{"id":247,"date":"2004-08-19T21:37:00","date_gmt":"2004-08-19T21:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=247"},"modified":"2010-08-25T14:24:16","modified_gmt":"2010-08-25T20:24:16","slug":"247","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=247","title":{"rendered":"Another Pagan Classic"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been re-reading Donna Tartt’s<\/a> The Secret History<\/em>, the leading entry in the literary genre of “when Classics majors go bad.”<\/p>\n

It was first published in 1992, and I did my part for her royalty payments by sending at least three hardcover copies as Christmas presents in 1993. Sales were good, Tartt’s reputation soared, and some readers apparently worshipped at her feet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now I think it ought to be declared one of those unintentional Pagan classics like the film The Wicker Man<\/em><\/a>. (The Fortean Times<\/em> interview with director Robin Hardy is here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

The Wicker Man’s<\/em> appeal<\/a> lay in its portrayal of a fictional yet contemporary Pagan society, rather than its plot. The Secret History<\/em> is a different sort of drug: it whispers of power and liberation in a seductive Romantic way, filtered through the mind of a 4th-century C.E. Hellenistic intellectual, the kind who would have referred to Christians as “atheists.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been re-reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, the leading entry in the literary genre of “when Classics majors go bad.” It was first published in 1992, and I did my part for her royalty payments by sending at least three hardcover copies as Christmas presents in 1993. Sales were good, Tartt’s reputation soared, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,12],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-paganism","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-247","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4494,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4494","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":0},"title":"“The Wicker Tree” and “The Wicker Man”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't count on me for breaking pop-culture news. That Pagan classic film The Wicker Man was released in 1973, but I did not see it until the mid-1980s. I always say that I missed the 1980s in pop-culture terms. Part of that was due to graduate school and a general\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10725,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10725","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":1},"title":"Caroline Tully on Pagan Art and Fashion","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Caroline Tully is an Australian scholar of Classics, archaeology, and esotericism with a background in fine arts: I am an Honorary Fellow in the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. I have a Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art from Monash University, Graduate and Postgraduate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9556,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9556","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":2},"title":"“A Completely Alien Society”: The Making of “The Wicker Man”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 30, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The Wicker Man, made in 1973 and starring Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, Edward Woodward as Sergeant Howie of the West Highland Police, and Britt Ekland as Willow, the Aphrodite Pandemos of Summerisle, is remembered simultaneously as \"the best British horror film ever\" and one of the favorite movies of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2421,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2421","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":3},"title":"The Wicker Conspiracy","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 7, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Everyone's favorite Pagan-themed movie of the 1970s turns up on a list of \"15 conspiracy movies that don't fall apart at the end.\" (Via Ann Althouse.)","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11709,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11709","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":4},"title":"Witchcraft: You’re Not Making It Strange Enough","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The final article in the \"Paganism, art, and fashion\" issue of The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies argues that books and television series based on historical witchcraft make it too safe and fail to portray \"the genuine strangeness of witches and magic users in all periods and cultures.\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"history\"","block_context":{"text":"history","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=history"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/discovery2-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1911,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1911","url_meta":{"origin":247,"position":5},"title":"The Horror! The Horror!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"At The Witching Hour, Peg surveys some lists of best Halloween films. For pagan-themed horror films, or those including witches, at any rate, you can't beat The Wicker Man, The Craft, Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, 1998), The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973), Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), The Devil Rides Out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1782,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/1782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}