“Katabasis” by R.F. Kuang

I absolutely adored the first book by Kuang that I read (Babel which you can read about on here as well) so I was pleased when I got this fancy copy of Katabasis for this past Christmas. It has plenty of the elements of Babel that I liked, including criticizing academia and elaborate worldbuilding, but it is more optimistic than Babel while being slightly hindered in its character development by the restricting setting.

The premise of this book is evident if you know your classics, katabasis means a trip to the Underworld. The idea is that Alice’s graduate advisor Professor Grimes has died and she needs him to graduate, so she plans to go into Hell and pull him back. Her research mate Peter ends up coming with her. The resulting trip is a mix of Orpheus, Dante’s Inferno, The Wasteland, and other sources that describe the afterlife. They don’t find him in the Fields of Asphodel, or Pride (a library), or Desire (a student center). Along the way Alice discovers that she’s immune to the effects of the Lethe river, Grimes gave her a tattoo that keeps her from forgetting anything so her memory is unaffected. Additionally they get into a fight when Alice peeks at Peter’s notes and thinks that he’s going to trade her soul for Grimes’. (He isn’t, he wants to trade his own.) Traveling to the next area they meet Elspeth, a former student who committed suicide and has since been traveling the Underworld learning about it. She tells them about the Kipkes, a couple plus their child who came down willingly to try and find a way back as well. They’re after anything living as you need blood to get magic to work in Hell.

Alice decided to try and trick Elspeth into telling them more, and gets them both thrown off of the boat. They travel farther through darker sins, until they fall into a trap the Kipkes laid. While stuck there they have time to talk about their past. Alice reveals that Grimes tried to assault her, and Peter that he has Crohn’s disease, a chronic condition that results in him missing class and meetings repeatedly. Peter then figures out a way to get Alice out, while he is stuck there and bled to death by the Kipkes. Alice travels on and makes it to the city of Dis where a shade who calls himself John Gradus is her guide. Dis is filled with scholars trying to write dissertations on why they should get reborn, but they never get feedback or any indication if they’re heading in the right direction. Alice eventually leaves, and gets caught in another Kipke trap with a cat. The cat dies, and Alice uses its blood to escape. She then decides to abandon Grimes and try to kill the Kipkes.

She lays a trap for them, and manages to eventually throw the patriarch into the Lethe. His wife and son walk in after him. In the aftermath, Gradus (who left her right before the fight) appears and reveals that he saved her by pushing the Kipke into the river. His boat appears and he goes onward to be reborn. Alice is then found by Elspeth and they make up. Elspeth decides to help Alice and then make her way through the courts to be reborn. To help Alice, she gives her a pomegranate tree. The key here is that nothing living can grow in hell, so this is a True Contradiction and therefore very powerful. Alice goes to take it to the ruler of hell to bargain for her life. Elspeth takes her there, where the ruler of hell (many versions of him exist, here he’s Lord Yama) grants her an audience with Grimes. Once there, Grimes is so slimy that Alice instead sets up Peter’s idea of how to get Grimes out of hell: an exchange of souls. But instead of exchanging Grimes into a living body, she exchanges his soul for Peter’s. Peter emerges, and they head back to the surface together.

Alright that ended up being quite long, but there’s a lot here that I want to talk about. First, I am so impressed by the scholarship that Kuang carried out, there’s a lot of discourse on Hell and the various adaptations as you go through. A particular point of contention is the layout, and there’s even images of the characters’ maps at the back of the book. There’s also math-y things that I didn’t quite understand, but the principle behind magic in this book is that you set up a paradox. Something like Zeno’s paradox, which says that movement is impossible as in order to get from A to B you have to get halfway there, and halfway again, and halfway again, meaning you can’t move. This sets up a spell rendering someone immobile. And you dissolve it by using calculus. So the premise is quite cool and just feasible enough that you don’t need the math, but a lot of what Peter does gets hand waved by Alice who’s a linguist and doesn’t understand it fully either. So it ends up working really well as a system in this world!

Next, on a more nitpicky level, I thought the fight between Alice and Peter was pretty dumb. It’s obvious from the beginning that Peter wasn’t going to do harm to Alice and the whole things felt contrived. What I did appreciate about their dynamic though is that they’re a great example of how academia can make you feel as though you’re in direct opposition to other students, when really that isn’t the case. These two are kind of forced into that as there’s barely any other characters in the book, which as another complaint did feel limiting at times. You kind of get to know Elspeth, basically no one else is as recurring. Gradus is supposed to be a mystery, and he also doesn’t even make an appearance until the end. It’s a little frustrating as the characters in Babel felt so interesting and fleshed out. Peter’s reveal that he has Crohn’s disease opens up a super interesting space to talk about disability in academia, but then he dies immediately afterwards and this isn’t discussed further.

