#aesthedick. @orgnegrove - Tumblr Blog

davetname

#AES.

catonhottinroof-deactivated2023

Stephen Conroy (b. 1964)

Man on Stairs, 1993

Gillian Flynn ― Gone Girl

somerabbitholes

warmth

#aes.

bloodandfun

/henry winter/

huariqueje

The Smoker - Steven J. Levin, 1998.

American,b.1964-

Oil on canvas, 26 x 22 in.

Fugazi

so much of the discussion surrounding the secret history is about how richard is this horribly unreliable narrator and how everything and everyone is skewed by his narration. and yes, it is an indisputable fact that richard romanticizes the living hell out of his entire life and provides a limited perspective of the novel’s events.

however. part of richard’s narration is him admitting to his faults of perception. a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. the gloomy boudoir of my dreams. he openly confesses to both his tendency to forgive things based on appearance and his rose-colored-glasses worldview. so the question is, can richard be blamed for the reader’s inability to recognize when he is exhibiting the very qualities he warned us about?

this is why i try to avoid belittling richard as a character. because yes, he’s a dumbass and reading about his blatant idealization can be like fingernails on a chalkboard, but his degree of self-awareness is one of the greatest factors of the novel. It forces the reader to take what he gives us with a grain of salt and allows for an enormous magnitude of individual interpretation. it’s what makes the other characters so dynamic. they are all a combination of what richard says they are and what we may imagine they could be. the only thing that can be taken as the truth is richard’s inclination towards misrepresentation. it’s a paradox, and it’s what makes donna tartt such a brilliant writer.

#about.