I've Never Been So Mad About Seeing Myself in Literature - Katabasis, Part 3

We finished Katabasis. Tears were shed. Screams were uttered. Angsty text messages were exchanged. One could say that we had strong feelings about it.

Along the road to discussing a well-crafted ending, Jess and Maggie examine what it means to tackle the writing of grief and frustration, the normalization of immigrant culture, Jess's obsession with floppy hats, and just who R. F. Kuang might have intended her audience to be.  

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Hosts: Jessica Mary, K. Leigh, Magdalyn Ann, and Julia, with special guest Sweet Pea.

Booked All Night is produced by Rob Cook and edited by Rob Cook & Jessica Mary. 

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Transcript

Jessica Mary 0:04

Welcome to Booked All Night, the podcast where hot takes me craft notes and no one gets enough sleep. I'm Jess.

Intro 0:10

I'm Katie. I'm Julia. I'm Maggie. Get ready for unhinged hot takes. A whole lot of books, midnight giggles, and zero shame.

Jessica Mary 0:19

Grab your blankets, booklets. It's time to get booked all night. Tonight, Maggie and I are going to probably fall asleep on Mike while we talk about Katabasis. Except we are dirty Yanks, so we will say catabasis because that's how it's pronounced in America. Merka. And my name is Jessica Mary. I'm Magdalene Ann. And uh yeah, let's get into it. So if you have not finished Katabasis, uh all the way to the end, uh, hit pause. We'll be right here, and then you can come back. Otherwise, there are lots of spoilers as we will be discussing the entire book at this point. So, in three, two, one, that was your opportunity to pause. Okay, so we pick up on Peter dying in the most audibly graphic way. Yup.

Magdalynn Ann 1:15

Yeah. That was read that at work. I cried. That was great. Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:20

That was fun. So the line that begins the next chapter where we left off in our reading, the opening line for chapter 25 is Alice heard a sharp grating noise, metal screeching. She heard Peter scream. Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 1:44

Yeah. I will give RF Kwang this. Uh, she knows how to be incredibly vivid and visceral. Yes.

Jessica Mary 1:54

So it comes on the tale of them finally getting to know each other, finally seeing each other. Not necessarily in the sense that, like, you know, there's this romantic tie because obviously Peter is in love with Alice. I think that was like obvious from the get-go, and Alice is all of us, honestly, where we just don't recognize when anybody's like flirting or doing things for us. And then he just magics her out of the Escher trap.

Magdalynn Ann 2:26

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Mary 2:27

And as a writer, I struggle with emotions greatly, like to get an emotional scene on a page, because I'm like, well, obviously you should be sad, the character is sad, and so I just write that they're sad. But after this scene, there's there's all of these like physically painful short phrases about how Alice deals with that grief while she's literally listening to Peter get like tortured to death for his blood by the Kripkeys. And it's, you know, she sank to her knees, her shoulders convulsing, she thought she would split apart, obliteration didn't come, she just kept on hurting. And one line that I I highlighted, because I just thought that it was such a great way to put this, was before she had only thought this grief theoretical, a grief that exceeded what words could describe. And I I loved that, one, for its description as it is, but also coming from the character, like Alice's whole world is logic and theory. And so for her to finally feel something that she only ever thought of in the abstract is a particular form of torture in itself, I think. Yeah. And then after all that, she wipes her face and gets up. Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 3:47

I mean, she she kind of takes it as almost like a reality check. Uh like I felt like she needed a like a reality check real bad throughout like the entirety of the book, especially like it was apparent after meeting Elpseth, right? But like she Elpseth, I thought. I don't know what was Elf. But like she she had such a high regard for not only Grimes, but like academia as a whole, and now she's finally kind of looking at it with this nihilistic kind of point of view, and like she's she's sort of like debating, like are she's kind of falling into that that depression spiral trap of what's the point? Nothing's really worth it anymore. Everything kind of, you know, has stopped mattering, and this is kind of like that descent into half reality check, half like deep dark depression pits. Yes.

Jessica Mary 4:43

She actually I I noted something similar as she reaches obstacles throughout this, she kind of has the call of the void come come with her at almost every stage, like, oh, there's a wall. What if I just threw myself off the wall? And then they go near the the river Lee, and she's like, What if I just jumped in? Like, what if I just slit my wrists? What if I just, you know, cracked my head open? And and it happens constantly. And after this, it is it is so extreme, and it is the descent, which is ironic given their descent into hell. But the line is, and it was so obvious she didn't deserve to live, and she wished she could just get it over with and die. Except that, for Peter's sake, this was one thing she could not do. And so she's just tortured more because he made the sacrifice for her, and she's like, I want to die. I am so I'm in so much emotional pain, so much more than usual. And it was just a heart-wrenching, this whole section with her. At every obstacle, she wants to die. But she's not actively taking attempts to do any self-harm. And I felt like that was uh the word I'm looking for, like like a true representation of what most suicidal ideation is. That it's not like when I get home Tuesday at four, I'm going to down the rest of my meds. It's usually like, what if I just like crashed into that tree? What if I just jumped off this building? And it comes up very suddenly. Most people are not like ruminating on it. You know, like when you're ruminating on it, you've reached a different point. You're you're fully in that depression, and you know, there's there's a plan and you should talk to somebody. But what most people experience uh in psychology is like a French term because of course it is it's like le même devoir, like the call of the void. And you don't have to be like actively physically self-harming. Like Alice does that in many other ways. Uh especially with regards to Grimes, which I want to scream about. All the way to the end, she defends Grimes. Yup. The whole way. Yeah. Did it make you want to like reach into the book and strangle her?

Magdalynn Ann 7:20

Yes. Uh, every single time it happened in my notes, all I did was just go, girl, shut up about Grimes, or he deserves to rot in hell, just all caps. Right? It just uh like she kind of started to get there like in that last bit before they made it to across the the sea to Lord Yama's domain, and yeah then it shifts but she kind of like bounced right back into it, especially like when he got when when he saw her, she saw her aga him again, you know. I know!

Jessica Mary 7:56

I was like there's that part, so Grimes at this point, we know that he plagiarized his students' work, that he actively stole ideas from others, that he sexually assaulted Alice, that he you know, forced Peter to steal things that he experimented on Alice, and that's just what we know for them. Yeah. Like Elspeth also has this terrible history with him where she's like, This guy sucks, and like he's part of the reason that she committed suicide. He's not the reason, you know, TM.

Magdalynn Ann 8:39

But it is one of the many straws on the camel's back.

Jessica Mary 8:43

Yeah, on the proverbial camel. And when they are finally crossing the Lethi to go to Lord Yama's domain, it's Elspeth that like calls her out.

Magdalynn Ann 8:53

She's like, girl. You know what else was fun? Finding out that chalk is just magic cocaine.

Jessica Mary 8:58

Oh my god, that was funny as hell.

Magdalynn Ann 9:00

She snorts the chalk. She snorts the chalk immediately before that. She she went like capital F feral, ripping apart a desiccated bobcat's uh corpse and dousing herself in blood. Just just she went she went full.

Jessica Mary 9:17

She yeah, full bonkers. I can't wait to talk about that. Because first, here is the quote from Elspeth. It's, "Listen, Alice, I've been there, I've spent years trying to justify him. Everything you just said, I've been down that road, I've considered it all, so please trust me when I tell you there's nothing more to it. Some people are just that cruel. There is no design, they are not giants, they don't do it for any reason, they just like it, and the rest of us have to survive them."

