ultimately Peter and Alice do not take on this journey to achieve glory. They do so to locate a resolution for themselves, or even to justify their entire academic life! They have toiled away for so long, and now, at the end of the road, their promises have fallen through their fingers. Their Professor, dead. Their hopes, dashed. Their futures, dissipated. At that point, who can blame them for the journey they go on?
Overall, university students are reaching for this book not just because of tropes or because of Kuang’s bestselling name. Instead, we see ourselves: our survival, our pain, and ultimately, our reckoning.
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Want to read more articles by me? This one is about the best books I read in 2024.