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The Secret History Spoilers

Thinking about that one scene in The Secret History where Camilla accidentally stepped on a shard of glass. This small episode clearly sets out the roles within the group and shows how everyone reacts in the crisis. Instead of directly helping, Richard's first action is to call Francis and Henry. Then he just waits for Henry's instructions, though he was the one who studied medicine for some time. Francis reacts more emotionally and asks Camilla how she feels, but he is unable to act on his own and goes after the first-aid kit only after Henry's instructions. At first, Charles wants to take the glass out of her foot. Nevertheless, he can't bring himself to do it. Only Henry, though by the end of the book it's evident that he loved Camilla and didn't want to cause her additional pain, takes responsibility, removes the shard, and does what no one else dared to do.

The same thing happens with Bunny's murder and with Henry's death by the end of the book. His suicide solved several problems at once: it provided an explanation why Richard was shot, kind of diminished Charles' anger, since he wouldn't calm down otherwise, solved Camilla and Charles' relationship.

As far as I am concerned, Henry didn't feel guilty for any of the murders. It was Julian's betrayal that pushed him to commit suicide and the circumstances allowed him to solve most of their problems by it. I am not sure if he would do it in any other situation, but I think after realizing that the person he viewed as a God (aka Julian) was actually a coward from his perspective, life no longer held the same value for him.

[I've finished reading TSH today, and my brain is trying to connect all the dots, so I'll probably post a book review later on. However, I feel like this book doesn't need a review, but a bunch of analysis posts instead]

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hello ao3 author shaekspeares, i just need you to know that i think about papenathy from Sober II all the mf time. my girlfriend had me read TSH last year (it's her favorite book); and i have selfishly suggested we do a re-read together this winter, and follow it with your fic, which she has not read - but she is ofc not pleased with how things turned out for Francis in canon. thank you for your service. 🫡

hello anon tumblr user. i thank you for your ask and your spreading the good word. i am very pleased my papenathy lives on.

actually im almost done w x2 new papenathy fics (imagine that), of which one may or may not be in sober ii verse. happy 2025 etc.

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may i present klaus mäkelä, conductor of the oslo philharmonic

Draco would be so into conducting orchestras like he’d put his whole pussy into it and get so lost in the music, would make it look like a dance, and it gets to the point where the audience can’t help but be transfixed on him as well as on the music

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recent joys

1. fawn print

2. olive green/bright blue

3. warm socks

4. almond scent

5. big bottles of anything (contact solution, orange juice)

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breaking news!!!! spotify wrapped is released at the beginning of december Not for christmas music as many believe, but to allow you ample obsessive listening of your top 100 so you can tire them all out before the new year where u find new music all over again

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Henry and Camilla at the lake

The Secret History, page 98

McCaughey, Eleanor. The Secret History. 2013. Oil and acrylic on wood. Accessed on flickr.com.

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Henry and Bunny Polaroids in Rome. Bunny is probably complaining in his. I feel like in all the pics they have Bunny is looking away from the camera and Henry is looking too intensely at it.

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living far away from a coast in summer is actually torture i think governments should start torturing prisoners with images of beaches and summer houses and lakes while being stuck in nebraska

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OBSESSED with the way donna tartt reads the "cubitum eamus" scene in her audiobook. the little 🎵nothing🎵 lives rent free in my head

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bunny corcoran aesthetic

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why r ppl surprised ab the girl harmonizing with the ceiling fan on tiktok. like didn't we already discover that the constant whirring is the sound of grief and melancholy and mourning a life you once could've had from class of 2013 (audiotree live version) by mitski miyawaki

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"i do not need a core" I DO NOT NEED A CORE. i am ME! I am me! i am free from "aesthetics". sorry u dont understand my shoujo girl americana the secret history jazz chic newjeans nostalgia core style.

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being young is like. is this burnout or am i just incapable of work ever. is this just a slump or have i already hit my peak at 12. is this me spiraling or am i fundamentally cursed to live an unpleasant life forever.

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there is a huge difference between criticizing an institution and criticizing individual behavior. i can criticize the makeup industry without criticizing the 14 year old girl who uses concealer because she’s self-conscious about her acne; i can criticize the plastic surgery industry without vilifying the woman who decided to get a nose job after two decades of pointed comments and bullying. it is intellectually dishonest to respond to an institutional criticism as if it were a personal attack; on the flip side, it is cruel and unnecessary to leverage personal attacks in the name of institutional criticism

if i see one (1) more person respond to a perfectly reasonable beauty-industry-critical sentiment with “but i personally enjoy eyeshadow. why are you attacking people who like eyeshadow :(” or “exactly, all women who wear makeup are miserable and brainwashed” i am going to climb a tree and bite the top of it

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(The secret history spoiler warning)

unironically the thing I love most about the secret history is that it’s messed up by all means. Each character from the Greek class is messed up one way or another, and their faults, their fatal flaws—they’re not just any flaws no, they’re flaws that make these characters horrid. Yes they had cute interactions, yes I always think about their time in the countryhouse, when they were by the lake and Camilla injured her foot, Francis in his robe and Henry in his suit with the trousers rolled up to the knees, looking like a banker in an old impressionist painting, as he wades into the water, Charles saving Richard a sandwich and almost getting in trouble for it, bunny being kind to Richard at the start of the book and trusting him to the very end, the way bunny and Marion were so old married couple coded, Judy Poovey talking Richard’s ears off and being a girl 🎀, Henry beating up that jock for Camilla

Despite all this, Charles remains an incestuous drunkard and an abuser, Francis remains a melodramatic man who’d ask just about anyone he thinks attractive to bed on the first meeting, he’s also an anxious mess and refuses to believe there are consequences to his chain smoking, Camilla is manipulative and we know little of her bc of Richard’s idolisation, Richard morbidly longing for the picturesque at the expense of others’ lives and viewing the Greek class through rose tinted glasses, bunny was a homophobe and racist and leeched off everyone’s money—he literally put Richard on the spot during one of their first interactions in the book when he took him to the Brasserie and had Henry pay for everything—and looking through his sick friend’s diary and he was so darn annoying I couldn’t stand him at all in the first read, and even that might as well be exaggerated because it’s only Richard’s perspective on him, and bunny seemed to be well liked in the university by those outside the Greek class. I don’t even know where to start with Henry, I’m gonna have to make a separate post for him alone at this point. And even Judy, remember when Richard met her in the bathroom and she was talking about her slamming into Camilla when Camilla JUST entered the place, and when Camilla called her out Judy just dunked her beer on her because being drunk is a perfect excuse to see that as the right thing to do? And then when Henry and Charles went up to defend Camilla Judy called them abusers for defending her? 😭 though Henry breaking Spike’s bones is another thing to be honest. and don’t get me started on the bacchanal—the four of them killing an innocent man in their frenzy and getting away with it and brushing it under the rug later on. They’re literal murderers, and that’s before the plan of murdering Bunny was introduced

and ALL of them are chainsmokers and alcoholics to a dangerous point, can you even imagine the smell?????

anyhow, the main point of this ramble, is that to get a good sense of what this book is really about, I’d suggest rereading it at least once. Donna is a master of her craft, and this work of hers is anything but shallow, even the flaws are so perfectly placed and shadowed by our unreliable narrator to the point where there’s a big bunch of readers who completely ignore them (think of how there’s critics and readers who assume that Lolita is a romance novel) , but if you look from a more rational angle you’ll understand what Donna was trying to communicate

and I love love love how she did all of this

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me: chat what do we think

the angel and devil on my shoulders: can you not call us that please