The Dark Academicals

It’s finally happening! We’re going back to the beginning and re-examining ‘The Secret History’ with 8 seasons of the podcast behind us and this season of reading Tartt’s influences - how has our list of tropes held up? Do we still love the novel whole-heartedly?

'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!'

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

We’re so excited to revisit this novel and re-examine it with our updated knowledge and experience of dark academia.

Donna Tartt herself cited Patricia Highsmith’s ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ as a book that was important to her when writing ‘The Secret HIstory’, and as that idea is the basis for this season, we had to give this one a whirl! There’s also been a recent Netflix mini-series adaptation so it’s a story that’s had a recent resurgence - it felt like time.

Tom Ripley is struggling to stay one step ahead of his creditors and the law, when an unexpected acquaintance offers him a free trip to Europe and a chance to start over.

Ripley wants money, success and the good life and he's willing to kill for it. When his new-found happiness is threatened, his response is as swift as it is shocking.

Both of us went into this novel blind with very little knowledge of the story or the characters, just the sense of the legacy of Highsmith as an acclaimed author. How clearly will we be able to see the influences in ‘The Secret History’?

'Frankenstein' is a literary staple. Everyone has heard of it, and most discerning reader will have either read it or have it on their TBR. Groundbreaking, pivotal and genre making... But how much of an influence does it have on modern dark academia?

‘Stoner’ is a classic campus novel that has been on my (Sophie’s TBR) for years and years - it’s one of those novels that is almost universally loved.

It’s going to be very interesting to see the comparisons between seminal campus novels from opposite sides of the Atlantic. We’ve featured Evelyn Waugh’s ‘Brideshead Revisited’, and now it’s the turn of ‘Stoner’.

Ancient literature? Yeah, we’re going there!

‘Bacchae’ is the play, the source material, the inspiration, for the adventures and dangers that Henry and Co get in to during ‘The Secret History’. It’s a foundational text for this novel and lays the groundwork for the conflict and the goal of the book, and shapes and sets the tone for the academic tones and goals in dark academia.

Bacchae, a profound exploration of the human psyche, deals with the appalling consequences of resistance to Dionysus, god of wine and unfettered emotion. This tragedy, which above all others speaks to our post-Freudian era, is one of Euripides' two last surviving plays.

This is the first time we’ve ever encountered ancient literature on the podcast, and our first deep dive into the underlying inspirations for ‘The Secret History’ - we’re so excited about getting deep on this season of the podcast and connecting with the novel and Tartt’s inspiration. This play changed her life!

Welcome to season 8 of The Dark Academicals!

We’re kicking off with ‘Black Chalk’ by Christopher J Yates, a psychological thriller campus novel from 2013, that features on nearly every dark academia reading list out there. It’s much more similar to the earlier dark academia than our explorations of modern dark academia so we were eager to really give it a go.

One game. Six students. Five survivors. It was only ever meant to be a game played by six best friends in their first year at Oxford University; a game of consequences, silly forfeits, and childish dares. But then the game changed: the stakes grew higher and the dares more personal and more humiliating, finally evolving into a vicious struggle with unpredictable and tragic results. Now, 14 years later, the remaining players must meet again for the final round. Who knows better than your best friends what would break you? A gripping psychological thriller partly inspired by the author's own time at Oxford University, this is perfect for fans of The Secret History and The Bellwether Revivals. The author's background in puzzle writing and setting can clearly be seen in the plotting of this clever, tricky book that will keep readers guessing to the very end.

With an Oxford setting, a dangerous game, and fracturing friendship, this has the makings of everything we look for for the podcast. Will it make the cut?

In this extra special episode of The Dark Academicals, we have Katy Hays, author of 'The Cloisters' discussing fate, destiny, dark academia and more.

The conversation flows from Dark Academia tropes, to the pivotal action in 'The Cloisters', as well as finding both Sophie and I shooketh at Katy's writing process. and excitement regarding future projects.

Can you believe it’s already the season seven finale of ‘The Dark Academicals’? We can’t!

For this final episode we’ve got a dark academia thriller set between the 1990s and current day that we think is going to be a surefire hit, and possibly pose some real connections to ‘The Secret History’.

It’s Sarah’s first time reading S.T. Gibson, while Sophie has already read ‘A Dowry of Blood’ and so there are already some expectations and intrigue going into ‘An Education in Malice’.

We had a lot of fun talking about this book, and we hope you enjoy listening along!

It’s time for our dark academia adjacent title for season seven and we’re tackling Curtis Sittenfeld’s classic campus novel, ‘Prep’.

Sophie read this about a decade ago and has had a lingering love for it ever since, so it has some big shoes to fill on this reread and for Sarah’s first read.

'Prep’ is a modern classic generally in fiction, but also in the realm of campus novels. We can’t wait to see how this informs what we know as dark academia.