Finally there’s the ending. I did quite appreciate that it ends on a happy note, Alice is free of her rotten advisor and gets to live with Peter happily. It makes quite the change from Babel where everyone dies. I am of course going to nitpick though. I wish we got more of them together, to talk about ongoing issues that exist. So much of the first half talks about Alice’s experiences in academia as a woman, it would be nice to hear that but about Peter and disabled researchers. Or even that they’re going back to a shitty department and university, getting rid of one advisor doesn’t solve it all. Alice is clearly no longer under the delusion that academia is the end all be all, but it doesn’t say what to do next. Contrast with Babel where there was a clear message to keep fighting. I’m not sure what they’ll do back from Hell other than live a little, which is nice and progress for them, but as a reader I feel a little unsatisfied.

Having said all that, I loved this book. I thought the world building was so cool and the magic system super interesting. I loved the characters that we do get to know, and I appreciate anything that tackles how stupid graduate school is. I’ll likely read anything that Kuang pops out next.

This Is Beautiful: It's all coming together

 It's happening folks, I am going to actually graduate and become a doctor! I asked multiple groups of people to hold prayer circles for me to get through the week and such, but it worked and I did make it through the tough parts! Dissertation is in, paper was submitted to a preprint server, and it's going to all come together and happen. I'm so pleased, I didn't think it really would for a while there.

“The Blues Brothers: An epic friendship, the rise of improv, and the making of an American film classic” by Daniel de Vise

Alright here’s the long-awaited Blues Brothers post. Starting with the book that I’m so glad I dug out of the bottom shelf of a bookstore and thought looked like fun.

The book starts off as a biography of John Belushi and is primarily that for most of the work. It details his upbringing before swapping over to Dan Ackroyd and talking about him as well. They get to SNL together, and then finally we get to the movie about halfway through. The discussion of the movie itself is insanely detailed, talking about specific shots and how much they cost and who got injured. And then there’s the reception of the film, and then denouement of the book that largely ends with Belushi’s death (although there is also an epilogue talking about the legacy of the movie too).

Now I mentioned the details surrounding the movie above, but so much of the book is ridiculously detailed. De Vise has quotes from seemingly everyone that John and Dan grew up with, plus cast members that they worked with and other stars. It becomes clear when you get to the Acknowledgements section, but there must have been a ridiculous amount of interviews that went into this work. And scouring of newspapers and the like.

My only complaint is that I’m not a great connoisseur of cultural figures in the 1970s, there were some instances where a name would be dropped with great gravitas and I would have no idea who it was. Even with that said, there are so many mini biographies that I can hardly say de Vise overlooked anyone, it was just when given no information whatsoever I got a little lost.

When I was reading the book it had been quite a while since I’d seen the movie, so of course I wanted to rewatch it and see how I liked it (or if I could spot some Easter eggs mentioned in the book). I was a little worried that it hadn’t held up well or that I wouldn’t like it now.

Those worries were totally unfounded, turns out that the movie still rips! I love it even more now knowing that so few people were hurt in the car crash scenes and that they totaled something like 103 cars while filming. I thought it was brilliant and the book really only enhanced the viewing experience.

Luckily for me, this movie is staying on my list of favorites. And now I have a new book to go with it and give me unsufferable trivia to spout throughout watching it. So I really cannot recommend this combo enough.

This Is Beautiful: Paper to co-authors

 So the way things work in science is you write the paper, then you have to get approval from everyone whose name is on the paper, then you can send it to a journal. (Yay bureaucracy!) Anyways, I finally got it over the hurdle of sending it to co-authors this week! I had to pull the move of that we are down to the wire with deadlines on my mentor, but it got out and I honestly don't even care anymore I just want to be done. It's happening and it'll get out, and that is beautiful in the end!

“Diogenes: The Rebellious Life and Revolutionary Philosophy of the Original Cynic” by Inger N.I. Kuin

I have a soft spot for Diogenes and his life as a philosophical figure, but even though I have a degree in philosophy I hadn’t really learned much about him. I feel as though he has also had a bit of a resurgence recently, with a lot of people gravitating to his hatred of the rich and advice to keep life simple. So when I found this book at a beloved bookstore, I snatched it up.

The book covers quite a lot as its aims are both historical and philosophical. Diogenes didn’t write any books, he lived his philosophy out. So the book covers his life as a man, and the various myths surrounding him, as well as his philosophy. That covers about three quarters of the content, the rest is his legacy and how he influenced other philosophers and thinkers throughout history.

