Tsh - Blog Posts

When people call The Secret History a murder mystery it makes me want to commit a redistribution of matter.

When people call The Secret History a murder mystery it makes me want to commit a redistribution of matter.

The Secret History Mini-Rant

I just finished 'The Secret History' by Donna Tartt, and wow. It's really good. I thought it would be a bit overhyped but no, it really is that good--to me, at least--I love how each character is so human. A prime example being Julian. [SPOILERS] When he left after he found out what they had done...it was so cowardly, so disgusting...and so *him*. I don't know, overall, amazing characters, amazing plot...and I still can't help but romanticize it at times. We never learn I guess...

Congrats to me for my first long post/rant.

Az

Does such a thing as 'the fatal flow' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all cost.

The secret history, Donna Tartt

POV: you're in the dps fandom and need to be comforted 🤍💡🎬💭

I really love all of these videos, especially the one with rsl reading, it helps me to fall asleep <3

If your favourite character from The Secret History is Charles Macaulay please stay the hell away from me

It’s so inconvenient for me that spring is soon but I have just reentered my dark academia mindset 

no.2 the fivesome??

ok i can't and won't explain why it took me so long to write another one but i'm back !!

So... the whole five way thing that the gang had was. a lot. honestly reading was fine until you realised that everyone had slept with each other at some point other than richard and he was on his was there with francis anyways. my thoughts on this are all over the place but i just. i need it in plain english.

So Richard was in love with Camilla, and attracted to Henry and Charles, and almost slept with Francis. Camilla was in love with Henry, who loved her back. Charles and Camilla slept together and Charles was an abusive dickwad to her. He was probably in love with Camilla too. Francis and charles slept together on occasion and Francis was in love with Charles. I feel like there's more but. whatever.

wow. my thoughts are why was everyone so horny. literally you could've slept with Anyone Else. but nooooo we study ancient greek we're too good for everyone else. they're not built different they're built wrong. they took groupcest to another level.

i mean like,,, they were all college students so you can't judge them too hard because they were all on mood altering substances 99% of the time, so at that point they probably didn't have many brain cells left. Honestly richard shouldve just bit the bullet and gotten with Francis or something to put them both out of their collective miseries.

i'm embarrassed for them tbh. and just to point out that Richard being bi asf is a genuine (problem?) thing that female writers do with unreliable male narrators who are supposed to be straight. which i find like. so funny because it goes totally over my head the first time i read books, because im bisexual too so it's normal to me. but then going back and realising its some cishet white guy narrating and its a little suspicious?

obvious it's usually because the author is a cishet white woman who projects her attraction to men onto her characters. another notable example of this is Harry Potter. so this isn't like an isolated incident it's a thing that happens. the same way that men can tend to write women 2-dimensional, women tend to write as men bisexual. on accident? it's all very interesting to me.

no.1: dickieboy oldman

First impressions: he's nothing like me. he's a weird narrator, unreliable and all this account take on this dreamlike take of what happened. i mean seriously, his account of everything is almost a decade after the events and it's idealised and confusing, chock full of timeskips.

But. he's an incredibly written unreliable narrator. he leaves out key details, (like the fact he was drunk off his ass half the time) (or on drugs) and just really. he lets his own bias get in the way of everything. he still loves bunny and charles (charles somewhat less because he actually hurt someone he "cared" about) because he's a white man from california in the eighties. he doesn't care that they're but abusive hateful people because their prejudices don't actively hurt him. even though they harmed his friends.

and furthermore he kind of indulges in the same prejudices. he feels violent urges towards camilla (though it was really a passing remark and he doesnt act on them as charles does) and his internalised homophobia inhibits his relationship with francis whenever he's confronted with francis' gayness all over again. (although francis was flirting with him the entire time. so that may be a moot point.) so yeah. he's definitely a narrator alright.

the way he interacts with people is interesting because he feels the urge to lie about. well. everything to do with his past. and so he doesn't really HAVE a relationship with people until they realise he's penniless. which they notice pretty quickly. (even bunny does) (ie making fun of his offbrand ties etc etc) as the people around him spend mroe time with him and realise that Richard Papen is actually poor, they start treating him like a person.

Richard has a very distinct and interesting way of interacting with his friends individually. he builds up a distinct way to build rapport with each of them. (reassuring charles that he is liked, listening to francis and taking him to the doctors etc) because not only does he have a deep seated need to be like, BUT he wants these people to stick with him for life. he wants them to want him.

but onto the reason i wrote this. hes fuckin gay. the way he describes men is just out of this world. henry is described like he's a god. francis is beautiful and untouchable. charles is an all american dream. and camilla. is constantly described as boyish and looking exactly like charles. which means he's attracted to charles by proxy. he literally kisses francis back in the kitchen. he would've got on his knees for henry had he the chance. he was literally a charles apologist. he was so repressed it hurts my heart. he just didn't like women the way he described men. he wanted to grow old with francis in the countryside. camilla was the closest he was going to get to a man.

he's toeing the line between bicon and gay bastard but god does he walk it hard. he does it for us. i love and hate his junkie ass.