Magdalynn Ann 9:47

Yes, I also wrote down that quote. Yeah. It was like she f she needed to hear that ages ago, honestly. But it's I think it is the most like powerful coming from Elpseth, just because Alice has already sort of understood like her betrayal of of Elpseth was Elspeth. A major, like not I don't want to say faux pas, it's just a major mistake. It was it was, you know.

Jessica Mary 10:16

It was big and unnecessary, and they both admit that their actions were big and unnecessary because Elspeth's reaction to that was to kind of unhinge her jaw and release angry butterflies. Like she, you know, overreacted to what had happened.

Magdalynn Ann 10:32

Right, but I feel like butterflies was a trauma response at that point.

Jessica Mary 10:37

Yes. And that's ultimately what they're saying in this conversation to each other is like, I'm sorry I didn't trust you enough to just say this or to just ask this. But I think in terms of the critique of Grimes, I think that always had to come from another person. I don't think that Alice would ever have gotten there on her own. And I think I don't think I don't think written-wise, if she had gotten there on her own, that I would believe that she got there.

Magdalynn Ann 11:12

Yeah. I agree. She was too deep into it to really see the forest for the trees or the trees for the forest. She was unaware that she was, you know, in the middle of a bloodthirsty forest named Grimes. Um where is the metaphor going here? Fuck if I know, man. I barely know what the next word's gonna be coming out of my mouth. Listen, snort some chalk and get back to me. I want to, real quick, before we to kind of backtrack just a little bit, but when she gets to the city of diss and how it does confirm that everyone is just writing a thesis dissertation to try and get through to the other side, right?

Jessica Mary 12:03

First off, diss is all about dissertations. I cackled so hard reading this whole section where everyone is going on about their dissertations. It sounded exactly like the conversations we were having in workshop.

Magdalynn Ann 12:21

Yeah, I I mostly just really enjoyed the fact that the deepest point of hell is filled to bursting with middle-aged white men because who else is the world's greatest oathbreaker, if not middle-aged white man? Sorry, producer Rob.

Jessica Mary 12:43

There are great quotes in there as well, where they're like, they're from the dissertations. So, one, the they have the conversation, like, well, how do you pass? The only thing anyone knows for sure is that they say you have to tell the truth, that's all. Is it very hard to tell the truth? It must be never seen anybody get out. It must drive them crazy. And things like, you know, what makes a good dissertation? Oh, bugger if I know, it's the whole puzzle. Oh, here they are. She had picked up like papers that were flying through the air, and like some of the titles were like, Why I therefore deserve redemption and a ride across the Lee. And another one was like part three, my unfortunate criminality.

Magdalynn Ann 13:35

Yeah. It was a very vivid flashback to our MFA years.

Jessica Mary 13:43

It was a very vivid flashback to my English major years. Like, if any department truly encapsulates academia, it is the English department and the philosophy department.

Magdalynn Ann 13:59

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Mary 14:00

And I just felt flashbacks to both of these classrooms reading through this. Like you have to prove it, but you have to prove things with somebody else's words. But then is that plagiarism of you're taking their word, and then you know, you still have to read this work and do that, and this sentence doesn't read as it should, but it could be made better by some like it the whole thing. The whole thing. I felt so attacked and seen. I have never in my life been so upset to see myself in literature as I have in reading this book.

Magdalynn Ann 14:46

Yeah, I uh I felt very connected to the one shade who was in the middle of like her sixth round of copy edits. She had the manual of style with her. Oh. And she's running, and afterwards, when Cerberus pops up and there's fireballs raining down from the sky, and everyone's like, Oh, Cerberus, come tear me apart, come maul me. She's just running around like a chicken without its head, clutching the manual of style to her chest like a shield, her dissertation and ashes.

Jessica Mary 15:14

She had by stunken white, she had the elements of style. And I was like, hey, I have that book.

Magdalynn Ann 15:24

I really did not like it.

Jessica Mary 15:28

I I loved every moment of it, truly. I I thought this book was amazing. I really enjoyed reading it. I hated seeing myself on the page. It is like when your friends hold up a mirror to your terrible decisions and you realize how terrible those decisions were, and it all kind of clicks in a horrifying moment.

Magdalynn Ann 15:52

This was like a 450-page intervention. Yes. Especially for you who keeps debating going back to academia simply because you want to be able to wear the doctorate hat.

Jessica Mary 16:02

I deserve the hat.

Magdalynn Ann 16:04

You also deserve to not add on another six figures to your debt. But I want the hat. And I can't. You can make your own hats, Jessica. You are a crafter. I don't want to make my own hat. I want to make it. Okay, fine, buy a hat. I'm pretty sure that the doctorate students aren't the only ones with access to floppy hats.

Jessica Mary 16:24

I can just buy one on Amazon, but it's not the same. I want to earn the floppy hat.

Magdalynn Ann 16:31

Fine. Finish a book first and then buy yourself a floppy hat. That's the author pictures. That's the one.

Jessica Mary 16:38

But I'm gonna buy myself a floppy hat because I'm gonna graduate with a PhD.

Magdalynn Ann 16:41

Jesus Christ.

Jessica Mary 16:43

I know. I have a problem. Other people have addictions to heroin. I have addictions to higher education.

Magdalynn Ann 16:50

I think As long as you're in school, you don't have to make payments on your student loans. Hooray! Yay!

Jessica Mary 16:59

Anywho, back to the academia that is the last level of hell. And magic cocaine. I want to talk about Gratis. Yes. Because he shows up and he becomes like this Virgil figure. And she specifically references that he becomes a Virgil figure because he starts to give her the tour of diss. And they get to talking at one point because he's like, oh, what's going on up there, up in the world of the living? And they talk about like foods and what chalk was still in style, specifically like the stopleys or whatever. He's like, oh my god, they're still around? That's amazing. And it's here that she realizes she didn't really like live. Have a life. Yeah, she didn't have a life. And he gets really mad at her about the food because Yeah. Because he's he's like, you've wasted your time above. And earlier in the book, there's a point where she explains that she had been proud of herself for not eating one day because she was so absorbed in her work. She's like, I've reached, I've ascended to pure academia.

Magdalynn Ann 18:10

Yeah. She's uh ascended to a major eating disorder. Yes. And I I also just completely like feel like I should agree with Greatest there because she's like, the last meal that I had that wasn't Lumbus bread and tea was a cold cheese sandwich. Yeah. Like, not even a good cheese sandwich. You couldn't even toast that shit. Like, like, it it just sounded like it was a slab of bread, a slice of cheese, and another slab of bread. Good luck swallowing.

Jessica Mary 18:45

I will tell you, uh, I used to eat cheese sandwiches like that all the time because they were really easy to put together. But then I grew up and I was allowed to use the stove and make grilled cheese. And my life was altered forever. Now my arteries are super clogged. But yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 19:03

Like she she has this realization uh around then, I think, because in like the origin like the the conversation that she and Peter has with Elpseth um before the betrayal was like, oh, well, what are you going back for if not for academia? She's like, Well, I have a fucking family, first of all. Yeah. And they're like, Well, what are you gonna do? I was like, oh, I'm gonna sit by the river, I'm gonna have a sweet pastry, and I'm gonna enjoy my goddamn life. Yep. And it's around then that Alice is like, oh, I see where she was coming from. Yes. I understand now.

Jessica Mary 19:42

There's another quote in here Nothing is better than eternity, but a grilled cheese is better than nothing, so then a grilled cheese is better than an e eternity.

Speaker 3 19:52

Mm-hmm.

Jessica Mary 19:54

And I feel like Alice in this particular moment, in this conversation with Gratus, is starting to understand that. You know, like living living your life and doing things and having experiences and essentially stopping to smell the roses.