There is a lot in the book, and my only real complaint is that it sometimes feels like there are a lot of names and groups and places thrown around that I don’t recognize. Tragically there’s just a lot of history and politics of Diogenes’ life that I really don’t know that well. This does go away once you start getting more into Diogenes’ philosophy and thinkings and less strictly biography stuff. But this is an ambitious project so it’s no wonder that there’s a lot packed in here.

And I honestly really love the project of the book, I think the most interesting parts of the text are when Kuin is dissecting whether an anecdote about Diogenes is historically accurate or not. Kuin does this by corroborating multiple sources, looking at where writers got different stories, and if it is consistent with Diogenes’ teachings. The result is a very thorough look at Diogenes’ life and work, and a deeper understanding than if the book focused on either his life or his teachings.

This was a really interesting read, I’m so glad that I picked it up. It really is a shame that Diogenes isn’t taught more in philosophical courses and I appreciated getting a crash course on him here.

This Is Beautiful: A timeline???

 Happy over 1,000 posts on this blog!

Anyways last week I met with my mentor and we actually laid out a timeline to get my manuscript out and published and out the door. I'm AMAZED I have been wanting that for so long. It feels like this will actually be happening now! I hope we're able to stick to it and get it out there, it's been so frustrating feeling like the momentum just isn't there, or that we'll say one timeline and keep pushing it back. But there's progress and movement! This might actually happen!

“I’m Afraid You’ve Got Dragons” by Peter S. Beagle

It’s another installment of “I picked this book up because it has a dragon on the cover.” And honestly, this method works scarily well, it nearly always gives me exactly what I want out of a fantasy series, which is primarily dragons. I didn’t realize the author wrote The Last Unicorn as well, not that I’ve read that book, but I remember the movie being scarring when I was growing up. I don’t remember it in great detail, but the vibe here is rather similar where it is both a whimsical fantasy story and there are real life consequences to actions that the characters grapple with.

The book opens with Robert, a dragon exterminator who loves dragons. He has a few a helpful pets, but he is hired to exterminate the castle of its dragons when Princess Cerise wants them gone to impress a Prince (she’d been batting them away until Prince Reginald arrives, who looks like the Platonic ideal of a Prince but doesn’t quite act like it). Robert is then accidentally hired to help Prince Reginald slay a dragon, to make him more Prince-ly in the eyes of his father so that he can marry the Princess. They get a little more than they bargain for, there’s a group of huge dragons terrorizing part of the kingdom and something like over half of the retinue dies as Cerise didn’t want to send them home.

From there, they realize that a wizard sent the dragons, and that it’s the wizard Dahl who was supposedly killed by Reginald’s father. Now that he’s back, they head to Reginald’s kingdom but get there too late, Reginald is captured and then his father is turned into a throne. On the way back Dahl tries to stop them since he recognizes Robert’s connection with the dragons and wants his power, but Robert works with the dragon sent after them to burn Dahl into ash. In the process, Robert and Cerise realize that they’re in love, and when they head back Robert tries to hide in his room but is eventually coaxed out to see Cerise. The book ends with them going to talk to Cerise’s parents and Reginald and Robert resolving to eventually free Reginald’s father.

Overall, the book is quite fun to read. I love the dragons, and the characters are a delightful mix of believable and comical. They all start out as stereotypes, and through the story become more and more humanized so you can’t help but care for them and their antics. I do wish Robert’s friends that help with his extermination got more screen time, but that’s alright.

My biggest complaint has to do with the writing style. There are points, especially towards the end where the action gets going, where aspects of the action will just be skipped over in the text and can make it hard to follow. This happens when the King is turned into a throne, there’s a part where Cerise and Robert must move in order for it to make sense, but that isn’t written anywhere. You have to pause to make sense of it all which really takes you out of it. I’m not sure if it is an error, but it happened multiple times so I suspect that it’s part of Beagle’s style. It’s quite hard to describe in advance of reading the situation, so it isn’t really a reason to not read the book, but I found it rather irritating.

The ending with Robert and Cerise getting together is also equal parts annoying and just simply expected. It’s visible from a mile away that they’re going to get together and that annoyed the shit out of me since it was just so trope-y. We could just let the dragon nerd be a dragon nerd and not marry the princess but I guess not. Again, not a reason to not read it, it was pulled off perfectly fine, but I was hoping that a fantasy story that messes with some tropes related to dragons and all might not have that ending.

I’m hoping that there’ll be a sequel eventually since one was teased with the ending, I do like the characters enough to keep going with them. And there’s some intriguing world building with Robert’s powers. So despite all of the complaints above, I would still recommend this book and will keep going with the series myself.