Academia is a sort of hell in itself, at least as presented in R.F. Kuang’s “Katabasis” — quite literally meaning “descent” in Greek mythology. Released Aug. 26 by Kuang, a New York Times bestselling author, the novel follows a PhD student at the University of Cambridge as she travels to hell in a quest to resurrect her recently deceased professor.
The allusions to Greek mythology, “Dante’s Inferno” and other conceptions of the afterlife are clear throughout the work. What may come as a surprise is how the novel muses on depressive thoughts, the nature of competition and most prominently, the world of graduate school and higher education.
“Katabasis” explores the potentially abusive dynamics between graduate students and the professors who advise them. Verbal abuse is but the tip of the iceberg here — the protagonist, Alice, and others have experienced psychological manipulation, plagiarism and even sexual harassment at the hands of the world’s “greatest” academics.
Perhaps worst of all is how a lack of self-esteem, drive for validation and the ridiculously competitive nature of academia lead young men and women to rationalize and even defend their abuse. A quest for a letter of recommendation and a toxic drive to outdo one’s peers seems to be a necessity in the difficult search for professorship.
Alice, therefore, lives in a world of self-delusion, so much to the point that she views her own life as expendable and all of her mistreatment as a necessary step to success.
Indeed, as the novel puts it, “She believed those things with all her might … she had no choice. It was essential practice for everything that came after.”
I found some of these critiques on academia to be exaggerated to a somewhat unreasonable extent, but most of the suggestions made — and Alice’s character as a whole — felt pointed, well-developed and effective even to an undergraduate such as myself. In addition, though the pacing lags near the book’s middle — and there are perhaps a few too many philosophical tangents — the novel is rife with creative scenarios and engaging yet complex characters that bring the depths of hell to surprising life.
Yet to fully understand a work is to study the perspectives of those it may be most speaking to. As part of this review, I reached out to two graduate students in University of Wisconsin’s English department, Evangeline Thurston Wilder and William Zheng, to discuss how poignant they found “Katabasis” commentary.
To begin, I asked both Wilder and Zheng what their biggest difficulties in graduate school have been thus far. Wilder said her biggest challenge was managing the near-infinite number of options and possibilities available as a graduate student, while Zheng said his greatest difficulty was finding how to balance work and personal life.
“My biggest challenge so far has been figuring out how to turn your brain off,” Zheng said. “… It’s really hard to figure out when you can stop working.”
Indeed, multiple characters in “Katabasis” suffer from degrees of burnout. For some in the novel, this exhaustion stems from their own ambitiousness. For others, external pressure creates a culture of perpetual work.
Both Wilder and Zheng said they had positive relationships with their mentors, though each said they heard stories of more toxic advisors. According to both Wilder and Zheng, one’s graduate school experience is very much dependent on their advisor’s personality and priorities.
Zheng said the temptation exists to compete with or compare oneself to one’s peers, especially considering how difficult it is to find a position once graduating with a doctorate in the current job market. According to Wilder, the relationship between graduate students at UW is significantly healthier than what was portrayed in “Katabasis.”
“Alice’s [experience] in the novel is kind of the worst-case scenario,” Wilder said. “… The more common experience is that networks among graduate students really protect people.”
The common consensus I found from both students was that the scenarios in “Katabasis” are rooted in reality but exaggerated for the sake of an argument. This is far from uncommon in works of critical fiction.
Still, I was curious how one best goes about critiquing the world of academia, even if I believe Kuang primarily did a great job doing so. To that end, I asked Wilder and Zheng how they believed a work of fiction could best comment on graduate institutions.
According to Wilder, any work of critical fiction should consider its target audience. Though she found “Katabasis” to be relatable and enjoyable as a graduate student, she said other works could reach out to other kinds of readers.
“[Graduate school] can be quite exploitative and soul draining … [but] spending time to learn about the world around you is valuable,” Zheng said.
Zheng suggested that an effective campus novel should balance the positives and negatives of graduate school. According to Zheng, it is especially important in the current atmosphere of widespread skepticism against institutions of higher education that one explores the strengths of academia just as much as their flaws.
