Spoiler Warning: Chapter 1, 2 and 34 discussed, my favorite foreshadowing explained
In R.F. Kuang’s new book Katabasis, the main characters Alice Law and Peter Murdock very quickly stumble upon a famous landmark in Hell that is known to them as the Viewing Pavilion. This Viewing Pavilion is “the bridge that all souls crossed before they passed into the Underworld for good.”1 It is where the veil between worlds is thinnest, and the dead can see and speak to the living.
When Alice encounters the Viewing Pavilion, her instinct is to peer into Cambridge. She spots two classmates from her cohort. Feeling frivolous, she decides to haunt them a little. Whispering the classic “Boo” causes her friend Belinda to shudder, much to Alice’s delight. 2
Little does Alice know and little does the reader know, this silly page 23 moment is serious foreshadowing.
Very early in the book, before this Viewing Pavilion moment, more foreshadowing about haunting happens. It’s when Alice mentions she felt haunted in the library.
Turns out this little sentence on page 7 is big foreshadowing too.
It was like some poltergeist haunted the stacks anticipating her projects every turn.
– Katabasis, Chapter 1, p 7
Hundreds of pages later, when we find out that Alice was haunted by Professor Grimes, and it casts what she did to Belinda and what she felt in the library in a whole new light.
Grimes haunted Alice from Hell. Right afterer he died, he stayed at the Viewing Pavilion to toy with her mind (note: he calls the Viewing Pavilion the Bridge of Sighs).3
It’s explained back on page 23 that the Viewing Pavilion is “the only place from which the dead could make their voices heard, from which they might exert some pressure on the living,” and that is exactly what Professor Grimes did. He put pressure on Alice’s dreams and whispered pentagram instructions to her from the other side to get her to come after him.
How to Annotate this Foreshadowing
1. Underline this quote.
“There’s quite a lot you can do from the Bridge of Sighs,” said Professor Grimes. “Dreams, images, that sort of thing. I like to think I got pretty good at haunting. Tell me, did you ever dream of Ramanujan’s Summation? Of journeys into the cold, dark earth? That was me. But it takes initiative, to your credit. You put the pieces together.”
Chapter 34, page 519
2. Make these margin notes.
- “Foreshadowed in Chapter 2, page 22-23”
- “Alice and Peter called this the Viewing Pavilion.”
- “Name of a real bridge at Cambridge (which is named after a historic bridge in Florence, the Ponte Vecchio on the Arno River. The original has a Dante inscription!”
Here’s how it looks in my book:
3. Underline these quotes.
“Viewing Pavilion”
“the bridge that all souls crossed before they passed into the Underworld for good; the liminal point between the worlds of the living and dead where each side could just barely glimpse the other.”
Chapter 2, page 22
“She wondered at the limits of ghostly mischief…Scholars concurred that most hauntings on record were facilitated through the Viewing Pavilion. It was the only place from which the dead could make their voices heard, from which they might exert some pressure on the living.”
Chapter 2, page 23
4. Make this margin note.
- “Foreshadowing Ch 34 p 519”
Here’s how it looks in my book
5. Underline this quote (already discussed, but I don’t want you to forget it!)
It was like some poltergeist haunted the stacks anticipating her projects every turn.
– Chapter 1, p 7
6. Make this margin note.
- “Foreshadowing Ch 34 p 519”
The Bridge of Sighs is a real place at St. John’s College in Cambridge. It Named after A Bridge in Florence with a Dante Quote on it!
The Bridge of Sighs in. Cambridge is famous, historic landmark at St. John’s College that was named after another famous, historic bridge, the Ponte Vecchio, in Florence. The Florence bridge has a quote by Dante Alighieri inscribed on it. Perhaps, this Dante connection is why Professor Grimes prefers to call the Viewing Pavilion the Bridge of Sighs.
Check out this travel blog post about The Bridge of Sighs in Florence and some information about The Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge.
https://www.joh.cam.ac.uk/about-us/our-history/the-bridge-of-sighs
- Chapter 2, page 22 ↩︎
- Chapter 2, page 23 ↩︎
- After the real Bridge of Sighs located at Cambridge. ↩︎
Annotate With Sara 