This novel begins with an Author’s Note:
“The societies of Yale University and their prestigious alumni are very real, but the characters and events described in these pages are all the product of the author’s imagination, and as far as I know, no one has ever used magic to fix an election.”
It is honest and assertive and even a little cute at the end. But it is also true that a writer doesn’t commit to the long, arduous, sometimes heartbreaking and inevitably frustrating task of writing a novel based upon a very specific cultural subset unless they intend for the essential truths about that particular cultural subset to manifest themselves accurately regardless of how much fictionalizing has been done. In other words, it would be absurd to the point of venturing on the nonsensical for the author to have written a novel about those people at Yale who take their secret societies seriously without demonstrating the absurdity and nonsensical nature of those people at Yale who take their secret societies seriously. And it is at this point the crux of the matter concerning Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House comes into play.
What this novel sets out to do is accomplish a task that has frustrated many writers of both greater and lesser talent than Bardugo; writing a book readers will find interesting that is populated almost entirely by a cast of characters who are not in the slightest bit interesting. That’s a tall order and, of course, it goes without saying that not every reader will agree that these characters are not interesting. But then again, some people find taking drugs to be the height of interest so why wouldn’t they find a book overrun with characters taking drugs fascinating?
On the other hand, there probably aren’t really all that many people—statistically speaking—who find fascinating all the various inanities of kids who got into Yale because of their names rather than their SAT scores and then devoted a sizable chunk of those years not to study but to engaging in rituals that have to be kept secret behind closed doors because they would far too embarrassing to do in public. And one can make this assumption based on just one thing; the content of Bardugo’s novel.
This is not really the story of those privileged rich kids at Yale who comprise the truly astonishing number of secret societies going on Yale. Had the author wanted to do that, surely there is fodder for a plot to be found. No, this is story about those kids taken to an extreme degree with the introduction of magic. It is Harry Potter Goes to Yale in a way. And yet, at the same time, it is not that at all, but actually is the true story of Yale’s most ridiculous alumni.
After all, in what novel taking place anywhere but Yale would there ever possibly be a character named “Darlington” Arlington who calls himself Virgil to his young female protegee’s Dante who is actually—really, honestly—named Galaxy Stern? That is a set of characters so precious no writer would ever dream of installing them somewhere other than Yale. Well, maybe Harvard, as if there’s a difference.
Bardugo definitely wants readers who have no connection to Yale to believe that her story about it cannot possibly be based on things she actually witnessed or heard tell of because, after all, the story features ghosts and magic and prognostication of the future and drugs called elixirs and characters named Galaxy. Don’t believe it for a second. The culture of Yale where the legacies reside is as far away from normal as Hogwarts and doesn’t need magic to make it so. The author doth protest too much in her prefatory Note. And what other possible explanation other than magic could there be for the 2000 election where the candidate who graduated from Yale won despite getting fewer votes than his opponent?