Magdalynn Ann 20:08

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 20:08

Like I I wouldn't say that she wasted her time because, you know, I also have a lot of degrees and enjoy academia sometimes.

Magdalynn Ann 20:20

Yeah, I think she just focused so much on things that ultimately she kind of realized weren't important, or at the very least, were not the point. Yes. We're not the end-all be-all. Yeah.

unknown 20:36

Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 20:36

She kind of realized that she could take a step back from it all and see there was more to life than just, you know, her dissertation or her her, you know, standing with Grimes or whatever.

Jessica Mary 20:48

Yeah. Shortly after this, we meet Gertrude, who kind of tries to trap her in the rebel base where she's like, oh, we don't have to do what Hell says and and all this other nonsense. And the people that are in there are in this like dead garden. Like they're not growing. You know, like she she takes off a a twig and it like immediately crumbles. And she realizes that being there, being in that that sense of just kind of sitting there and becoming part of that garden is just her and her thoughts. And at this point, she can still remember everything. So she's like, I don't want to be alone with all of these thoughts. Because I can remember them crystal clear, and this is awful. And also, I came down here with a purpose. Like, my purpose was not to just sit here. And then she goes out and she becomes very feral. And she's like, I'm gonna take down the Crypkees. And she she kills a mountain lion and then wears it, and you Uses his blood to make a bunch of circles and snorts some junk.

Magdalynn Ann 22:05

Yep. And it's like like uh she's unlocked a hundred percent potential of her brain. Yeah, it uh and she's just like seeing things before they happen and like predicting where the next blow is gonna be, and she's fighting against like against all of the bone creatures, and she's remembering like the first time she met Elpseth, who was just like dancing through the air with her weapon, and Alice is like, oh, I know that's that's what I am now, and and she's she's sort of like become this graceful, stabby, feral magician. I really enjoyed this climax. I thought that this chapter, or at least these the section where she's taking on the Kripkies, she's taking, you know, she's she's knocks out swathes of bone creatures, was incredibly well done, right? Yes. And each each Kripke she came up against had like a different solution almost to their to the problem and the obstacle that they provided. Because like the little boy, he's he's 10, he's tiny for a 10-year-old. And she has this thought where like this little kid is spitting and hissing and running, you know, full tilt at her on hands and le on hands and knees, and she's just like, he's a child, and just kind of like scoops him up from under the shoulders, it just kind of deposits him away, and like it just felt so appropriate because she's just like, yeah, children are literal hell spawns. I've once babysat a child who thought she was a lion and just bit my ankles all night.

Jessica Mary 23:48

Um the other trap she has for Mama Kripke, I forget her name, Magnolia or something like that. Yeah. In the circle, her speed specifically is decreased by half and then by half, and then by half, and then by half. So she's never actually stopped. She's just moving slower and slower and slower and slower.

Magdalynn Ann 24:09

And like infinitely smaller increments. Yeah. Yes. Good call on that producer, Rob. That is Achilles' arrow. Yeah, she's got a bunch of those same like momentum-haling traps spruwn around. Like, and that's how she gets the bone creatures, and because you know, bone creatures don't have a concept of calculus, so they are trapped in Achilles' arrow for forever. Yes. Until she dispatches them.

Jessica Mary 24:36

What made this scene better was that it is aft it's right after the Rebel Citadel. And in that part of the story, there's a line that's she would have liked the luxury of having a mental breakdown, but unfortunately, now time mattered again. And then we have this fight, and I'm like, no, she's still having that breakdown. You don't, you don't wear a cat and drain it of its blood and snort chalk because you're make a cat skull shrine in the middle of the desert to let future sojourners be like, what the fuck is this?

Magdalynn Ann 25:13

And trying to, you know, assign meaning in this empty, empty desert hellscape.

Jessica Mary 25:18

You don't leave shit as a warning to others because you're not having a mental breakdown. Like she was quite active through her mental breakdown and she used it for good.

Magdalynn Ann 25:32

Snorted some magic cocaine and ate a cat's heart. Yeah. Made a rib cage armor, was very disappointed when she couldn't wear the skull as a helmet. Yes.

Jessica Mary 25:47

I don't know what else more to say about that. It was just, it felt so appropriate to have this thing, that this little meek little thing, this academic little thing who occasionally went rock climbing and remembered to bring a knife with her to hell and didn't really use it for anything. And then she listens to her friend die, and she can't find the reason that she came down here in the first place, and every time she tries to do something, it just goes wrong, and then she just snaps. Yup. It felt so appropriate.

Magdalynn Ann 26:26

Yes. I was so happy when she finally like started to turn around from you know, she's she's she's pulling herself out of her pit of despair at this point. And you know, she Peter's death and like his sacrifice was her motivation to keep going when she herself was on the brink of death, and then everything that happened in the city of Diss was sort of her her jump start to changing her worldview, and then everything with Elpseth and later Lord Yama, like it just it all finally culminated in her getting back to herself and having a renewed look on life and wanting to live again.

Jessica Mary 27:12

Yes, and some power and level of autonomy with that.

Magdalynn Ann 27:18

Yeah. Like I, especially as someone who has pulled themselves out of a pit of despair, bloody knuckle after bloody knuckle, it was the sort of best ray of light at the end of the tunnel that you could have read. Yeah. Like it was very much true to form as someone who has, you know, fought against the currents of depression. And it did not feel cheesy in the slightest. Because there's a lot of ways you can write depression and recovering from depression, and some of them are just, oh, it's okay. You'll just think that you feel better, and you will feel better, you know, mind over matter, and who needs your store-bought serotonin? Just manifest.

Jessica Mary 28:09

Yeah, there's a lot of that, especially around like neurospicy. I saw, I saw a shirt said it was like neurosparkly, and my immediate thought was like, my head is a disco ball if we're gonna go get neurosparkly. But uh but you're right, so many of especially depression, anxiety, or any sort of phobia, they just kind of have a an ending in the story where it's just, and then I took a step and I was healed. And it's like, but no, no, the no, you fucking weren't. Here she uses the the trap that she had intended for Grimes on Nick Kripke, and she just brings him up into this not body, right? Because Grimes was pulled apart, and she went and dug up what was left of him, which was like intestines, a ribcage, a few lungs, an eyeball, like parts, you know? Yeah. And she brought him into that, and so he's like dying inside of this thing. And I loved that magic and her education solved the day, and not not a knife, not her suddenly being feral and strong enough to like stab everything. Because the whole point is that she is a woman in academia and everybody always underestimates her. And because of her overpreparedness, she is able to take down like this dark shadow of the Cripkis. And then when they come back, they fall into the levy. And Nick Kripke dissolves into it. It's like first the the water is particularly still, and then you know, the waves had ceased their churning, now the surface was glass-like, deceptive, several seconds and a lifetime of hurt just wiped clean, forgotten by the universe, no punishment, no redemption, just non-being. Like Nick Kripke had never happened to begin with. And then Mama Kripke picks up her son and walks into the Lee as well, and then they're just no longer in existence. Because when you are a living and you die in hell, your essence just goes. There's no reincarnation, your energy doesn't go back into the universe. So, my question here is how do we feel that Nick Kripke ultimately has no punishment, eternal or otherwise, for his actions?

Magdalynn Ann 30:47

I feel that he did have a punishment, you know, in that brief it was brief. It was the brief moment where he gets shunted into the remains of Grimes and he's in agony, you know, he's been dead for so long, and now he's been shunted back into the world of the living, and the entire body is wrong, and it's not even human shape, and he's absolutely in a tremendous amount of pain, and it's so like brief before they they get pushed by a quote unquote divine f uh guiding hand or whatever the phrase was, yeah, and into the leaf. Like I think part of that was his punishment, but also I it it should have been more, I think, after sort of the fanatical way they went. Yeah. Especially because they murdered their kid. Yeah.

