Book Round-up: Dark Academia Edition

 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark: The original Dark Academia, although not actually that dark. Spark's tale of a female teacher in 1930s Scotland who has a tendency to collect students she considers special in some way has spare prose, piercing insight, and all-too-human characters.

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz: a thriller (and satire of the publishing world) about a failed writer who uses his dead student's plot idea to make the bestseller list, only to have someone threaten to reveal everything. There was a huge clue that hinged on having read a certain literary novel, but figuring out the twist early on didn't lessen my enjoyment of watching it all unfold.

The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik: Novik's trilogy is set at a ludicrously dangerous wizarding school where only a quarter of the students actually survive through graduation. Galadriel is a prickly, overly verbose, but endearing character; "fated" to be the greatest maleficer ever, she is shunned by everyone, even as she steadfastly and grumpily refuses to take advantage of her dark powers or fellow students. I really appreciated how Novik does not just depict the casual cruelty of the Scholomance system while engineering a happy ending for a few characters, but instead shows those characters committing to righting wrongs for all students, present and future, and not giving up until they find a way to do so. In this way, it contrasts with The Absolute Book that was clear-eyed about the horrors of the Tithe but ultimately punted the issue. 

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl: Another re-read. Having now read Spark's novel, I can see the similarities -- a charismatic teacher encourages an almost cult-like devotion from the students she singles out. The difference -- the hidden connection between the teacher and the narrator -- provides an added complexity that ultimately results in murder. I love this book, and I find myself wanting a sequel just to reassure myself that Blue finds herself surrounded by good, honest people who care for her.

Memento Mori by Muriel Spark

In Spark's classic novel, a mysterious voice calls several elderly people to tell them "Remember, you must die."  The source of the calls -- mundane or supernatural -- is never explained, but that's not the point.  Instead, the novel is a meditation on aging, death, and the way the various characters come to terms with their lives.

The results aren't exactly admirable, but they are funny, satirical, pathetic, and moving.  Human frailty is on display here as the characters mull over their lives, make excuses for themselves, and criticize their peers while coping with the physical and mental costs of aging. Above all, the concern is to have a "good death," whatever that means to the individual -- in the comfort of one's home, in a hospital with round-the-clock care, with a lot of money, surrounded by loved ones, mourned by the public at large. 

But the concerns often become petty. One character is constantly revising her will to reward or punish people; another schemes and blackmails to get inheritances.  One character catalogs the infirmities of everyone around him for the sake of "research" that's really busywork; another does it to reassure himself that he is "winning" at aging.  Towards the end of the book one woman, astuter than the others, makes the observation that "[a] good death ... doesn't reside in the dignity of bearing but in the disposition of the soul."  This is a point that is often ignored when we discuss end-of-life issues because we are so focused on getting rid of suffering and in "dying with dignity." But some suffering cannot be avoided no matter how hard we try.  And dignity doesn't lie in how able-bodied or sound-of-mind we are, but in our character.

For the most part, the characters in Spark's novel don't quite grasp that. That doesn't make them contemptible, though, just human.  Just like the rest of us.