three book recs

[necessarian]

ah, see, i'm actually using the banner this time! for part 3 of the sunshine challenge, i'll be reccing 3 of my favourite books, and maybe you, reader, will join me in hell ;-)


the secret history - donna tartt

quick pitch: horrible people treat each other terribly and commit heinous crimes in the name of the #aesthetic

i read this book for the first time last december and it's already shot up to being one of my favourite books, ever, full stop. maybe this is because it's expressly catered to my tastes: it's about a group of pretentious classics students at a liberal arts college in the late 70s/early 80s - the exact date is unclear, but one of the main characters didn't know the moon landing happened despite having been easily old enough to have watched it on tv. the back cover of the secret history will assure you that this is a serious story, and it is, but it's also a ridiculous dark comedy about a group of utterly dysfunctional 20 year olds struggling with normal things like depression and identity and isolation, and also a murder or two. you know. college life. there are laugh-out-loud moments, contemplative sequences, beautiful descriptive writing, and some really horrifying scenes. it's the kind of book that consumes you.

on the fandom side of things, i'd say the ao3 tag is on the active side, for a microfandom. the secret history also sees a fair bit of traffic in multifandom fests, such as yuletide. there's a bit of scope for shipping, though i would not say that's the main takeaway i got from the book. all of the characters have fascinating relationships with each other, but like, fascinating in the fucked up and often toxic sense of the word. the tumblr fandom is mostly cross-pollination from this thing the kids are calling "dark academia," which is a cool genre in theory (think dead poet's society, too) but it seems to basically boil down to a lot of people who wish the secret history had been set at oxford. if you want oxford, read brideshead revisited, which is not dark academia but is incidentally my next rec.


brideshead revisited - evelyn waugh

quick pitch: man with depression who's never heard of depression falls in love and projects onto a tragic family of rich catholics

i know what you're thinking: ren, do you only read books about sad uni students? well, i am a sad uni student, and i do whatever the hell i want, thank you. but i promise you this has some variety. brideshead revisited is a curious book: it's a satire about rich english families and catholicism, but the driving point is the protagonist charles ryder's relationship with his oxford friend sebastian flyte, which is thick with homoerotic subtext that's lightly acknowledged throughout. their relationship is explored from their early days at oxford through to adulthood and all sorts of tribulations, and in general stands for charles' broader infatuation with the flyte family and their lifestyle. (if you're only in it for the oxford part and the relationship, i will warn you that it keeps going well past that, and it gets morbid, but do press on.) the novel was published in 1945 and by and large set in the 30s and 40s. but there are more recent adaptations: allow me to direct you to the 1981 miniseries and the 2008 movie. the movie in particular does well with making it explicitly gay, and i am biased towards the movie because it stars two of my favourite actors, matthew goode and ben whishaw. or are they my favourites because i saw this movie at a formative age? lol.

there's a small fandom for brideshead revisited, and unsurprisingly most of it is focused on charles/sebastian and exploring AUs. for a lighthearted fandom experience, i suggest following brideshead-suggestions on tumblr. if you're into the magicians, you may be easily persuaded over to this fandom: the first half of the first book is essentially the first part of brideshead revisited, no joke. lev grossman literally modelled quentin and eliot (eliot waugh, it's not even subtle) on charles and sebastian respectively, and it is also essential knowledge that he's written about how he views the book as one of the great romance novels. (so why wasn't queliot canon, lev???) anyway, if you're a show watcher who feels let down, you know where to go...


jonathan strange and mr norrell - susanna clarke

quick pitch: two equally annoying but oppositely polarised magical academics accidentally get the whole country swept up in their flame war

okay, maybe this is a "dark academia" reclist, since all of these books have an academic aspect and all of them are kind of grim. well, i've been well and truly been rumbled. anyway - i feel like a bit of a fraud for reccing this one, because while there's a fairly medium-sized fandom, i'm not active in it, just a lurker. there are lots of great fic writers and fanartists out there: in fact, the blog jsamnfanart runs regular exchanges which always net beautiful works. despite my lack of involvement, i need to rec this book anyway, because everyone needs to read it. it's long, and dense, written in authentic regency english despite being published in 2003, and it's an absolute masterwork. i don't want to describe too much, because this a story that's best consumed as something that unfurls for you. the titular characters are magicians, an iconoclast and a traditionalist, and the way they're played off against one another and the people around them is brilliant and compelling. (despite the fact that i call them annoying, they're really both quite endearing at times, especially jonathan strange.) the story examines relationships, society, and ideas themselves - it's a truly academic book. (there are footnotes.) i really just can't express enough how exceptional the writing is. i don't think there's anything else like it.

it bears mentioning that there is also a really excellent bbc miniseries based on the books, which came out a few years ago. the acting is out of this world, really - eddie marsan in particular is revelatory as gilbert norrell - and the production value is very high. there are a few differences from the book but nothing major. (i'm just salty about one of my favourite bits of poetic justice ever written not making it to the screen, lmao.) i would definitely recommend watching it too.


if you've come here from the sunshine challenge and you're a fan of any of these, please say hi! if you see this list and think "whoa, i bet ren would also like [this other canon]," let me know!!