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It's November 10th! Bacchanal Day!

Do you have your chitons?

Have you been fasting?

And are you ready to let God devour you, unstring your bones, and spit you out, reborn?

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This time of year, in this part of the country, all I can think about is a bacchanal.

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"Seinfeld Dark Academia" was not on my 2023 bingo card, but what the hell.

this is the last thing i ever pinned to my dark academia board and i can't ever add anything else. what else is there to say

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OMG, perfect!

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I've got some Twin Peaks showing up in my FYP and it's made me think about Twin Peaks. It aired from 1990-1991, and then the feature film Fire Walk with Me was released in 1992...the same year that our Ms. Tartt published everyone's favorite novel. The following year, 1993, saw the premiere of The X-Files. These were also the peak years of grunge, whose whole aesthetic was basically, It's raining and we're all doomed.

What was it about the early 1990s that gave everyone such an appetite for tales of bad things happening in gloomy northern landscapes?

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Do some readers really think that Camilla is a stand-in for Donna Tartt? No...I don't think so. I mean, she may have been some wish-projection on Donna Tartt's part (i.e. Camilla was an integral member of the Classics in-group, whereas Donna was always treated as an interloper). But I think the analogies end there.

Funny thing though, Tartt did write herself into the book, in the sneakiest way possible:

"...a strange girl was talking to me...Very pretty, in a snub-nosed, good-natured way; dark hair, freckles, light blue eyes...she was a small girl, barely five feet..."

Yep, it's Mona Beale, the "good sport" that Richard hooks up with after doing Bunny in. The description is too spot on, it's a mirror image of the author. And I like to think that Tartt very much enjoyed having Judy Poovey later describe her self-insertion as "kind of a slut" especially since the synonymous meanings of "slut" and "tart" would've been too delicious for an admirer of Charles Dickens to resist.

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This is literally me for the last two years.

the secret history is my personal roman empire

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"...life itself seemed very magical in those days: a web of symbol, coincidence, premonition, omen. Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!"

There have been two or three times in my life when I had this exact feeling myself, which I was never able to put into words. I'd never even seen anyone express this feeling until I read this passage. Of course, just like Richard, I was completely mistaken each time, but at least no one died as a result of my self-delusion. No one that I'm aware of, anyway.

Ok let's try something.

Reblog with your favorite TSH lines!

Just, a quote, a piece of dialogue, a random specific passage- anything you'd like that you feel stuck with you!

I'll start- I have several, but the first that comes to mind is this one:

I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.

'Are you happy here?' I said at last.

He considered it for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'

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...and where they were when they first read, "He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall."

Everyone remembers where they were when reading 'the snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation' for the first time.

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It randomly popped into my head the other day that Camilla is the only one of the five who never loses her shit, post-Bunny. Charles becomes a full-fledged alcoholic, Francis leans hard into his hypochondria, Richard turns into an even bigger pill-popper, and Henry is rhapsodizing about the liberating benefits of murder. Camilla, however, is completely unfazed. The only thing that changes for her is that when she sees her brother falling apart, she removes herself to be with the person who can protect her. She really is such a terrifying character that I almost wish we hadn't gotten that glimpse of her in the epilogue, broke and stranded at her grandmother's house. I like to think she'd have let them all take the fall, then lit up a cigarette and walked away.

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Soooo, I recently found myself reading a synopsis of Goethe's 1777 novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, only to discover that the novel ends with the ill-fated title character shooting himself in the head...but living for 12 hours before he dies.

I guess we have to add Goethe to the list of influences on The Secret History and I swear to God, no one will never get to the end of all the literary allusions in this bedlam of a book. Donna Tartt was only 18 years old when she started writing it. How in the hell did she have time to read so much...and remember enough of it to sprinkle throughout this novel?

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Been thinking that it’s a while since I’ve seen some amazing TSH fanart...and then this pops up. Graphic novel, please?

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My theory has always been that he was a literary allusion to the character of Gustav von Aschenbach in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice. Because Donna Tartt can’t resist a literary allusion and because this book never ends.

Thinking about the German guy who chased Henry and Bunny in Rome.

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It’s been a while since I did a book review, so here goes: Katy Hays’ The Cloisters. This latest entry in would-be successors to The Secret History is a dark academia murder mystery set at The Cloisters, a real museum in New York City dedicated to medieval art.

I can’t separate this book from my feelings about the real Cloisters, which has always been a very special place to me, with great personal and even spiritual meaning. The book reduces this majestic setting to the backdrop of tawdry and highly implausible intrigue that unfolds between Ann Stilwell, (a brilliant grad student from the sticks of Washington state who lands an internship in the research department), and three of her co-workers: Rachel Mondray (gorgeous, rich), Patrick Roland (handsome, rich), and Leo the gardener (bad boy, poor).

