Ninth House

“The bite had left a visible curve that she knew would heal badly, if it healed at all. Her map had been changed. Her coastline altered.” 

Comparing Alex’s injury to a change on a map or to a coastline implies a profound alteration, more so than a mere scar would suggest. Clearly, the bite—the culmination of the violent events over the prior several months—has changed her in profound ways. 

“During the day its panels glowed amber, a burnished golden hive, less a library than a temple. At night it just looked like a tomb.” 

Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, designed by prominent architect Robert Bunshaft in the early 1960s, has become one of the university’s cornerstones because of its unique architecture and the wealth of its collection. The analogy to a hive alludes both to the library’s unique design and to the idea that the scholars swarming it resemble bees. A library, particularly a special one like the Beinecke, is often seen as a temple of knowledge; comparing it to a tomb foreshadows the fact that knowledge in the novel is often associated with death and the other world. 

“Now she cut through Commons, beneath the rotunda where the names of the war dead were carved deep into the marble, and stone figures stood vigil—Peace, Devotion, Memory, and finally Courage, who wore a helmet and shield and little else and had always looked to Alex more like a stripper than a mourner.”

To Alex’s practical and cynical outlook, much of the pomp associated with the university is pretentious and meaningless—here, she sees the ostensibly dignified statues as strippers. Extending this comparison to all the other aspects of college life, including the secret societies, results in a deflation of their self-perceived importance. 

“She had the eerie sense that they were dreaming her, a girl in a dark coat who would disappear when they woke.” 

Alex feels a sense of displacement and alienation. She is underprepared for Yale, which compounds her permanent sense of isolation caused by her ability to see ghosts. In her imagination, Alex experiences dissociation from her surroundings and identifies more with the ghosts than with the other students on campus.  

“‘It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed’, he’d quoted. Then he’d shrugged. ‘Their bank balances say yes.’” 

When Alex questions him about the Skull and Bone practice of using mentally challenged or unwell people for prognostication, Darlington implies that prognostications tend to be more accurate when the person used for the vivisection is mentally unstable, a practice that calls to mind medieval beliefs that mental ill individuals were closer to God. His words underscore the jarring juxtaposition between the poetic and the mundane that characterizes the use of magic in the book. 

“The greatest gift Lethe had given Alex was not the full ride to Yale, the new start that had scrubbed her past clean like a chemical burn. It was the knowledge, the certainty, that the things she saw were real and always had been. But she’d lived too long wondering if she was crazy to stop now.” 

Alex’s new life is like a chemical burn: A clean slate that comes from pain and suffering. This passage echoes the reference to the bite in the Prologue: Alex externalizes the events in her life into violent transformations to her body.    

“‘I don’t care what you believe’, he’s said. ‘The working man believes in God and expects us to do the same […]’.” 

This is one of the rare mentions of Christian practices in the book. Darlington’s grandfather instills in him respect for religion, not because of true faith, but because of appearances. The wealthy use the optics of going to church and praying to control the poor. 

“The older you get, the harder it is to endure that contact. So each year, the societies replenish the supply with a new tap, a new delegation. Magic is quite literally a dying art […].” 

This passage explains why privileged, immature, and irresponsible teenagers get to learn the secrets of important and potentially dangerous magical rituals. Magic is intrinsically connected to death, so the only way to counteract that is through a continuous supply of youth. The students who join the societies become commodities—valuable for their energy, but ultimately disposable. 

“‘The mixture is toxic and the process incredibly painful. But we do it.  

Again and again. For a glimpse behind the Veil.’

‘I get it,’ said Alex. ‘I’ve met users before.’

It isn’t like that, he wanted to protest. But maybe it was.” 

Darlington explains why Lethe members keep taking the painful elixir that allows them to see Greys. For him, the supernatural is so lofty and desirable that any physical suffering is worth it. However, Alex’s much more practical and, often, crude worldview constantly challenges his assumptions. She immediately sees that the members’ dependence on chemical substances parallels that of drug addicts: Both are ultimately lethal. 

“Darlington was a good talker, but he was happiest when no one was speaking to him, when he didn’t have to perform the ritual of himself and he could simply be left to watch others.” 

This passage gives us a glimpse into Darlington’s psyche. Clearly, there is a difference between his outer appearance and his inner self. To outsiders, he seems like a successful and attractive young man. However, Darlington’s behavior is often an act. He tries to project the image of who he thinks he should be—someone his grandfather would have approved of. 

“Darlington wasn’t sure what he’d expected. A dead highwayman lurking romantically at the window? A banshee roaming the banks of the Los Angeles River like La Llorona? There was something so ordinary and awful about her story. About her.” 

Darlington’s overly romanticized view of the supernatural shatters when he learns about Alex’s experiences. His ability to empathize does not allow him to continue indulging his imagination with romantic ideas when he sees with the harsh, unforgivable reality of Alex’s life. This is the moment when the two protagonists’ experiences clash and, eventually, begin merging.  

“Beinecke was Darlington’s temple, then the dining hall was where Alex worshipped daily. At the squat in Van Nuys, they’d lived on Taco Bell and Subway when they were flush, cereal—sometimes dry, sometimes soaked in soda if she got desperate—when they were broke. She’d steal a bag of hot dog buns whenever they were invited to barbecues at Eitan’s place so they had something to put peanut butter on, and once she’d tried to eat Loki’s dry kibble, but her teeth couldn’t manage it.” 