Jessica Mary 31:48

Like it their whole story is that, you know, as as a big showstopper, they were like, we're gonna go to hell and come back. And before they went out on stage, they poisoned their 10-year-old, and then they slit each other's throats on stage, and obviously did not ever make it back up to their bodies. I was a little upset that there weren't traces of them in distinct circles of hell. Especially because Dante gets referenced so often, so I'm like, how dare you not follow the Exodus exactly. But like, okay, there's a place for murderers, there's a place for suicides, there's a place for like the unbaptized. I can't imagine that the Kripkis, like, baptized their kid before poisoning him. And so I I kind of wanted to see maybe like shades of them around, kind of just like left behind, because by the time we we catch up to them, I wouldn't say that the Kripkis had humanity. Like, especially the way that they go around and find other livings in hell and then churn them down for their blood to do magic. Like that's above and beyond.

Magdalynn Ann 33:08

Their greatest sins came after their death.

Jessica Mary 33:12

Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 33:12

So it felt like hell had nothing really to punish them for. Because their last living sin was murder and then their suicides. Yes, you know? And a whole lot of your placement in hell, at least from what I've inferred, is what you think you did wrong.

Jessica Mary 33:35

And they don't think they did anything wrong.

Magdalynn Ann 33:37

They don't think they did anything wrong. They think that they were right and that they're still doing this, you know, great quest and they're going to come out better for it at the other side. And their humanity being sapped away over time and them turning into these monstrous creatures who, you know, weren't even human. You know, she Alice hears Nick speak for the first time with like a very much human male voice, and she's like, it does not fit the visage before me. Like she hears this monstrous man who is more bone and sacks of blood than anything else. And he's just like, hey, I'm Nick, kind of like a regular man voice, you know. And I don't even know where I was going with this point anymore, but uh, you know, they they don't think they did anything wrong, and they're, you know, they just thought that they were, you know, staying the course. And they yeah.

Jessica Mary 34:49

They had the same level of audacity that Grimes had, that like they can do anything, they're infallible in a sense.

Magdalynn Ann 34:57

Mm-hmm. I got kind of got hung up a little bit when after the Kripkeys are gone, you know, and Alice is kind of hanging out inside the the waters of the Lef. And Lee.

Jessica Mary 35:11

Lef and Lee. It's Greek! It's Greek, it's never pronounced how you want it to look. It's just never pronounced how it looks, because it's Greek.

Magdalynn Ann 35:23

Uh, regardless, you know, she's she's sitting in the waters and she's soaked and she can't like get the water off of her, and I kind of got hung up on like, well, how come it's now affecting her as opposed to before? Is it just like the length of time that she has spent in the waters? Like, she gets deposited by the river out on the other side, right? And she's just kind of laying there because she's fallen off a cliff and she's bruised and battered and coming off the high of her magic cocaine trip.

Jessica Mary 35:53

Yeah, and the levy at this point has affected her tattoo. That the the water is getting into it.

Magdalynn Ann 35:58

Yes, it's like burning her tattoo away, yeah. And she's starting to forget things, and like I'm very glad that she is, you know, finally free of this steel cage of a tattoo that's kind of kept everything until her brain was full to bursting.

Jessica Mary 36:13

This had one of the best lines after it, though. Because she's like, oh, finally, thank God. Oh, now my brain can like deflate. And the line is belatedly, she realized she might be in trouble.

Magdalynn Ann 36:26

Yep. I got so emotional because she's also like at this point, and after she's left the lethe, and Gratus has come by, and it turns out he was the divine push that shoved her and Nick off the cliffside and into the water. Yeah.

Jessica Mary 36:42

Um and then he gets to ascend in a very bright.

Magdalynn Ann 36:45

Because that was his sort his sort of like his redemption, right? And she's sort of having this moment of, well, now that the lethe is affecting me, I don't want to forget Peter. Please let me, if I can forget everything else, but please let me remain a monument to his memory, right? And she's like trying to lock up all of this, these snapshots, these memories that she has of him. And I was just getting so emotional. Like she, she's, you know, she knows that she's missing some things because she recognizes the shape of missing things in her memory. Uh, but she also doesn't know what she's forgotten.

Jessica Mary 37:23

She tries to recall certain things and finds that she can't she can't recall them in detail.

Magdalynn Ann 37:28

Yeah, and she doesn't bring up Peter again after she starts to, you know, the lethe really starts to take away her memory. And I was getting really scared, especially when she uh when Elpseth appeared and and brought her back onto the boat and they apologized, and Elpseth goes, Where's Peter? And for the briefest of seconds I thought she was gonna go, Who's Peter? Oh so glad that she did it. And I was also holding out to the hope that Peter was somehow alive and was on the boat with with Elpseth, but no. Oh, that was that was sad.

Jessica Mary 38:07

But I do like I do like the resolution of Peter, which which brings us to the infuriating reveal of Jacob Grimes, that he has just been watching everything from the bridge of size. He was literally like two steps away from them from the beginning of the book, and he didn't come forward and be like, hey, here I am. He just watched them and sent them visions and like didn't care. God.

Magdalynn Ann 38:34

And I was like, the sheer audacity of this man, first of all, is the second that he gets brought over because she goes to Lord Yama, uh, and Alice and and and Elpseth had found the true contradiction. She has had this flower the entire time, right?

Jessica Mary 38:52

The flower that is growing in the dead soil of hell.

Magdalynn Ann 38:56

So a living thing that should not be alive. Yes. And she she freely gives it to Alice and says, like, you can use this to barter. I think I'm ready to go to go and write my dissertation, right? Yeah, that she's gonna go to school and go through all the hells and um and Alice brings it to Lord Yama, Hades, Anubis, whatever title, you know, she cycles through, and you can offer it the same way that not Odysseus. Orpheus. Or Orpheus. Yes, thank you. Oh, the way that Orpheus did in exchange for Eurydice. And like you can you can ask for a boon when you give back this this uh this flower to the Lord of Hell because it's a part of him and he wants it back, right? Yes. And when she gets there, she's like, Well, you know, I came here because I wanted to find Grimes and I haven't been able to find him. And Lord Yama's like, oh, okay, bet, and snaps his fingers and suddenly Grimes is there. Yes. And the first thing that mother Hooter does is threaten Lord Yama, right? Immediately he's just like, Well, what can you do to me? You can't do anything to me. You're just the arbitrator, you're just here to to uh direct people along. You can't do shit to me, and just oh that pissed me off so much.

Jessica Mary 40:15

There's that little rant. And then he's like goes up to Alice and he's like, Okay, you're gonna bring me back, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she's like, No, I was going to put you in a pair of lungs attached to a machine uh that would keep you alive. And like, I was gonna do some deranged shit.

Magdalynn Ann 40:38

And it was a direct parallel to the night that he had assaulted her. Yeah. Because he's up in her face and she's frozen. She doesn't know her hopping. She's not up in her face.

Jessica Mary 40:48

Yeah. And she draws the parallels for that. And I was proud of her. I was like, this is gross. He's touching you again. And she was like, no, that's like gross, and I hate you. And then she pulls out and she's like, This is what I was going to do to you. And he immediately starts taking her down. This would never work. This is not in conversation with itself. This doesn't do this. And she's like, It works, motherfucker. I've already done it.

Magdalynn Ann 41:11

Yeah. And like, he's starting down this a path similar to the Kripki's, right? Like he's like, we can stay here and we have we can become gods. We have the true contradiction. We can We can explore so much. Yeah. You know, we are freed from the mortal coils of our bodies. And she's like, You are free of the mortal coils of a body. I will starve to death. And he just goes, Well, you can just ask to be brought back later. It's fine.

