Christina’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update

'It was the strangest thing. Here she was marching to her almost certain death, and it was the first time in a long time that she felt her life mattered. This urgency, this rush—like all of her, body and soul, was pointed like an arrow, taut with purpose. Something better than anger, despair, or vengeance.'

Reminiscent of the ending of Albert Camus' L' etranger.

'Indeed there were many parts of her plan she had not thought through. How to explain a reanimated corpse to the rest of the department. How to keep Grimes from screaming for help. How to convince a dissertation committee that the hoarsely blathering pile of rotted flesh and bones was in fact the soul of Professor Jacob Grimes speaking, and not a paid undergraduate hiding beneath the floorboards.'

'This would have been salvageable, if Professor Grimes were not on deadline for a conference presentation at the Royal Academy of Magick in London.
Alice and Peter were thus recruited to fill in the gaps. ... Who cared if it was unpaid overtime? Who cared if it meant thirty extra hours a week for which they would not be credited, at the same time that they were still burdened with coursework?'

"I've never thought about texts like this before."
"What, in terms of close reading?"
"I just mean—I don't know, taking into account when they were written, and the author's social context, and such."
"Historicization, Murdoch. That's what we call it. What, do you just take everything you read at face value?"
"I mean, if the math checks out."
"Unbelievable," said Alice. "This is why everyone hates logicians."