Katabasis: A Novel

Was waiting to get my hands on this one. Properly delivered.

Reading Katabasis and finishing it, I have to say it was quite an experience. It’s not your typical story. The book follows Alice, a grad student who has to go to Hell to save her professor’s soul and Peter tags along with her. At first, I thought it would be a thrilling journey, but it turned out to be more about exploring difficult emotions like grief, loss, and how we process what people mean to us after they’re gone. It’s a bit of a slow burn and heavy on academic theory, which honestly took some getting used to. If you’re not into deep, intellectual stuff mixed with fantasy, this might feel a little dragging. One thing that really stood out in Katabasis was the characters and the way the story is told. Alice is complicated and honestly a little frustrating at times. She’s driven by this obsession with magic and academia that makes her relatable when you’ve been through tough school or career struggles. On the other hand Peter Murdoch, is kind of mysterious and distant at first, but as you get deeper into the story, you see more layers to him. The way RF Kuang writes is really rich and detailed, but sometimes it gets bogged down with a lot of explanations and philosophical musings, so the pace is slow in parts, but it feels intentional. I’ll admit, sometimes it felt like I was back in a classroom with all the dense conversations and theory discussions. If you enjoy slow-building stories and don’t mind a bit of frustration along the way, this book has a unique blend of dark academia, and fantasy.

R.F. Kuang's Katabasis transports to the infernal depths of academic ambition and sorrow. converting myth into a somber meditation on tiredness, ego, and the impossible pursuit of perfection. One chilling statement aptly expresses this: "Trust the lie—it's all you have. Stay within the cage and adorn it." Such observations reveal how academia manipulates its students into intellectual servitude. The novel's atmosphere is fraught with loneliness. "Surely no one else lived like this—haunted by every insignificant detail as if it carried cosmic weight," says Alice. Despite the quiet of that pain, moments of delicate kinship emerge: "Even in this abyss, there was someone who resonated at her same frequency". Katabasis is dense but bright, and it resists easy comfort. As Kuang puts it: "A story about going to Hell turned into a question about why we stay" . It's an uncompromising masterwork, a study in brilliance destroyed by its own fire.

Honestly, it's a great book If you love dark academia fantasy and the kind of genre katabasis serves. it wasn't my genre, and I still kind of enjoyed it. But it was mostly overwhelming for me. like, I was curious to know what's going to happen next. But at the same time, I wanted to skip a lot of parts, because I couldn't understand it. Maybe just because I ain't familiar with the kind of theories, the book was trying to serve me. Apart from the academia section, I loved the story line of this book. Like how alice took revenge from the professor , how alice actually saved peter, and elsepth's gift to Alice. I love the character of Archimedes. That cute little cat saved alice a lot of times Also, Elsepth's character was so nicely shown. She was a saviour as well. I loved the small interventions of good and bad kind of shades in alice And peter's journey. And oh my I never knew, i'm going to get a love story here too.. I loved seenig alice and peter falling for each other. period

A good book

Thanks for the return accept to the damaged book and delivering a good one. Appreciate it!

After a long time, read fiction which has such powerful way to transform you to another world. Author has painted hell with such clarity and magick similar to maths and physics, it’s astounding

It had a little dent at the back. But it’s okay as long it was an original copy.

no lo he leído todavía pero es perfecto, todo lo que hace esta mujer es una obra

I am so super exited to read the book, however the condition of the book isn’t “perfect” it’s readable and it’s actually not a big issue but the corners of the cover were bent, which is you know not the ideal, but than again not a hugeeeee problem- but definetly an issue that should be fixed. The print is fine, there isn’t a misprint

Llegó en tiempo y forma. Y en excelentes condiciones. Muero por leerlo.

Ein hervorragendes Buch.

Damaged Corners. Damaged Dust Cover. Damaged Spray Painted Edge. Packaging not good. No protection. Not worth the full price