Jessica Mary 41:38

Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 41:39

And then the blatant disregard of Peter. Like when he he learns that Peter died along the way, he's like, Well, that's kind of obvious. You know, two came in and only one made it here. And like he's so disrespectful and blasé about the fact that, you know, the student is dead in in his quest to come and rescue him. And oh, I'm so glad that she just kind of like heard a click and started to drone him out. Yep. And just stopped listening. And she was just like, Are you done talking? Can I speak now? And then she just she uses Peter's exchange magic to sacrifice Grimes and bring Peter back. Oh, it made me so happy.

Jessica Mary 42:30

That scene, she's drawing on it, she's got limited chalk, and she's so focused. She's like, I have to draw this perfectly, which ev everything has to be drawn perfectly for the magic in this world. But she's like, There's no room for me to erase and redo even a single letter, a single symbol of this line, because I have so little chalk left. And the entire time Grimes is like in her body, there's a point where he like pushes his his shade like through her because he's trying to stop her, and I'm like, ew, get like get out. It it was it was so weird. And then there were other times he's he's over her shoulder, and I've had professors like that that just like hang over you and watch you work. I can't stand it.

Magdalynn Ann 43:16

It's so great. He's like trying to distract her from finishing the incantation, and she's just like, you literally trained me for this. You sat had me sit in a room, practice my incantations and my drawings under pressure. And it was so easy for her to just tune him out. Yeah. You know, she she just closed her eyes, ignored him, and completed the incantation. And that felt so cathartic, you know. He molded the weapon with which he was vanquished, and that was such delicious, like poetic irony.

Jessica Mary 43:54

I wanted to scream when he was like, I made you. The entire book we're looking for Grimes, right? And there there came a point where I was like, maybe we're not gonna find him, period. Uh, which gave me like major waiting for Godot vibes and like uh Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, right? We're like, we're gonna go up and meet this guy. The guy's dead. Okay, we're gonna reflect on not meeting this guy. Like, and of course, waiting for Godot, Godot never shows. And so I was kind of like surprised that Jacob Grimes did show up. But I was so infuriating that he was this dark shadow the entire time. And Alice the entire time, right up until the end, continues to idolize him. In that characterization of her, I was disappointed. You know, like there are multiple times throughout the text where uh she and Peter reminisce, I guess is the word, on how cruel Grimes was. And I'm just like, I would have asked for another mentor, I would have asked for somebody else to be, like, that's how do you keep that reputation of being this cruel dickwad and people still want to work with you? It kind of blew my mind a little. And then when he does show up, even he has not learned a lesson being in in hell. And he had sat there, the the the fact that he had just been at the beginning of the book bothered me. I was like, I wanted him to have been placed somewhere. I wanted something definitive that said this was the greatest of his sin. And instead he just kind of sat watching.

Magdalynn Ann 46:07

I mean, yes, I am also kind of frustrated by that. I did want to have like a definitive answer, but also like if we're coming at this as you place yourself in hell because you know what you did was wrong, or at least, you know, there's some inkling of having, you know, guilt associated with what you did. He doesn't feel guilty for any of his crimes, any of his missteps. Like he does not believe that he has done anything wrong. He is doing all things in a what he believes is a justified manner. He wouldn't place himself in any ring of hell because he doesn't think he belongs there. He straight up wants to just go to heaven and become a god. Like he thinks that he deserves that. So it it kind of like makes sense to me that he was this sidelined observer the entire time. Like it did piss me, like it pissed me off to no end to find out that like he has been watching the whole time and he's just like, no, you need to have discovered the journey along the way. You're in such a rush all the time, Alice. And then just you know, be a passive observer.

Jessica Mary 47:21

I wonder what that says, though, in a larger sense, like, you're not guilty of anything if you don't believe that you're not guilty of something. Yeah. Cause like, let's imagine, like Ed Gean or John Wayne Gacy go to hell in this particular sense. Neither one of them thought they were doing something wrong. It it's it's very much a Charles Manson never killed anybody. Because he didn't, but you know, his actions led to like Yeah. I feel like it absolves the cruelty to have not put him anywhere because he doesn't believe that he belongs there. I think maybe it's more that like because he believes he didn't belong there, he didn't begin the journey. And so Alice and Peter began the journey looking for him, so they went through the stages of hell, they they went through um, you know, the library and uh the dorms and overcame these challenges getting through and not getting stuck in in things like they I guess would would have been had they been shades. Yeah. And I would prefer to look at it that way, because otherwise there's a message that like you can just kinda do what you want as long as you think it's the right thing.

Magdalynn Ann 48:54

Yeah, but we also do see like the objective of hell is for you to atone for your sins in order to make it to the other side, right? Yeah. And a lot of these people, like we especially saw this in Diss, like during uh right before we met Gertrude, where she where Alice was taken to the writer's workshop, um, where they're you know discussing, they're they're critiquing their each other's work, and they are explaining away their own behavior, and that's why nobody ever passes their dissertation because you don't believe you did anything wrong. You're explaining away, like, oh, I murdered my wife, but she was a nag and she was horrible, and she, you know, she deserved it. And like I was doing the world a service kind of situation, right? Yeah. And so, like, the entire objective of hell is you only get to leave by utter oblivio obliteration, or you pass the redemption, you pass your your dissertation because you recognize what you did was wrong and you make a change. Yeah. Right? Like we see we see Gratus be like is the only one on on screen that we on page that we see actually pass and gets invited onto uh the boat with the ferryman to cross the lethe and gets reborn, you know, and sheds his his his past and his sins to become a whole fresh soul. And it's it's sort of like these people are trapping themselves in their own hell because this is what, you know, they can't move on. They're they're they're so locked into their mode of thinking that they haven't been able to learn and grow and earn that uh uh re reincarnation.

Jessica Mary 50:44

Yeah. There's also with the dissertations, right? Like they are obviously meant for you to analyze your own actions and take accountability, which obviously does not happen in this particular circle. And I forgot about the mention of Laplace's demon, which I had to look up because I was unfamiliar with this. I was like, okay, that that one's new, right? I'm familiar with like Levinas and the the idea that you can toggle existence with the bathroom light and other such fli philosophical nonsense. But Laplace's demon is that, uh according to the internet, it is a thought experiment about a hypothetical intelligence that knows the precise position and momentum of every particle in the universe at any given moment, which could then be used to calculate the entire past and future of the universe. Fine. And this particular demon goes around dis convincing people it wasn't their fault. It's kind of funny. Like sets him back like 10 years whenever he does it. But I think that also says something that part of them knows that they're guilty and they're looking for absolution from something else to say that they're not. And then at the end, now that we can get away from philosophy, if you can ever get away from philosophy, uh, they climb a staircase and Lord Yama's like, Yep, you can go, just don't look back. And she's like, wait, really? He's like, nope, just kidding, go.

Magdalynn Ann 52:36

I really loved Lord Yama. I he I thought he was great, both as like a character and like a concept. I like that he was simple. Yeah, like you can you could you you tell him like what form to take, like he because Alice is like, what do I address you as? And he goes, Well, what makes you most comfortable? And he shows off the different forms like Hades, Thanatos, Anubis, and she eventually just settles on Lord Yama, who is um Chinese. Chin, yes, thank you. Chinese god of death, and she has a connection to Lord Yama's like mythos. Like she grew up with him, she grew up with like making prayers and sacrifices to Lord Yama.

Jessica Mary 53:21

Offerings. Not not sacrifices, yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 53:23

Not sacrificing sacrifices, yeah.

