Katabasis
Reddit take
Not enough linked mention summaries yet; the source excerpts below are the evidence.
Pros
- Katabasis was a recent 5 star read for me.
- Katabasis, Babel, and Gideon the Ninth are adjacent feeling books to me. They have that dreamlike quality to them and an air of unknown.
Cons
- And when you add that Katabasis and Wind & Truth were controversial (to put it mildly), it's clear that people who haven't read the books are voting on name recognition.
- Parent context: Yeah I agree this is one of her bigger weaknesses when she writes about Oxbridge; I just finished Katabasis and thought it then as well, but it wasn't as pronounced as it was in Babel (more just unexplored). Reply: I don...
- The book weirdly gets very basic facts about Oxford graduate life in the 19th century wrong, and Katabasis gets a lot of fundamental stuff about Cambridge in the 1980s wrong, which is weird cuz the author lived there for a time and is an...
- Katabasis gets a lot of fundamental stuff about Cambridge in the 1980s wrong, which is weird cuz the author lived there for a time and is an historian!
- Katabasis was a great concept, with really disappointing execution. No idea what Kuang was thinking there.
Sentiment
2 positive (17%) · 5 mixed (42%) · 5 negative (42%)
Trust + time weighted score: -30% · raw score -25%
What redditors said (10 of 12)
And when you add that Katabasis and Wind & Truth were controversial (to put it mildly), it's clear that people who haven't read the books are voting on name recognition.
Parent context: Yeah I agree this is one of her bigger weaknesses when she writes about Oxbridge; I just finished Katabasis and thought it then as well, but it wasn't as pronounced as it was in Babel (more just unexplored). Reply: I don’t know that you can put it all down to being an American. I’m an American who’s spent roughly about as much time in the UK for postgrad study as Kuang has, and my reaction to the working class strikers in Babel was pretty much exactly like OP’s.
The book weirdly gets very basic facts about Oxford graduate life in the 19th century wrong, and Katabasis gets a lot of fundamental stuff about Cambridge in the 1980s wrong, which is weird cuz the author lived there for a time and is an historian!
Katabasis gets a lot of fundamental stuff about Cambridge in the 1980s wrong, which is weird cuz the author lived there for a time and is an historian!
Katabasis was a great concept, with really disappointing execution. No idea what Kuang was thinking there.
I did not like any of the books that I read this year: ... **Katabasis**
Katabasis was a recent 5 star read for me.
Katabasis, Babel, and Gideon the Ninth are adjacent feeling books to me. They have that dreamlike quality to them and an air of unknown.
So what do you guys think about Katabasis? No one’s been talking about it at all. Went really unnoticed.
I just finished Katabasis and thought it then as well, but it wasn't as pronounced as it was in Babel (more just unexplored).
Compare
Katabasis vs The Lord of the RingsKatabasis vs PiranesiKatabasis vs Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
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