My Six-Week Convalescence From Social Media + Why you must read 'Katabasis' NOW

If you follow me on Instagram, you also know I'm in an abusive relationship with it. I just can't quit that darn app. I intend to use it in a very limited way, and that's to stay in touch with the writer and bookish communities (aka, My People). But the Great Algorithm knows how to keep me scrolling and posting and liking and DMing and commenting, and that's with current socio-political rage bait.

I won't get into the specific rage bait that really gets my goat, because that isn't the point of this, and I'm weary of it.

The point is that when I expose myself to said rage-bait so constantly, I end up walking around in state of constant, simmering anger. I cast about, looking for righteous places to vent all the building internal pressure.

So if you're a terrible human being wearing a mean t-shirt at Starbucks, and this is the state of mind I'm mired in, I'm gonna come at you. I'm already a vocal, confident person who is very comfortable with conflict. But like this? All hopped on social media rage juice? Oh buddy. It's gonna go down.

(Yes, this happened for real).

THEN after the heated exchange with the Mean Lady (more details are shared on IG), I dropped my drink in the parking lot in front of her and then she laughed at me and I cried lol.

OK so that was an unpleasant experience, and as a result, I decided to take a two week break from social media. Get my news elsewhere. I'm not advocating for sticking our heads in the sand--not at all--but I don't think you need to be walking around absolutely cooking and boiling all the time either. This was my experiment to see if detaching a bit from the daily slop mill helped my state of mind.

It sure did. My two week break turned into six, and I got a lot of perspective. I still knew about all worldly matters. I knew about the Evergreen shooting within an hour, and the Charlie Kirk shooting even faster. I read the paper and newsletters to which I subscribe on the various open attacks on our nation's civil liberties. I even know all about the status of the Ballroom construction, guys.

I can't do anything for anybody if I'm flying off the handle and getting into verbal altercations with Mean Ladies Wearing Mean T-Shirts (OK, I'm officially trademarking this).

I'm not saying they don't deserve it (this particular Mean Lady 1000% deserved it), but I don't have the capacity to do that and stay sane. Instead, I'm keeping a tight leash on my IG use, telling it I don't want to see anything but pictures of books and teapots, and using my laptop to scroll (turns out it's a lot less addicting when I do this, I have no idea why. Do you? Tell me, please, I find this very curious.)

Anyway. If you find yourself at the boiling point all the time because you're so upset about the sh!t-storm of a world we live in, I recommend a proverbial trip to the warm seaside (i.e., a social media detox). You'll come back at least more content, if not happier, and a hell of a lot mentally tougher to handle the business that really needs handling. That I can promise you.

Book Review!

Katabasis, by R.F. Kuang
Rating: 5/5
Genre & Vibes: Dark academia (but in Hell)
Super Short Synopsis: Two grad students in Cambridge's Applied Magick department venture to Hell, as other sojourners like Dante and Milton have before them, to bring back their academic advisor, Jacob Grimes (who is a real butthole). Shenanigans ensue!

Review: For the record, I did not like R.F. Kuang's Babel. I even pulled her other books, like Yellowface and The Poppy Wars, from my TBR despite everyone in the world saying it was amazing. When I first finished Babel, I wasn't entirely sure if I liked it or not--ultimately, I decided I very much did not. The characters seemed like thinly-drawn archetypes inserted as rage bait (and as we've learned, I don't masticate on rage bait in a healthy way). IMHO, the writing was didactic, hectoring, condescending at the worst of times.

Yet Katabasis intrigued me because...well, honestly I don't know why. The Invisible was leading my hand on this one, I suppose, and I see why now.

Because I freaking loved it. And yet I know people whose book tastes I genuinely trust had the opposite reaction--loving Babel, hating Katabasis.

So my defense of Katabasis is this:

Goodreads reviews abound about how R.F. Kuang just uses Katabasis to reference-drop names and concepts to "sound smart." People. Kuang doesn't need to sound smart, because she just effing is.

I won't get into why this criticism is probably the byproduct of her being a woman, because omfg that one is so obvious. Instead, I'll explain my theory on why Kuang might have inserted all these references.

All the introduced concepts make the book SUPER interesting. They move the plot. Kuang drops in theories of physics, philosophy, formal logic, linguistics because they quite literally drive the system of magick created for the novel. These formulations are actually woven into the worldbuilding, making their discussion crucial for explaining important beats about the characters, their motives, and how the whole system of magic works at all.

The philosophizing could feel like a lot, I guess, at times, but for me, it was just mega cool. It's been a while since I've had the chance to ponder Hume, Kant, and Hobbes; to think about the Freudian death drive, Jungian archetypes, Platonic ideals; to consider the commonalities across religious philosophies that predated cross-cultural exchange across continents; to think through Schroedinger's Cat and what observation of the Higgs boson means for the creation of our universe. Not to mention all the literature on past ventures to Hell. People, I was drooling.

OK, friend, so let me ask you: are you a huge frickin' nerd?

If not, you're not going to like Katabasis probably, unless you're an experienced skimmer for plot movement.

But if you arrreee, buy R. F. Kuang's newest brick (oops, I mean book!) or put it on your Libby hold list and thank me later.

Also, Katabasis is coming up aces in terms of the writing craft. Excellent worldbuilding (as noted), characters who are thrown obstacles and experience whole psychic changes, tension, conflict, romance (swoon), and a setting that is FUN AF.

Because, oh by the way, Hell is more like a Greek Underworld situation (not the fire and brimstone version where only bad guys go). All souls go down to Hell after death, a physical place (if not on this plane), and when they're ready to leave the sort of waiting room (aka, Asphodel), each soul must complete whatever circle of hell they've been assigned to based on their actions during life. Most souls get out of there after a circle or two–they just have to get out of Pride and/or Gluttony. Then those souls can reincarnate. But things get weird for the more terrible among us, as they're forced to venture through Wrath or Cruelty or Tyranny and eventually get to the City of Dis (I won't lie that I've already pictured a number of current prominent figures in Dis and it gives me this kind of feeling: 😈).

Katabasis is suuuuper long. The audiobook is 20 hours. I listened at 1.5x speed, and it took me about 12 days. The readers are REALLY good too, by the way, except the woman who reads for Alice has a funny version of an American accent. Highly recommend though, it's a pleasure.

Thank you for reading, folks. All in all, have a great week and read banned books.

ILYSM,
Charlotte

Author Site: charlottechamberswriter.com
IG: having.written
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