Jessica Mary 53:26

Peter made a sacrifice, Alice made an offering.

Magdalynn Ann 53:29

Yes. Uh, offerings and all that to Lord Yama, and like it's something that she is comfortable with. And then he speaks to her in Chinese. Yes. And she like she has this relief about it. Like it's settling into this like most natural version of herself, right? Like this this is something that I feel is incredibly specific to the diaspora or you know, children of immigrants, right? Who have these different worlds that they are a part of, you know, their home and their ancestry, and then there's the one they actively live in. And like I a hundred percent like recognize that relief. Like when I have like when I've moved away from home and I spoke Polish less, and I was not in a Polish like dominant community anymore. Going back to that, like going back to visit and being in that sort of like ha having that context around like that day-to-day, whether that's going back to to where my family are is or like to back to Poland itself, like that is a relief. Like there is like a part of yourself that you get to sort of slip back into. It's it's taking the bra off at the end of the workday, it's slipping into jammies, it's you know it's it's fulfilling in a way.

Jessica Mary 54:58

It's it's getting it's getting to feel whole. And I I don't understand it in your sense, because I am second generation from an immigrant. And like my grandfather immigrated from Yugoslavia, which is no longer a country. Like, I couldn't visit it if I, you know, I just can't go, it's not there. My grandfather spoke four languages. He taught none of that to me, with the exception of uh how to call people a fat whore in Croatian, because that's just who he was as a person. I don't have any traditions, I don't have any recipes, I don't have like a special holiday with that. I'm completely cut off from that. So whenever I find stuff, like we're cleaning out my grandmother's house, right? Like, whenever I find any artifact of that, I get that comfy feeling that I'm getting into my my PJ pants now because I'm getting to understand something more about like my grandfather and where he came from and ultimately where I come from.

Magdalynn Ann 56:13

Back to the story at hand. But Alice, you know, is bartering with Lord Yama. She's like, oh, he's an impartial judge. He is a, you know, he's not biased towards anything. He's supposed to be this indifferent sort of objective viewpoint on life and death and judgment. And so she's like, he's gonna be the most impartial and the most unbiased, like, he's her best shot, right? Yeah. And part of that conversation where, you know, he summons Grimes to her and she has all of these realizations, the revelations of him having been there the whole time and and all that. And when he finally realizes that, like this spell of hers is going to work and that she is going to, you know, when he kind of realizes what the spell is that she's crafting, and he tries to get away, and she kind of has this moment of panic where she's like, Oh, I didn't think this far. He's gotta be in the I need him here, right? And all of a sudden he just like a cat running into a clean window. Um, just bonks against an invisible wall, and uh Lord Yama just sort of like is in the background smiling. Yeah, I did that. Like uh I outsmarted you, motherfucker, and you called me useless.

Jessica Mary 57:32

She also I love her barter with Yama, by the way, where she's like, Okay, so we came down here for Grimes and we didn't get him, so I want the lifespan that we sacrificed to get down here.

Magdalynn Ann 57:43

I want a refund from hell is the specific phrase, and I love that. Refund. And Lord Yama is like, he's perpetually scowling, and she's like, I can't see his mouth under his mustache. I don't know if he's he's frowning because he's upset or if he's fighting back a laugh, you know? And I I love that, you know.

Jessica Mary 58:04

Like she's gonna go up and leave a Yelp review. Zero out of ten, do not recommend.

Magdalynn Ann 58:09

And they're, you know, they they go up these stairs and she takes a moment with Peter, like they're paused and she looks out over all of hell, and she's like, wow, you would think that this is so big and momentous, like especially calling out the Rebel Citadel and Dis. Like, it is just an ugly stain on the tiny part of Infinity. Yep. And like it's sort of this realization of like this this final, like concrete moment of her stepping out of her narrow worldview and seeing more around her, like actually finally taking in the rest of the situation.

Jessica Mary 58:49

Yeah, quite literally getting a different viewpoint.

Magdalynn Ann 58:52

Yeah. Uh, you know, and and as they're going up, and she's just like, I forgot what fresh air feels like. Is has it always tasted this sweet? And sh, you know, they're coming back to life, and they push open these cellar doors, and they're in they're in uh like a courtyard near, they're in the quad. And she's like, Oh, yeah, we can take study dates here. We can, you know, go on a vacation and finally get to know Peter. Like, I can learn what his favorite food is, and they can, you know, finally sort of like live like normal, untraumatized, no longer academic people.

Jessica Mary 59:27

Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 59:27

And like my one gripe is that we don't I wanted to spend so much more time in the aftermath. Like, I wanted to at least know a little bit more about like what they, you know, their reactions to being alive again, how long it actually has like concretely been since they've been down there, like if the time passage of time was different, if you know, if it was ever like recognized that they were missing, or if you know people were looking for them, or you know, whatever. Like, how did the world move on in this like two-week time frame that you were in hell? Yes. And how has the fact that you have changed this drastically and returned changed you in the way you're gonna be interacting with this world? And like she she mentions, like, oh, we can we don't have to finish our dissertations, but we won't get a job, but we can write about hell. And Peter's like, Well, who's gonna believe us? Uh, because you know, no one's come successfully come back from hell ever before, except for she's like, I'll back you up.

Jessica Mary 1:00:26

And he's like, Well, you don't count, you're biased, you're in love with me.

Magdalynn Ann 1:00:31

I that was so cute, yeah. Um, but yeah, I just I wanted so much more after the Denoma. Like, I I even made a note. I was like, well, I guess this is what fan fiction's for, but I just I want I want more. I want to know like how the situation has changed for them now that they're back in the world of the living. Like, I just want to know more.

Jessica Mary 1:00:54

It's weird because I think that it ended where it needed to end, that like that they are on the cusp of something new, that they are willing to explore new things, that they are putting behind this trauma, that they are going to get to know each other and all these things. But also, I agree. How long were they down there for in real-world time? And also, as far as we know, they're the first people to return from hell.

Magdalynn Ann 1:01:24

That is not our uh, you know, enshrined in myth and legend. Yeah, they're not they're not Odysseus, they're not Dante, they're not, you know.

Jessica Mary 1:01:33

Right, they they did what the Kripkees couldn't do.

Magdalynn Ann 1:01:37

Yeah. Like, yes, craft-wise and as a writer, this was a very good ending. It was a great place to end it. As a reader, I fucking hated it because I want more.

Jessica Mary 1:01:48

Yes. Yes. Like I wanna, I wanted at least, as a reader, I want at least one person to walk up to them and be surprised to see them because like their funeral was a week and a half ago or something like that.

Magdalynn Ann 1:02:01

Like, yeah, I want to see what that that one uh really bitchy professor who was like, well, you brought this on yourself. What else do you expect, little girl, when she's this feminist and only refers to to Alice as girl and herself as a woman, and regardless, I want to know what her reaction was, but also like their parents, yeah. And like, you know, just in general, like their friends and and and I don't know. This is for a story about hell. This really has incited that biblical greed in me for more of uh these two characters and their life and their situation. Like I just want to know, like concretely, like, yeah, fanon is one thing, you know. Give whatever headcanons a fic writer wants to give is one thing, but RF Kwang, come on, please.

Jessica Mary 1:02:59

Well, maybe she'll do like a whole trilogy, and the next one will be, you know, Purgatory and then Heaven. I mean she'll just follow the divine comedy. I Alright, so there were so many things that I really enjoyed. The writing, I think, is fantastic. There were a few phrases that I didn't write down, I don't think, but they were like worded um archaically. And it it felt weird, especially uh oh, there were places where um infinitives weren't split. And I was like, ew. Because the rest of it was written how we would speak. Minus the parts that were like big wailing industry philosophy sections.