I just need to. rant/infodump on the intricacies of the characters abd relationships in the secret history. not only because they're so well written and interesting. but because they're fucking funny.

the greek squad be like

the secret history by donna tartt (1992)

so my mom finally finished reading the secret history and the first thing she said was «they're all such idiots»

couldn't agree more, mom

dropping out of university is ok. joining some weird group to study greek is ok. taking part in a bacchanal is ok. accidentally killing a random farmer is ok. planning to run away to uruguay is ok. murdering one of your friends is ok. do whatever u need to do to cope.

* rereading the secret history and kinda thinking about calling my cat francis *

[oh how fast the evening passes

cleaning up the champagne glasses]

 “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter."

Henry Winter, The Secret History.

“Forgive me, for all the things I did but mostly for the ones I did not.“

Francis Abernathy, The Secret History.

Also similar to this, but does anyone have any reading recs on isolation, loneliness and paranoia that stems from it? Anything similar to how isolation breeds a rather burdening imagination, paranoia, further distance. Fiction, non fiction, articles, essays, poems; I'll take anything

I was listening to the audiobook of The Secret History and realised something: Lafourge says that Richard would be isolated from everyone from the campus once he joins Julian's class, which Richard dismisses. Despite him going to college parties and being acquaintances with Judy, he truly has no one but the classics group. This becomes incredibly evident in the winter he spends in Hampden, having no one to go to for shelter—the result of him choosing to be with the greek class. His isolation takes form of the cold he endured during that time because there is no one he can go to. In the end, it is Henry who saves him, pulling him back into the caverns of the group, and his alienation.

I was listening to the audiobook of The Secret History and realised something: Lafourge says that Richard would be isolated from everyone from the campus once he joins Julian's class, which Richard dismisses. Despite him going to college parties and being acquaintances with Judy, he truly has no one but the classics group. This becomes incredibly evident in the winter he spends in Hampden, having no one to go to for shelter—the result of him choosing to be with the greek class. His isolation takes form of the cold he endured during that time because there is no one he can go to. In the end, it is Henry who saves him, pulling him back into the caverns of the group, and his alienation.

One of the funniest (and unmentioned on tumblr) interactions in TSH is when Richard bumps into Dr Roland who talks about his imaginary car

‘I was uncertain if this referred to Bud or to a literal blue jay or if, perhaps, we were heading into the territory of senile dementia’

You have been vetoed

*pushes you off a ravine*

New drinking game: take a shot whenever Henry bites his lip in TSH

Tahini Al-Jamil saying ‘I had never felt quite so seen as when she saw me’ sounds like something straight out of a dark academia novel, where the protagonist is describing their ‘friend’ who they’re definitely NOT in love with

More of my playlists :)

To Live Forever- a TSH playlist (songs I think fit) 

 matchbox cars- for driving all around Tokyo with friends (futuristic and retro at the same time) 

coming of age- if I made a teen show, this would be the soundtrack

House Arrest- for cleaning the house with a robot version of you

summer- for wasting your days with your small group of friends

mockingbirds- songs I’d listen to when I fake my death

clementines- for laying on your bed, feeling full and complete 

sunflowers- based on that Holly Warburton painting  

Character quirks based off people I know II

- obsessed with making films even as a kid 

- has a weird red stain on her jumper that doesn’t seem to ever go away 

- has lost her viola about three times in a year  

- buys things to impress people (eg. fountain pen, notebook) 

- used to experience slight auditory hallucinations 

- wrote poems about raspberries being metaphors 

- suffers from burnout a lot 

- ‘my cutoff date is 28. I either die committing art theft or assassination or I don’t die at all.’ 

- despises the word soliloquy 

- continuously says the word soliloquy 

- has an (almost finished) KYD wall 

- constantly working on something 

-  brings board games to whatever house she goes to

- incredibly happy when gifted world maps 

- someone once called her dumb and now her life goal is to become better than them in every aspect 

- has leverage on anyone about everything 

- constantly treats everything as a (subtle) competition 

- *draws six lines on leg* “look I’m a guitar”

- constantly comes up with strange pick up lines 

- wants to ‘pull a Henry’ every time she slightly fails at something 

- has a specific due date for crying and it’s a friend’s birthday 

- named all the statues they could find in a small town 

- wore a plague doctor mask to a party 

- has a real knack for wrapping presents 

- her gift for her Valentine was a cheesy heart necklace and a poem based on TSH quotes

- still wanted to be in the rain, so put coats over each other and huddled together 

- her entire personality is ‘JAMES IS ALIVE.’ 

Concept idea

most dark academia books and film have one person is obsessed with an enigmatic society or group of people/friends. What about the reverse?

A group of friends that become obsessed with one ‘perfect’ person; a loner of sorts, yet are mutually respected by everyone and don’t seem the need to make friends. Yet the group forces themselves onto that person, hungry to finding out more and essentially almost becoming like them. So they obviously get lured in by a single, mysterious person that could shatter them in a second.