The more academia has broken your heart, the more you’ll love RF Kuang’s new novel. Katabasis captures the exhausting reality of postgraduate life—the endless scramble for grants, the soul-crushing grading, the thesis drafts revised and ignored by an indifferent advisor who can’t even be bothered to reply to an email. It’s a life of semester-to-semester survival, shrinking paychecks, ever-growing workloads, and feeling like cannon fodder in an endless departmental war. The book understands what it’s like to waste your best years doing menial work to advance someone else’s career, clinging to the bottom rung of a ladder you’ll never climb—less an ivory tower than a pyramid scheme.
Academia is already a nightmare; Katabasis just makes it literal. Kuang’s sixth novel is a hellish twist on the campus satire—think David Lodge, but with demons. Her previous book, Yellowface (2023), skewered the publishing industry with biting humor and razor-sharp gossip, exposing toxic alliances, performative activism, and hollow virtue. It was devoured—ironically—by the very people it mocked, much like the stunt novel in Percival Everett’s Erasure. Before that, in Babel, she reimagined Oxford University in an alternate history—only to blow it up. A literary Rhodes Must Fall.
Kuang doesn’t do subtlety. She doesn’t hint—she accuses. Some systems, she argues, are so entrenched, so self-perpetuating, that they can only be dismantled with brute force. But she also knows that humor can cut as deep as fury—sometimes deeper. She holds nothing back, whether in her critiques or her punchlines.
In Katabasis, hell isn’t a pit of fire—it’s worse: Hell is a campus. Cambridge grad students Alice Law and Peter Murdoch are on a mission: to retrieve their late thesis advisor, Professor Jacob Grimes, from the underworld. After a gruesome lab accident, Grimes is scattered in pieces—both physically and spiritually—leaving Alice and Peter’s academic futures in ruins. Their plan? Sneak into hell and drag him back. After all, it worked for Orpheus.
Set in the 1980s, when post-structuralism was devouring meaning and theory was eating itself, the novel follows Alice and Peter as scholars of “analytic magick”—a volatile, arcane discipline where philosophy has real-world consequences (Kuang’s joke, not mine—don’t sic the Nietzscheans on me). Like Babel, it involves paradoxes harnessed into power (“Magick taunts physics and makes her cry”), with special chalk, pentagrams, and a healthy dose of suspension of disbelief.
The true dark magic here isn’t the occult—it’s self-delusion. As Alice and Peter navigate the eight courts of hell (Dante was mostly right), they realize how deeply they’ve absorbed academia’s toxic logic. They’ve been trained to mistake rivalry for strength, exploitation for merit, privilege for prestige, and endurance for resilience—to thank the system that consumes them. The lie was simple: You can be the exception, if you’re willing to be exceptional. And it was Grimes—self-aggrandizing, ruthless, addicted to his own legend—who sold them that fantasy. Their mission to save him starts to unravel, but old loyalties die hard (“Professor Grimes hadn’t tormented just anyone. He’d tormented them… whatever they became when he was done with them would be so dazzling”). Breaking free from the need for validation isn’t easy.
Kuang is merciless toward the institution—but she still believes in the ideal.G is a true campus novelist at heart. Katabasis revels in the “acrobatics of thought,” weaving a story of poets, storytellers, thinkers, and artists—cultural magicians of all kinds. It’s packed with playful references, from the Nash equilibrium to Escher’s impossible staircase, Lacan to Lembas bread. This is a novel that champions ideas—just not the rigid structures we trap them in.
Rebecca F. Kuang once said, “I like to write to my friends in the style of Joan Didion.”
Babel ended in flames, leaving behind an uneasy fascination with martyrdom—death as purity, destruction as justice. Katabasis is messier and more forgiving. It rejects the allure of heroic sacrifice for something far more difficult: survival. Instead of asking what we’d die for, it asks what keeps us alive—the oldest, most stubborn philosophical question, and the most beautiful.
Katabasis isn’t flawless. There are bloodthirsty villains who feel like a gory detour, a nonsensical MacGuffin, and bone creatures rattling through plot holes. Grand mythologies clash, and parts read like a Rowan Atkinson sketch. The 1980s faculty politics eerily—or exhaustingly—mirror our own (Helen Garner’s The First Stone would make a fascinating companion read). But none of that really matters—especially if you’ve got a score to settle.
The novel’s heretical joy is irresistible. I escaped my PhD 14 years ago, and it still feels like a getaway. This book reminded me why—and what it’s like to climb out of a self-made hell without looking back. I devoured Katabasis in one sitting and then slept the deep, untroubled sleep of someone who’d never heard of Foucault.
Katabasis by RF Kuang is published by HarperVoyager (£22). To support The Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
FAQS
### **Frequently Asked Questions About Reviews**
#### **General Questions**
**1. What is a review?**
A review is an evaluation or assessment of something, such as a product, service, book, movie, or experience, based on personal experience or expertise.
**2. Why are reviews important?**
Reviews help people make informed decisions, provide feedback to businesses, and improve products or services based on customer opinions.
**3. Where can I leave reviews?**
You can leave reviews on platforms like Amazon, Yelp, Google Reviews, TripAdvisor, Goodreads, or directly on a company’s website.
#### **Writing Reviews**
**4. How do I write a good review?**
Be honest, specific, and balanced. Mention what you liked, what you didn’t, and why. Include details like usability, quality, and customer service.
**5. Should I only leave reviews if I had a bad experience?**
No! Positive reviews are just as valuable—they help highlight good products and services while encouraging businesses.
**6. Can reviews be fake?**
Yes, some reviews are fake or paid. Look for overly generic language, extreme praise/criticism, or multiple similar reviews posted at once.
#### **Reading Reviews**
**7. How do I spot trustworthy reviews?**
Look for detailed, balanced reviews with pros and cons. Verified purchase badges also help confirm authenticity.
**8. Should I trust reviews with only 5 stars or 1 star?**
Extreme ratings can be biased. Read mid-range reviews for more balanced opinions.
**9. How many reviews should I read before deciding?**
Aim for at least 5-10 reviews to get a well-rounded perspective.
#### **Business & Professional Reviews**
**10. How do businesses benefit from reviews?**
Reviews build trust, improve SEO, and provide insights for better products/services.
**11. Can businesses delete bad reviews?**
Most platforms don’t allow businesses to remove reviews unless they violate guidelines.
**12. How should a business respond to negative reviews?**
Politely acknowledge the issue, apologize if needed, and offer a solution. This
