Katabasis
A Novel
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4.2 • 211개의 평가
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- US$14.99
출판사 설명
Dante’s Inferno meets Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi in this all-new dark academia fantasy from R. F. Kuang, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Babel and Yellowface, in which two graduate students must put aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul—perhaps at the cost of their own.
Katabasis, noun, Ancient Greek:
The story of a hero’s descent to the underworld
Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality: her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world.
That is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.
Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams….
Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the very same conclusion.
With nothing but the tales of Orpheus and Dante to guide them, enough chalk to draw the Pentagrams necessary for their spells, and the burning desire to make all the academic trauma mean anything, they set off across Hell to save a man they don’t even like.
But Hell is not like the storybooks say, Magick isn’t always the answer, and there’s something in Alice and Peter’s past that could forge them into the perfect allies…or lead to their doom.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestseller Kuang's latest foray into dark academia (after 2022's Babel) takes readers on a clever and deeply cerebral, if sometimes fatiguing, journey through hell. Alice Law is an outstanding graduate student in Cambridge's Analytical Magick program—a field that combines magic, philosophy, linguistics, and mathematics—with a troubled relationship with her adviser, the brilliant Professor Jacob Grimes. When Professor Grimes dies in a gruesome accident, Alice grudgingly agrees to work with her academic rival, Peter Murdoch, to bring him back. Their transformative journey through the underworld is explicitly based on previous sojourns, directly referencing Dante, Orpheus, and more, but Alice and Peter soon find themselves in over their heads in a terrifyingly unfamiliar world. Vivid side characters—like Elspeth, a former Analytical Magick student who died by suicide a decade before and now leads a lively existence on the river Lethe—invigorate what occasionally becomes a dour, plodding trek and persistent readers will be rewarded with a thrilling third act. It's not perfect, but Kuang's devoted fans will find this hits the spot.
사용자 리뷰
Most interesting retelling of the many stories of traveling through and escaping Hell.
It’s amazing how so many great stories arise from suffering great abuse. The victims of Grimes abuse are so blinded by the brainwashing imposed upon them by their advisor, they first kill him in self defense, then go to Hell to save him. The end is, pardon me, Deas ex machine, but still satisfying in its execution. Highly recommended.
To be liked
Super reading experience. You feel the author’s meanings in all their depths and dimensions. It does take concentration, but that yields knowledge and insight. A long, enjoyable feeling. I envy those who have not read this, but intend to.
Its author spent time as we spend memory.
She got me again
I pretty much swore off Kuang’s books for the foreseeable future when Babel ripped my heart out and flung it against a wall. However this one pulled me in from the first page. I laughed. I pondered. I yelled fruitlessly At the page. And yes, I cried.