The Secret History - Blog Posts
Camilla Macaulay
« She was still a girl, a slight lovely girl who lay in bed and ate chocolates, a girl whose hair smelt like hyacinth and whose scarves fluttered jauntily in the breeze. But strange and marvellous as she was, a wisp of silk in a forest of black wool, she was not the fragile creature one would have her seem. »
A moi, l’histoire d’une de mes folies
J.R. Papen
Henry ‘I prefer to think of it as a redistribution of matter’ Winter.
In this house we acknowledge that characters can be morally questionable (!) yet fascinating and sympathetic.
Sometimes when I’m listening to curated playlists I imagine complex edits of a character or events of a story to match the music, transitions and all… usually books that have no digital media (films).
I love the smiths but how could a man ever know how joan of arc felt
if I had a nickel for every time politicians were thrown out the window in Prague I'd have three nickels. which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened three times???
writing monstrosities in my diary but it's okay because it's in latin and I'm using a glitter gel pen
am i a person or am i just a bunch of quotes from the secret history glued together?
i'm still not sure how i feel about any of tsh characters because all this time Julian was manipulating the greek class, the og class was manipulating Richard and he was manipulating us, the readers, so can we believe anything that was said in this book anymore?
do it for the morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs
do you ever think about how Richard talked about Camilla and the only thing that comes to your mind afterwards is that sound from tiktok that goes like "you're beautiful" "thank you. but what else?" "what else?" BECAUSE I DO. I FUCKING DO THATS LITERALLY THE ONLY THING HE EVER SAID ABOUT HER AND THEN HE ASKS HER TO MARRY HIM??? BE SO FR RN— AND HE SAYS HE FEELS LIKE ORPHEUS SAYING GOODBYE TO HER FIR THE VERY LAST TIME— LIKE DONT YOU EVEN DARE TO DO MY MAN ORPHEUS DIRTY LIKE THAT YOU NEVER LOVED HER IM SO CRAZY ABOUT THAT AND WHY LIKE WHY AND HOW HAVE WE ALL FORGOTTEN ABOUT WHEN HE LITERALLY SAID HE WANTS TO RAPE HER OR WHEN HE SAID HE LIKES TO SEE HER SUFFER SEVERAL TIMES LIKE— OMG IM LITERALLY GOING CRAZY LIKE WHY IS NOONE TALKING ABOUT HIM LIKE, HE REALLY IS JUST A MAN IN THIS ESSAY I WILL—
it's getting colder again where i live and the only thing i can think about whenever i leave the house is how tf had Richard survived A WHOLE WINTER in that warehouse like bffr he's so much stronger than me, i feel like a dying victorian child the moment i step outside when it's like -2°C😭😭 like i need the snow in the mountains to melt asap!!!
"listening to music in your target language is the best way to learn it" they said "it'll be fun" they said but now i'm listening to smells like teen spirit in classical latin with weird instrumentals in the background.
i'm currently reading the secret history and i find it really interesting how Richard will keep talking about Charles or Francis or (mainly) Henry for PAGES and then add one line about how pretty Camilla is and how he's so very in love with her. like be so fr rn— who are you trying to convince you're straight because you're definitely not convincing me
i finally got the secret history and i was scanning through it and can someone pls tell me why is each chapter like at least 50 pages??? im one of those ppl that can read ten chapters 5pages each in an hour but will be fighting one 50 pages long chapter for like a week😭😭
every time i have to write an essay for school i imagine i'm a rich old money boy in a private school going insane and that's all that keeps me going atp
Richard Papen is so damn real not because he was on drugs, not because he was an introverted weirdo. it's because he took one look at Francis Abernathy and decided to derail his entire life.