There’s a lot going on here: Ann discovers and decodes an ancient deck of tarot cards that backs up some important research of Patrick’s. Rachel conspires with Ann to keep this from Patrick so they can claim the discovery as their own. At the same time, Ann is being lured into the mysticism of tarot and its divination powers -- something Patrick was also obsessed with. She’s also being drawn into Rachel’s luxurious heiress lifestyle. Patrick and Rachel are having sex. Ann and Leo are having sex. Rachel and Leo were having sex. Leo is stealing minor artifacts from the museum and fencing them through a disreputable antiques dealer. Rachel may have murdered her college roommate...and her parents. Patrick is doing ritualistic tarot card readings at the museum at night. Ann has some kind of dark secret in her past, connected to her father’s death. Then they all take some hallucinatory herbs (supplied by Leo from the Cloisters’ garden) and Patrick dies from an apparent overdose. The police immediately and unbelievably label it murder, and then proceed to investigate it as no real cops (I hope) ever would---jumping to conclusions, not following up on glaringly suspicious behavior, etc.

All of this is piled on so fast and furious that there’s no time to develop the kind of haunting atmosphere and tangled relationships that this story cries out for. The book is just too short. Katy Hays had a good idea and some genuinely interesting twists, but it’s all so rushed that you’re left feeling nothing. There’s no sense of mystery, just a lot of foreboding, laid on thick. There’s sex, but no sensuality. The narrator, Ann, is so flat that she wanders through the story with almost no reaction to anything. I think she’s supposed to be a classic unreliable narrator, but she’s our gatekeeper for this story and it’s a problem that she is so closed-off and devoid of emotion.

There’s some gross stuff in here too: Leo’s conduct towards Ann is textbook sexual harassment that gets hand-waved because he’s hot and Ann is attracted to him. He continues to be an awful creep throughout the book. Frankly, no reputable workplace, especially not a world-renowned museum, would tolerate the behavior these characters indulge in on the job. I suffered a lot of second-hand embarrassment for everyone at the real Cloisters for having their workplace and their work parodied by this wildly fictitious potboiler of a story. And it kind of depresses me to think of tourists visiting such a beloved place just because it’s the setting for this goofy book. I wish that Hays had fictionalized The Cloisters the way Donna Tartt fictionalized Bennington into Hampden. I’m just going to have to purge the memory of this novel before I visit the place again, because it’s just too...bleh. No.

It’s a quick read if you want something for the beach or a long flight, but it’s ultimately disappointing and a little bit off-putting.

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You know, if the mountain lion theory were true, then it would mean that Donna Tartt has been sitting on this huge secret for more than thirty years. And that just doesn’t sound believable! 

I mean, does this look like the face...

Of someone who would keep...

A mind-boggling literary secret all to herself for more than thirty years?

....

....

Yeah, the mountain lion did it. 

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MOAR THEORIES! 

THIS. BOOK. NEVER. ENDS!!!

The Secret History: A Theories Guide

The Mountain Lion: It Isn't A Theory

Why The Books Called ''The Secret History''

Richard Papen: The Master of Illusion

#1 Charles is Innocent: Fucking Damnit!

#2 Okay I Lied, Charles Isn't Innocent

Julian Morrow: ''Honesty Is A Dangerous Virtue''

Henry Winter Wasn't In A Car Accident.

What Led To Henry Winters Death

Bunny Corcoran: Neglect In Plain Sight If you have a theory or take or whatever the fuck—comment down bellow! If it's intriguing enough I will see if I can either 1) Disprove it or 2) Prove your theory without a shadow of a doubt (Obviously the commenter will be credited!) I want to do a post on Francis, but haven't found anything compelling enough about him to spur on an analysis. [ Links will be added as I post ]

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Of course, someone figured out the whole mountain lion thing before I did! Excellent summary here with bonus mountain lion cry video! Sounds very much like a human scream, doesn’t it?

Also as @everything-is-cheap-in-hell​ points out (and I forgot to mention): Henry has really bad eyesight, especially in one eye. So he has poor vision, and it’s dark, and all he sees is some “large, indistinct yellow thing.” Absolutely, 100% could’ve been a tawny cougar in the moonlight.

The only thing I disagree with here is the question of how Henry could’ve simultaneously broken the farmer’s neck AND bashed in his skull AND burst open his stomach. Henry doesn’t suggest that; he only thinks that he killed the farmer with a hard blow to the head. It’s plausible that such a strike could have both cracked McRee’s skull and driven back his neck so that it broke (or at least, looked broken). Henry and the others seem to believe that the subsequent mutilation of McRee’s body happened after Henry killed him. But it’s still highly possible that McRee was already torn open by the wildcat, and they were all too out of it to notice.

It’s worth noting that I still absolutely think all the kids took part in some desecration of the body. If this was a mountain lion, and the kids hadn’t spoiled the corpse, I’m sure the county coroner would have easily been able to cite “wild animal attack” as the cause of death....which, OMG. Would have totally gotten them all off the hook and left Bunny with nothing to pin on them.