The differences in Darlington and Alex’s upbringings have long-lasting effects. Darlington also suffered before coming to Yale, but for his fear of a lack of a future is mitigated by a thirst for knowledge. In Alex’s case, the deprivations and insecurity she has gone through affect her physical survival. Her concerns are more immediate, such as having enough food. Both young people search for ways to cope with their traumas and grief. 

“The purest Marxists are always men. Calamity comes too easily to women. Our lives can come apart in a single gesture, a rogue wave. And money? Money is the rock we cling to when the current would seize us.” 

Professor Belbalm’s words comment on the inherent sexism of most 19th- and 20th-century political ideologies. Even Marxism, which promotes social equality, is blind to gendered injustices. The professor recognizes that women, historically, have had to be more practical and pragmatic than their male counterparts who could theorize whatever ideas they wished without serious repercussions. 

“Mira loved art and truth and freedom. She didn’t want to be a part of the machine. But the machine didn’t care. The machine went on grinding and catching her up in its gears.” 

Alex’s mother is a modern-day hippy who wants her daughter to live in a beautiful and free world, not oppressed by the system. However, her attitude is somewhat counterproductive: Living on her own terms does not change or subvert the unjust or malfunctioning “machine” of the economy and the state institutions. Refusing to engage with the system does not make Mira freer, but it does make life more difficult. 

“This was what Alex wanted, the perfect peace of this office, the gentle light through the windows, the mint and basil and marjoram growing in lacy clusters.” 

While talking with Belbalm about the future, Alex comes to the realization that her goal in life is peace and quiet. After spending her formative years in a turbulent and violent way, the young woman dreams of the exact opposite—normality. 

“Black Elm was an old dream, its romantic towers raised by a fortune made on the soles of vulcanized rubber boots.”

Darlington’s mansion embodies his personality. It represents Daniel’s grandfather and his worldview and lifestyle, as well as the idea of family. However, the house is also a remnant of a different age and is no longer relevant to the present, the same way the rubber boot factory became obsolete after the advancement of science and technology. The mansion’s name and “romantic” towers are reminiscent of fairy tales and something magical. For Darlington, reality brings no joy or purpose, and the house represents the things he is looking for: meaning, connections, and the supernatural. 

“He was too old to believe in magic, but he needed to believe that there was something more to the world than living and dying. So he called his need an interest in the occult, the arcane, sacred objects.” 

This quote explains Darlington’s love of the supernatural. For him, ghosts and other non-human entities embody a deeper meaning, substituting religion. 

“He knew what he was attempting was dangerous. But he’d run out of things to believe in. Magic was all he had left. He was a boy on an adventure, not a boy swallowing poison.” 

Darlington almost dies attempting to enhance his senses. He is aware of the danger, but, out of desperation and hopelessness, decides to see his actions not as a suicide attempt, but as an adventure. Darlington is willing to go to enormous lengths to find deeper meaning in his life. He is the opposite of Alex—for him, a normal uneventful life is synonymous with spiritual and intellectual death. 

“At night, she thought of Darlington’s perfect face, of the feel of his body bracketing hers in the sleep-warmed sheets of his narrow bed.” 

In a vulnerable moment, Alex’s attraction to Darlington surfaces. At the beginning of the novel, she is too afraid to let in someone, so she keeps him at arms’ reach through humor and cynical remarks. However, gradually, as she works through the trauma of losing Hellie and being used by Len, and as she learns more about Darlington, Alex becomes more aware of her feelings. 

“Daisy. She was exquisite, her face precise and lovely, her hair in curls that brushed the collar of her high-necked dress, her soft white hands buried in a fox-fur muff. She was the most beautiful woman in New Haven, maybe Connecticut, and she was his. Hers. Mine.” 

The Bridegroom’s feelings towards Daisy show him to be a typical 19th-century man, confusing love with a selfish desire to claim her. He is attracted to Daisy for her physical beauty and for the prestige marrying her would bring him. Bertram does not really know Daisy, unable to recognize his fiancée’s personality in the body of Professor Belbalm, which speaks to the superficiality of his feelings. 

“Alex couldn’t quite untangle the wave of love and anger that rushed through her. Her mother believed in faeries and angels and crystal visions, but what would she make of real magic? Could she grasp the ugly truth of it all? That magic wasn’t something gilded and benign, just another commodity that only some people could afford?” 

“They would ingest a little bit of arsenic every day. It made their skin clear and their eyes bright and they felt wonderful. And all the while they were just drinking poison.” 

Mira’s description of Alex’s father implies that he was not a good person, making Mira feel temporary pleasure, but treating her badly or betraying her in some way. A similar parallel can be drawn with Alex’s own relationship with Len. 

“Guys like this never noticed the help. Alex remembered gazing through the windows of North’s office, seeing Gladys strolling through the dogwoods in her white bonnet.” 

Someone privileged and ambitious like Bertram has no empathy for people who are not useful to him. He is not malicious or evil, but his casual dismissal of people from the lower social classes, especially women, reveals the problem with privilege. Even though Bertram has been dead for 150 years, in some ways, he resembles Dean Sandow and all the other men at Yale who are willing to sacrifice “the help”—young women with no connections or money.