GOOD GOD, THAT'S SO ACCURATE
If the Secret History was set nowadays, Bunny would annoy everyone with his duolingo lessons, Henry would physically get sick at the mention of any e-reader, Camilla would be a Lana del rey girly, Richard would listen to "this is me trying" while having insomnia, Charles would be a filmbro and judge anyone who hasn't seen Interstellar and Francis would have a crush on hot priest from Fleabag
girls don’t want boys. girls want to know what henry whispered to camilla.
when your card declines in therapy so they make you read the letter francis wrote to richard
Has anyone encountered the phenomenon of people pretending to read?
I was chatting with a girl and we were speaking about Kafka. She claimed to really love his work and even that she visited his residence in Prague, yet when I asked what she read she said she hadn't read his stories yet... Is that common?
Stay yourself, stay curious
I'm currently filling an admission to a VERY prestigious religious - studies program, and I was requested to write about a piece of media which influenced me as a person.
Fools just gave me free rein to infodump on TSH
Stay yourself, stay curious
An aspect I personally really like in Tartt's writing style is how she manipulates the readers. How a reader reads TSH is similar to how an audience acts in a magic show - we know it's a bluff. We know there is a trick here, an angle, some would say a lie, but we disregard it for the more comfortable "truth" - the coin had to appear behind my ear mystically... Right?
Richard demonstrated multiple times how good of a liar he is. He managed to steal money for a car he didn't own, no one (apart from arguably Henry) from the group noticed his middle class background throughout the book, and multiple times the way he tells the readers the timeline of events they don't add - up. Somehow as a fandom we accept this fact when it comes to the mountain lion for example, but rarely when it comes to Bunny.
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Richard is (obviously) still very much infatuated with the picturesque, so it is no surprise that when he 'writes' (in cannon) TSH he wants to make his beloved Greek group seem desirable.
It's not very desirable to kill an annoying classmate.
On the other hand, if he can make Bunny out to be this obnoxious, self centered, racist twat who sucks money out of his tragically beautiful friends and isn't even gifted academically... Well, that's way more understandable.
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Bunny was torn apart from the bacchanal. On the one hand his friends seem to be murderers. His best friend in the entire world cold heatedly took the life of a farmer. On the other hand they are his friends. As a result of this back and forth bunny goes insane. He is frantically talking about the murder in the news to try and get some answers from his friends who leave him in the dark constantly, he tries to distract himself with the second trip with Henry. He is on the brink of insanity until finally he cracks. And he writes Julian the letter.
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Do I believe bunny was racist, homophobic, sexist, and overall an unpleasant person? Yes. Do I believe Richard exaggerated there traits to make Bunny out a worse person and get sympathy from the readers, while disregarding Bunny's mental state? Absolutely.
Stay yourself, stay curious.
not to be a henry winter apologist but every time i reread the book i can’t help but feel like bunny deserved it
like he somehow managed to hit the trifecta of being a homophobe, a racist and an asshole
I finished the secret story I can't stop thinking about how much they manipulated richard and how I as the reader was manipulated as well
unlike richard from the beginning I was finding them all a bunch of prentensious losers I didn't fall for the aesthetic and to me judy was the only nice person. When they talk about the fight between camila and her I was 100% sure camila and the others were in the wrong.
And in the first half even when they are including richard he is still an outsider and he can kind of feel something was a bit off. So I was enjoying reading them all at francis' and I was liking the characters more but I still find them suspicious, because Richard is showing us they are hiding something. (At the time I was theorizing they were planning to sacrifice richard in some ritual and I was thinking they would eventually change their minds and they decide to kill bunny lmao)
I think there were two turning points for richard that made him decided to be so involved. And those turning points have an effect on us readers as well. The first one was when Henry saved him and taked care of him. After that it seems like Richard starts to worship him. He already admired him before, but he started putting him on a pedestal
And the second is when he is on francis's house and Henry tells him about the murder. Henry was so smart, the way he keeps saying richard figured out and he knew he would do it. And then he's complaining that bunny always ask for money and he uses the example that richard would rather die than ask for help. It's like he and Francis are showing him that bunny sucks and how they view him differently and they respect him. Both Richard and Bunny didn't have money, but Richard had values. That's what it seems like they are saying without saying. Also them saying bunny doesn't like richard? At the time I believe but I have my doubts about that. Richard and Bunny actually seemed to spend a lot of time together, he visited Richard's room a lot, they went for walks together. They both also seemed to be the only ones who weren't completely isolated from the rest.