Shit.

This. Book. Never. Ends. 

The Mountain Lion: It Isn't A Theory

Before We Begin 1) The events in the book are not described in order, this is done on purpose. You'll notice if you really look information is given/or not so whenever suspicious could arise from the reader. 2) Remember who wrote this biography, Richard Papen, Or should I say... John, who Everyone Apart From Himself knew was a homosexual.

Now, I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?

events are described in order to make digestion easier: Camilla burst threw the brush first, startling the large cat (Remember, she was ahead.) Leaving her with the man who likely was still alive. The mans neck may have been treated like a rag doll, but this doesn't guarantee immediate death (His stomach: He Was Being Eaten Alive. I'd bet.)

She could've picked up a large rock and crushed the mans skull (In the news report it's specified he had a fractured skull, but really his brains had been completely splattered. Strange injury for a Mountain Lion attack, don't cha think? Not to mention despite the injuries, it still would be ruled a homicide... Meaning the police looked at the body and knew there was fowl play.) And from a distant lugged it at his head to put him out of his misery. Have you ever dropped a large bolder into water? Now, where does the water end up? Right, your feet, maybe your thighs if your not careful.

After she ritualistically dipped her head into his torn stomach, she took the large rock and headed for the river, before dumping the evidence. It would have looked like any other rock, wouldn't of it? Or mayhaps the next days rain cleared up all her handprints, all the clotted blood on the grey surface. (check page 204)

''When someone is experiencing traumatic stress, and their body goes into fight/flight (or freeze) mode, blood is diverted away from the parts of the brain responsible for language and speech production, and consequently, their capacity to formulate language and to initiate speech is significantly reduced''

^This was the real reason she stopped speaking, it wasn't due to some mystical spiritual experience, it was due to trauma. But we hardly think of that do we, after all isn't phycology such a terrible word? Isn't it better not to question, and enjoy the awe of it all?

Now we move onto the laughable events of Charles own lucky escape from death: The Lion hadn't exactly finished eating, it had been startled, and once it saw Charles? Well easy meal right! Well, not so much once it clamped it's mouth around Charles protective arm and found itself falling into and thrashing in a bramble bush.

Francis watched on from a distance, his priority has always been himself (And by golly, is he a coward.) He remembers what happened, but lies (Except to Camilla, read page 403.) He Does not And Has Never Cared For Charles, not in a way that matters. Within the Epilogue he states he gave Charles the money because ''He's my Friend'' But really it was to save his own hide. Charles was abused by him (and would have been from the beginning, Francis very obviously tried with everyone when they were intoxicated, including Bunny.)

The Lion would've given up, and gone back. Cunt wanted brecky.

I must ask a question, let me set the scene: Your a late-middle aged Chicken Farmer, and you've probably just gone out on a midnight stroll. You catch a wif of a right stink of booze before you see a half-starved/naked, scrapped up mud stricken over 6 foot young man dressed in bed sheets, who looks like he is tweaking out of his mind (With no shoes nonetheless). Is your first reaction to tackle him? Obviously not, no one sane would do that. What the fuck: Now on Donna Tartts part? Beautiful diversion having the Farmer wearing a yellow plaid shirt, it answers our question so quickly we don't bother to look any closer, we automaticly assume the yellow blur to be the farmer and not a Lion.

Henry whose eye sight is dreadful, is tackled by the Mountain Lion (Henry was right by its meal afterall.) whose already drenched in blood from its own escapades. Henry gives it a good thwonk, and the Lion decides it's no longer worth it (Especially after the bush incident with Charles; the Lion king gone wrong am I right?) and it screams. Now dear viewer, howz about you go re-listen to the above video,

I'll wait (:

It screams, of course we viewers assume it's the man, even though... could you scream if your neck had just been broken and your skull exploded? On that subject, how did only two (not 3) hits both burst a skull/neck and the farmers stomach? Exactly, not plausible. Henry had even specifically pointed out his first hit was with his band hand at first as well.

Look here okay, I was fully fooled at first. Once someone here pointed out the potential reality that it had been a Mountain Lion and not Henry, that's when I actually took pause and began to question. Donna Tartt is critiquing Dark Academia, anyone who reads this book knows that—so it's fitting the Bacchanal would be the most deceptive part of this book as it's painted to be so mystical we end up too starry eyed at the romantics of it all to see the full picture.

Richard never questioned what was happening (he did a horrendous job pretending to be shocked, he really is a baby Julian in the essence of caring more about the dramatics than reality.) Because he genuinely is an idiot. And non of the group question a thing either! For heavens sake once it went as far as murder, at that point why would you question whether Henry had simultaneously broken a mans neck/skull and made his stomach explode?!