My first thought after finishing this book is that I am most definitely NOT the right audience for it, as majority of the story went way over my head. To say that I struggled with this book is an understatement -- if I had to assign a number, I would probably say that I only understood maybe 60% of the story (and that’s being generous). My problem with this book wasn’t in the writing, as it’s a known fact that R.F. Kuang can absolutely write (and beautifully at that) – rather, I felt that Kuang tried to cram too much into this book and made it way denser than it really needed to be. What I mean by this is that Kuang incorporates an insane amount of philosophical, mathematical, and scientific concepts (some explained, some not) and name drops numerous philosophers and scholars along with the theories they specialized in (to the point that she had to “explain” some of the scholarship in an Author’s Note at the end of the book) – which had the effect of convoluting and overwhelming the story in a way that I felt was unnecessary. In fact, the academic overload felt so intense at times that I found myself having to dig deep in order to unbury the story that Kuang was trying to tell (and even then, I still felt like I didn’t “get” majority of what she was trying to say, lol) – the result being that this was a tremendously tedious and exhausting read that I’m not really sure was worth the effort. At some point probably a third of the way through, I started skimming not paragraphs, but pages, as I felt like I was reading the same sentences 3-4 times but still not understanding a single word, and I was starting to get anxious about wasting my time.
As I was reading, one thing that became quite obvious to me is that this book was written by someone with a deep, intimate knowledge of academia – which makes sense given that Kuang, with her Masters and Doctorate degrees from Cambridge, Oxford, and Yale, is practically a scholar in her own right. Now don’t get me wrong – I have nothing against pursuing higher education (I actually have a Master’s degree myself so I’m kind of partial to that world too), but I think that sometimes a background like that can have an unintended impact on the work you produce that is meant for mass consumption. Specifically, the way that the book was written, it seemed to take for granted the fact that most “ordinary” readers would not be well-versed in philosophical theories, mathematical formulas, scientific hypotheses, etc. that someone from the academic world would probably be more familiar with (though with that said, even someone like me with a higher level academic degree was still completely lost in this instance). In hindsight, if I had known how philosophically and theoretically dense this book would be (especially towards the subjects of math and science), I probably would not have chosen to pick this one up (at least not during this particular time when I’m already overwhelmed and exhausted from work and family obligations).
Given everything I said above, those reading this review might be wondering why I didn’t rate this book lower (as I would have in similar circumstances). Part of the reason is because of the writing, as I mentioned earlier – Kuang is a skillful writer and her strength in worldbuilding (from her roots as a fantasy writer no doubt) definitely shines here. The detail with which she describes Alice and Peter’s journey through Hell is truly astounding -- I can’t help but admire her ability to take such an obscure premise and build out such an intricate story from it. Also, I truly did enjoy the last 50 or so pages, including the way the ending played out (which I felt like Kuang nailed this time, especially when compared to her previous novel Yellowface).
Overall, I would say that this was an “okay” read – not entirely a waste of time but also not the best use of my time either. I’m just glad I finally got through it and can now move on to other books that will hopefully work out better for me.
Received ARC from Harper Voyager via NetGalley.