And this happens right after they ignored him for a week and he was alone and desperate. Suddenly they're showing they like him, respect him and trust him. Then in the other day all 4 take richard for a dinner, he's now one of them and bunny isn't.
And what is great is that since we're on richard's head we get manipulated as well. You feel upset when they ignore him and you like when they show they care.
And suddenly Henry is asking hundreds of favors to Richard and Richard is doing without questioning and I'm not questioning either because it feels almost right.
And it's only when things start to go unhinged I think especially after Bunny's burial that he starts to understand things. In Bunny's house he was still doing everything for Henry, stoling pills from him. Francis and Charles weren't putting any effort to help Henry, it was Richard and Camila.
But after the burial, Henry is different, distant. We start to realize little by little he does not care. More than doesn't care, it seems like hew views richard as a possible scaping goat. And I think this is what allows Richard to start questioning his orders and being less blind about him. Then he also finds out about Henry and Camila and he feels 'betrayed'. I think he felt left out, not only by camila but also by henry. In fact, I think Henry's attention was the main thing.
We start to realize he was never part of the group, they used him. With Henry was clear, with the twina it was after that talk with Francis that things starts to get clear. I always felt the twins were the most distant. Richard was always saying he liked them the most and they were nice to him. But it always gave me the impression it was very superficial. He didn't really knew them.
I think the only real relationship he ends up having in the group is francis, because eveyone was losing their minds and being weird and they were the ones that were "left". They were also losing, but they still felt more """normal""". So I think that kinds of ends up uniting them.
Has anyone read IWWV ? I've been considering reading it but I've heard it's a bad rip off of TSH... Answers will be appreciated.
(spoilers for TSH)
A certain aspect of the secret history I think about to this day is how accurate it is when it comes to public outrage, especially for it's time. When I am with others and they turn on the TV to watch television (personally, I avoid the news.) I am horrified by the tragedies that are portrayed.
But only for a few seconds.
The horrible events displayed on the screen are cocaine - their impact is strong, yet short lived. Swiftly the journalist moves on to the next topic, feeding me media until I puke.
When I watch the news, I think about the Hampden college students. I think about how much they cared, and how it wasn't enough.
Stay yourself, stay curious
Help needed for a novel concept.
I have been toying with the idea of writing a novel, mainly for my own enjoyment and feeling of accomplishment, but I am quite worried it'll turn out too similar to TSH ... I would like to tackle themes of obsession with image and social prestige, but I've seen many works of fiction you can tell were influenced a bit too much by Tartt's work.. if anyone has any tips to help prevent this affect, that'll be appreciated.
An Introduction
Hello, this is sort of a basic introduction of me, and what this blog will upload. Obviously I will branch out further with time, as I change as a person, yet currently I would like to grab the right blogger's attention -
I am pearl, I am a very curious academic person and always open to learning new things. I want to start uploading on Tumblr to discuss my Interests with like minded people - I don't have many friends in my day to day life, and even fewer that I share my academic Interests with, so I'd be thrilled for people to interact with my blog.
She / Her | Queer | Marxist | Academic
Interests;
Literature; More specifically, Classics and Gothic. I find stories that examine the human condition to be very interesting! If you have suggestions for novels, I encourage you to leave me some.
Art; I sketch almost daily. I love the romantic period and Oil paintings in general..
Tv; I like philosophical movies and ones about girlhood. Also dark academia.
Favorites;
Artist; Lana del Rey
Novel; The Secret History
Movie; Heathers (1989)
I intend to upload my daily observations, opinions of Novels and other media, Communist content, and thoughts about my Academic interests - Classical literature and the Torah. This'll be my corner and if you'd like, you're welcome to stay.
Stay yourself, stay curious
