Laurie answers “Does anyone else but me think that the...”

Terry ~ Huntress of Erudition asked this question about The Secret History:

Does anyone else but me think that the Classics professor was involved with the murders?

This answer contains spoilers… (view spoiler)[Echoing the comments from Siddharth, I am still trying to understand what Henry meant when he said of Julian "He knew what we were trying to do. And approved. The day after it happened, we drove out to his house in the country. Told him what happened. He was delighted." Then Richard says "You told him everything?" and Henry replies "Well, I saw no point in worrying him, if that's what you mean." I was hoping further reading would make it clear what Julian knew and what he approved of. Maybe he approved of them trying and succeeding in re-creating the "bacchanal" experience--but was killing someone an inherent part of that or was that just what happened to be their group's outcome of totally losing control in the frenzy? I was not sure at all what Henry meant by saying there was "no point in worrying" Julian and I wished Richard had expounded on that thought more. Either Henry told Julian they succeeded in the bacchanal and left out the killing part, or Henry told him everything since he knew it would be in the paper and on the news and Julian would hear about it, put two and two together, so they told him it was them so as not to "worry" him. Meaning Julian did know about the man being killed and still approved of it all.

I didn't think he had anything to do with Bunny's murder--except for the lunch Julian had with Richard where he served mushrooms. With Henry and Julian being so close, I could see Henry telling Julian about the plan to poison him with the mushrooms and wanting Julian to help create the backstory of Henry regularly gathering them and everyone eating them. To me, it just seemed too coincidental that Julian specifically talks about the mushrooms coming from Henry. So one could "maybe" think Julian might have known about Henry's first plan.

BUT after all of that, Julian's reaction to Bunny's letter (thinking it was fake) was even more confusing because if he knew about the random man's murder, then why would he have thought the entire letter was fake (i.e. that Henry was trying to kill Bunny)? If Henry told him about the first murder, then Julian would have known right off the bat the letter was likely real (since no one else would have known other than their tight group). Which circles me back to concluding that Julian did not know or participate in either murder. So to sum up, I have no idea what Julian knew but his behavior of fleeing certainly made it seem like he wanted nothing to do with them any more and he had decided that his teaching of classics ideals such as this "bacchanal" was no longer something he could continue "teaching" about in good conscience if murder(s) was the outcome. (hide spoiler)]

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The Secret History

by Donna Tartt

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