camillamacaulay23

[camillamacaulay23]

Taking a little time off. Here’s something to mull over:

Henry Winter in 10 Cigarettes 

Page numbers are from the U.S. edition, April 2004 Vintage Contemporaries paperback.

10. He laid his cigarette back in the ashtray. I stared at it burning. “Will you have some coffee?” (p. 83) (This is the first time Richard sees Henry smoking and he seems gobsmacked by it. Why? Also: Yes, I’d love some coffee.)

9. A figure in a long black overcoat was standing motionless across the room by the windows, hands clasped behind the back; near one of the hands I saw the tiny glow of a cigarette coal. (p. 123) (Donna Tartt really destroyed any resistance I had to this novel when she made Henry apparate like this in the middle of Richard’s frozen nightmare.)

8. When he’d finished he took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket (he smoked Lucky Strikes; whenever I think of him I think of that little red bull’s-eye right over his heart) and offered me one, shaking a couple out of the pack and raising an eyebrow. (p. 158)

7. “But these are fundamentally sex rituals, aren’t they?”…   He leaned over to rest his cigarette in the ashtray. “Of course,” he said agreeably, cool as a priest in his dark suit and ascetic spectacles. “You know that as well as I do.” (p. 168)

6. “You’re not too worried about this, are you?” I said.   Henry drew deeply on the cigarette, exhaled, shook out the match. “No,” he said, looking thoughtfully at the thread of smoke that curled from the burnt end. “I can get us out of it, I think.” (p. 198)

5. “What’s taking them so long? Let me have a cigarette, would you, Francis?”   He had it in his mouth and Francis was lighting it for him when Marion came on the line. “Oh hello, Marion,” he said, exhaling a cloud of smoke and turning his back to us. “I’m glad I caught you. Is Bunny there?”   A slight pause. “Well,” said Henry reaching for the ashtray, “do you know where he is then?” (p. 299) (I love the tidy choreography of this scene: Francis lighting the cigarette, Henry exhaling and turning away, reaching for the ashtray. I think that writing speech and movement together like this isn’t as easy as it might seem. It’s like a movie scene, and it has such a film noir feel to me.)

4. Camilla tried to light a cigarette, but one match and then another went out. Henry took the box from her and struck one himself; it flared up high and strong and she leaned close to it, one hand cupped around the flame and the other resting upon his wrist. (p. 309) (There are a lot of cigarettes in The Secret History. This is the best one.)

3. …Henry sat, motionless, a glass in his hand and the cigarette burning low between his fingers. For a moment his face, pale and watchful as a ghost’s, would be caught in the headlights and then, very gradually, it would slide back into the dark. (p. 408)

2. Henry lit a cigarette. “I’m not going back,” he said.   “Yeah,” Charles said sarcastically. “That’s right. That’ll show him.”   “But Henry,” said Francis, “you’ve got to go.”   He was smoking the cigarette with tight-lipped, resolute drags. “No, I don’t,” he said. (p. 520)

1. “So you’ve come to kill me?” said Henry. He was still holding his cigarette. He was remarkably composed. (p. 533)

[camillamacaulay23]

May in this anthesteria you all bloom with the grace of Bacchos

[camillamacaulay23]

the secret history is like a balckhole. you get sucked into it no matter how hard you try to escape it. i read it once and immediately went for a reread. now im finished and dont know what to do with my life. i just want to read it one more time, and one more time and-

[camillamacaulay23]

I just know that when Richard went to those AA meetings to escape the cold he made up a whole fake persona and backstory. So when he moved in with Henry, all the AA members were just like “Gee I haven’t seen Benjamin McPoovey in a while. Sure hope he and his four pet cats are doing well.”

[camillamacaulay23]

[camillamacaulay23]

“The myths of Dionysos are dominated by an initial fierce resistance to the god, in the same way that we refuse to recognize the wild forces in us until we are overwhelmed by their power.”

[Ariana Stassinopoulos, “The Gods of Greece”, 1950, p. 97]

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Hello everyone, it’s been a couple of but I’m back. Feel free to send me a message or ask any questions you have.

-Camilla

[camillamacaulay23]

Emma Minnie Boyd (Australian, 1858 - 1936): Corner of a drawing-room (1887) (via National Gallery of Victoria)

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They say time heals all wounds, but time, in its relentless march forward, but I never saw much truth in that. The ghosts still linger in the corners, and the magnolias' perfume has turned rancid.

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Blood on Satan’s Claw, 1971.

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The only acceptable way to read The Secret History is as close to the characters as possible.

Which means you have to be either sleep deprived, drunk, over caffeinated or high while reading it.

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me and the bad bitch i pulled by indulging in cannibalism and talking to corpses

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Kiss this body through your arms and bones and sunlight and sweat

~Caelum

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Bunny: so what do we have for lunch....

Henry:.....wine

Bunny: I meant something we can eat.

Charles: which drug do you like? I don't have much on me but we can buy some.

Bunny: that's not what a human should have for lunch

Franics: I do the coffee, cigarettes and Maraschino Cherries diet, you wanna try?

Bunny: what the....

Camilla: we could have had some lamb chops but we don't have it anymore.

Bunny: why?

Camilla: we had to sacrifice the lamb during a ritual and bathe in its blood

Bunny: you know what I would rather be dead by eating grilled cheese sandwich and milkshake than hang out with you weirdos anymore

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I begin to sing of ivy-crowned Dionysus, the loud-crying god, splendid son of Zeus and glorious Semele. The rich-haired Nymphs received him in their bosoms from the lord his father and fostered and nurtured him carefully in the dells of Nysa, where by the will of his father he grew up in a sweet-smelling cave, being reckoned among the immortals. But when the goddesses had brought him up, a god oft hymned, then began he to wander continually through the woody coombes, thickly wreathed with ivy and laurel. And the Nymphs followed in his train with him for their leader; and the boundless forest was filled with their outcry. And so hail to you, Dionysus, god of abundant clusters! Grant that we may come again rejoicing to this season, and from that season onwards for many a year.

[camillamacaulay23]

Oh Beware the ideas of March.. for the ideas of others may still linger, if you understand what I mean.