Magdalynn Ann 1:03:48

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:03:49

I know I said it with Katie, but like I appreciated those, and I thought that it was a really unique way to explain and to create a world of magic based on these philosophies and to kind of bring her her very large education into the work.

Speaker 3 1:04:07

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:04:08

But I also thought they went on for too long, and I was like, I I understand now.

Magdalynn Ann 1:04:14

Yeah, I never really lost that sort of feeling of I'm not smart enough for this book. Like that intimidation, like that's not a level of academia I have ever been a part of or have any want to be a part of. Like I am very much a layman in this in this situation. Um I know a few of the references she made and not much else, and just sort of like, well, she did mention she's making up some some references and philosophers. Maybe this is one of them. Uh how am I supposed to know if if you know who the fuck Virgil is or whatever? But my biggest gripe, I think, was the fact that to me, Alice did not read as an American.

Jessica Mary 1:05:01

Alice also, I didn't realize she was Chinese until the end when uh Lord Yahweh speaking Chinese to her.

Magdalynn Ann 1:05:09

I think, I mean, I I really liked that aspect where it was not a here is Alice Law, Chinese American, here in, you know, Oxbridge. And and a lot of the references to her race and her nationality and her history were these subtle little things. Because like I think it w I kind of piece it together pretty early on, I feel like, especially with like the references to Lord Yama and uh especially like her specialization being in Chinese language and other languages, like that feels very much, you know, child of an immigrant speaks multiple languages, kind of I liked that it wasn't like there's so many books where it's like, you know, I'm sitting down to dinner with my black family.

Jessica Mary 1:05:58

It's like you would never Never in in the history of ever, you would never reach out your hand, introduce yourself to me, and tell me what race you are. Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 1:06:08

There is nobody who will say, Do you want some chicharrons, niña? Regardless. I mean, I my thing was that, you know, Alice is supposed to be this girl from Colorado who comes to Cambridge and like she has been in England for what, three years now? She's in her junior year, senior year, regardless. She's been in there for like a handful of years. Yes. And she does not read with any amount of Americanisms. And I don't know if this is just because RF Kwang is sort of in a similar boat, American who lived has lived in the last like decade or so in England. And she's kind of affecting that. But it to me felt like there are so many bits of like internal dialogue or straight-up dialogue, any kind of like prose that we get from Alice's point of view, that does not read as someone from the states. Outside the UK. Like it's it it reads very much as someone who is British. Like I when I first started the book, I was like, wait, I thought Rf Kwang was American. Why does this read like someone was, you know, the author is British, like hardcore British, and I had to look it up. I was like, is R of Kwang British actually? And I was just wrong. But like there were a lot of little things, like little phrases and like sure, some of it you could you could explain away as she's been in England long enough that it's now habit to refer to a cheese sandwich as a cheese toasty. That is a thing that happens.

Jessica Mary 1:07:44

When you have been living abroad for a while, your idioms, your phrases, your language will become affected because you are uh blending in, like you're you're emerging. Like, for example, if you went to Poland for five years, when you came back, your English would have an accent.

Speaker 3 1:08:05

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:08:05

It like it just would. So I just figured that was what was happening here with Alice. You know, she's been there long enough that she's not gonna be like, I want a grilled cheese, she ordered a cheese toasty, because if she ordered a grilled cheese, they would look at her like, what the hell are you talking about? Yeah. I also liked, just to back up a little, that you know, there wasn't a description that Ali it wasn't like Alice with her almond-shaped eyes and black hair.

Magdalynn Ann 1:08:38

Like, you know, like there was no like I'm in a mirror looking at my my chestnut colored skin.

Jessica Mary 1:08:44

Yeah. Um I hate that so much.

Magdalynn Ann 1:08:47

The like the descriptions that the physical descriptions that we get of her are sort of a lot of it was in relation to Grimes. Like Grimes loves the small, frail ballerina type. So she became, you know, she became small for the small, frail ballerina type. You know, she would put her black hair back in a slicked back bun or something, right? Uh and a lot of like the it used a lot of like the context clues for learning more about her in like a you know, the facts of the matter are kind of situation, like, you know, her references, her her habits, her uh the things that she chose, you know, chose to study, um, the way that she approaches her day-to-day, right?

Jessica Mary 1:09:35

I enjoyed it because like you wouldn't do it for a white character.

Magdalynn Ann 1:09:41

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:09:42

And I mean, I stated it before, I greatly hate when they like they do a mirror scene, right? Like, I look at my alabaster skin and my brown hair. Like, no, you don't. You look in the mirror and you're like, what the hell is that on my cheek? Or you brush your teeth, or you put your mascara on, but you never sit there and like detail your face unless you are a narcissist. Right. And again, you know, like nobody walks up to you and introduces themselves and then has to detail their race unless you are shaking hands with a blind man. Like, so why do we do it in literature? It bothers me. It like I know that there was a whole bunch of it when we were in like workshops, and they'd be like, I sat down with my Italian family to have spaghetti and meatballs. No, you didn't. Or, you know, oh, my name's not actually Michael, it's Miguel. Like, like crap like that. You know, I I hate that. So I was really happy that throughout this, I I didn't even think of that.

Magdalynn Ann 1:10:54

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:10:54

You know, it was just like, because that's not I don't want to say that it's not part of the story because it does become part of the story, but like the focus of it wasn't race. The focus of it was this god-awful teacher that needed to stay in hell or be eternally tortured as a lung hooked up to a machine. I thought that was great. I loved that. I loved the the normativity of its presentation, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And although you feel like you weren't up to learning philosophy, I I did enjoy that. It it rewarded me for having been educated. And I feel like the only way for me to get that is to read philosophy books, which I don't know if you know, are terrible.

Magdalynn Ann 1:11:55

Yes.

Jessica Mary 1:11:56

Um, and I I hate them.

Magdalynn Ann 1:11:59

I mean, I'm kind of coming into this as someone who has had a philosophy 101 class, and that's about it, right? And like my rigorous academia life was very much creative writing focused from the get-go, right? Like I came into this through the arts. And any non-arts class that I took, any societies or humanities classes that I took were for, you know, college requirements and usually were the type of thing that kind of was forgotten about by the following semester because it wasn't my primary focus. Yes. And like I can't I came into this with that very bare bones, sort of like mildly educated about it kind of way, but also like I only recognize a lot of these things from either A, a religious upbringing, or B very passively having maintained some knowledge of this through philosophy 101 or insho to psychology or whatever.

Jessica Mary 1:13:04

So once upon a time, I was an English major and I had many critical theory classes, and in critical theory classes, you know, we we talk theory, we talk philosophy, we apply it to literature. Sometimes we force it upon literature even though it doesn't fit with that literature. That's a different argument altogether. But you know, I I did that for like seven years because at one point I switched into education as well, which meant that I took more philosophy classes because we'd be teaching that, you know, kind of BS to be like, oh, well, the curtains were blue because of his depression nonsense. Long story short, for our listeners, I did not get that degree. And so when I came home and I had all of this education, you know, I I've read many classics many times, and I read over philosophy books mostly drunk because when I was sober I could not understand them. I felt rewarded in this.

Speaker 3 1:14:12

Yeah.

Jessica Mary 1:14:13

Because that education felt handy, where quite frankly, it has not ever felt handy in anything ever, because i I at what point in conversation do I bring up Heidegger? You know, like, oh yeah, well, you know, if you walk into the bathroom and it's got no windows to let light in, and you turn off the light and you can't see anything, then the universe no longer exists. How is that a normal conversation starter?

Magdalynn Ann 1:14:42

I mean, I'm coming into this with, you know, a passing knowledge of philosophy, and I'm coming into this with some critical theory, not like like experience, but nothing to that extent. And I am not someone who reads classic novels or anything really in that frame, right? Like I am that's not something that interests me, and I don't want to do it. And guess what?

Jessica Mary 1:15:11

Neither do I.

Magdalynn Ann 1:15:13

And I felt like I spent a good portion of this book feeling like I was playing catch-up, like I had missed a lecture somewhere along the way, and I was suffering because of it in a way that did not feel like I could recover from. And that was a lot of my hesitancy going into this book, and a lot of my hesitancy when it came to Babble too. I didn't read Babbel because I was like, oh well, I don't feel like I'm smart enough for this. And even part of like, I I read the first book of the Poppy War trilogy, uh, Kwang's first book, book series, and I was like, I think I enjoyed this, but it was in that sort of genre of fantasy where it was it felt very high brow, high tier, you know, outside of what I am either a used to or be comfortable with or have any kind of like experience in. Like I am, yeah. Let me ask this.

Jessica Mary 1:16:13

If the philosophical sections were shorter and more to the point, as philosophy never is, but if they were shorter and to the point, and not like three pages about at which point is this heap of sand no longer a heap of sand, would that have been more enjoyable? Like earlier I summarized uh Laplace's demon, right? The thing that knows where everything is all the time. If it had been presented that way, would it have been more enjoyable for you?

Magdalynn Ann 1:16:48

See, I don't think so. Because I did enjoy the philosophical philosophical bits, the you know, the wailing philosophy chapters. Yeah. I did not mind that as much as the wailing business chapters of Moby Dick. But I I came into it with a very much a specific lens of I am reading through this section not to learn more about philosophy, but to learn about Alice's worldview and what colors her as a character. To me, it did not feel like wailing philosophy. It just felt like a little bit of exposition and uh mostly context to her as a character. So going into those, if they were shorter or more to the point, like Laplace's Demon, I don't think it really would have bettered my enjoyment because I think a lot of my hangups about the academia of it all comes from just the base prose. The very much like the way the book is written, it is written with academia in mind. It is coming from an author who is very much entrenched in academia. Yes. And it shows, and that is just a native principle of this book and a lot of Quang's writings.

Jessica Mary 1:18:13

I felt like the to steal your phrase, the academia of it all was appropriate because the book is the academia of it all, and I did enjoy that presentation. But I can also see, like part of what led me to creative writing was that I was tired of academia. Academia sucks, but it can also be fun. And so I yeah, I enjoyed having fun with academia, which I haven't had in a very long time.

Magdalynn Ann 1:18:47

Yeah, like it's I'm not saying that it was not an enjoyable book. It was still a 4.5 rating for me. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I am very glad to have gotten through it, but it's still just a you know, the core audience of this book does not include me. Or at the very least, does not include all of the aspects of who I am as a reader, right? Like clearly there are parts in in the book that I feel connected to, you know, the the writer's circle and the the constant copy edits. Yeah. All of that. Like it is, there are parts of it that very much speak to me, you know, Alice being uh very clearly written as a child of immigrants. Yes. Um and and her, you know, her autism and like, or at the very least, my my reading of her being autistic. Um but I think the ideal audience for this book is not someone who has an education like mine. I think you, Jessica, are an ideal audience member. You know, you are the core target audience for Catabasis. People who do enjoy the classics.

Jessica Mary 1:20:20

Uh I am the ideal audience because I have uh Yeah.

Magdalynn Ann 1:20:25

Yeah, J Jess, you're you are like the ideal target audience for this book. And I am not, and that is not a bashing or uh a critique of RF Kwang. Yeah. Or kind of basis as a whole. It is my lived experience is not the lived experience that would require me to fully understand and appreciate this book in ways that I currently do not. I appreciate this book from a craft perspective and what limited, you know, philosophical knowledge I have. And it was certainly an excellent read. But I do think that a lot of my hesitancies going into it were appropriate and are still there.

Jessica Mary 1:21:14

I would alter your definition of the ideal audience member uh to exclude someone who enjoys classic literature. I would say it is definitely someone who has experience with it, uh, had even a passing knowledge of it, I think, would be fine. Because part of this is a critique of that system. And so if you are coming in and you're like, oh, I love I love the work of Herman Melville, like, or I I love Dante's I do love Dante's Inferno, that is my literary classic baby, I will die on this hill. Uh but if you come in and you're like, I like that, I love all of the the Greek tragedies, because every last one of them is a tragedy, uh I don't think that you would like the combination of it all. That everything written on hell is true. You know, I I think that that might bother you that one or the other wasn't chosen. Yeah. I think that especially if you really love Dante's Inferno, I uh that the map of hell was not the pizza anus of hell. Yeah, it was the pizza anus of hell was not uh Dante's pizza anus of hell, so I forgot about the pizza anus.

Magdalynn Ann 1:22:53

The when Alice just so casually said to Elpseth, oh, Peter's pizza anus, I could not even breathe. I it was it was exactly the amount of levity we needed in that situation. Yes.

Jessica Mary 1:23:13

I I enjoyed too that Alice and Peter had two different maps, and apparently my Kindle Edition does have maps. They were just at the end.

Magdalynn Ann 1:23:22

Yes.

Jessica Mary 1:23:23

Um Might as well. But yeah, I really, I really enjoyed it. I would say like 4.75, and the only reason I'm taking something off is because I want to know how long they were down in hell form. Uh, and the length of the philosophical wailing chapters. And and for anybody at home wondering why I keep saying wailing, it is because I am referencing Herman Melville's Moby Dick, in which the first part is really fun, and then they get on a boat, and he's just like, let me take these encyclopedia chapters, verbatim about the whaling industry, and put them into my book. I have I have one last question. So you have read The Princess Bride. Yes. And the uh for anybody who has not read The Princess Bride, the presentation of the book is that it is the good parts version. Uh, in that, like, okay, like we've got this action part, and then there are little uh quips explaining other things that were cut out of the story. It is all fiction. But this is the presentation of it. Would Catabasis benefit from a good parts version, or would it suffer having taken out like the encyclopedic sections?

Magdalynn Ann 1:24:47

I mean, if you made a good parts version of Catabasus, I don't think that's Catabasus in the end. You know, it's a little bit of Odysseus's ship, Theseus' ship, not Odysseus. Why do I keep coming back to Odysseus?

Jessica Mary 1:24:58

Ship of Theseus! Because all of the Greek names sound the same. It's Odysseus or Orpheus or Theseus.

Magdalynn Ann 1:25:07

All these Eesius's all these Eethuses. I I feel like in a way that Moby Dick is known for half of it being an encyclopedia philosoph, you know, a lot of the philosophy in Catabasas is kind of what makes it it, you know. Yeah. It is specifically like building upon these references and the understanding of these references and these concepts sort of really build up the story and both like in terms of the plot, but also like the characters themselves, you know?

Jessica Mary 1:25:47

Okay, so I have I have this to say. One, I do recommend Catabasas, especially to uh the academics that are out there, uh, anybody with uh an English degree, anybody with a philosophy degree, I think you will have much fun reading this. Uh and if you enjoyed reading Catabasas, I would recommend that you get an Apple TV Plus subscription and watch the foundation.

Magdalynn Ann 1:26:17

You know what doesn't have whaling philosophy attached to it, but was still a boat that had a bad time in the Titanic. Sorry, I just we needed to get one in for Katie because she's not here today. How is that before uh great transition? Stainless, flawless, perfect. Love it.

Intro 1:26:38

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