Miia

she/her ❦︎ bunny apologist/j (not joke) donna tartt.

[pokichs]

I love it when the unreliable narrator begins to trip and reveal the flaws in their story and themself. I cannot explain how much I adore them. The moment you realize that "wait, something is not right" and start to rethink the whole book is the absolute best thing to happen to you while reading. You just know the reread will be even better.

[r3allyrae]

I’m movie lovers🎬🎞️🎥

[aliciavance4228]

Not me becoming invested in this meme. At this point I'm going to consider it a deleted scene from Animal Farm.

[pokichs]

I love love love this ancient meme

[steppenwolf]

[papenbunny]

hello tsh fans do you guys ever think about how richard and bunny used to go on walks with a dog together every sunday (similar to how utterson and enfield from ‘the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde’ went on walks together every sunday, and the novella is the main inspiration for tsh) and bunny was looking for richard on that very specific sunday (probably to take him on a walk) when they killed bunny. and how bunny’s dead body was found by a girl going on a walk with her dog? yeah just a thought

[pokichs]

Theo lost his mom while visiting the DUTCH exhibition in the museum. After that he got attached to The Goldfinch, grieving her. Years later he saw her again in a dream in AMSTERDAM where she helped him finally let go of the grief and the painting. It's like her mother never left The Netherlands and Theo's growth journey did a whole circle.

[betryl]

Camilla doodles

[pokichs]

Canonically accurate Camilla my beloved 🤍

[pink-inthenights-blog]

Rip Henry Winter you would've hated booktok

[pokichs]

You will never catch me using a bookmark instead of some random flat object. If you do, it's not me.

My personal fave is a suicide prevention card meant for soldiers that I got from my mother.

[pokichs]

Books that use either rabbits, deers or BIRDS as symbolism? Hide them from me. Give them to me. I'm begging on my hands and knees. I always devour them up like my life depends on it and then proceed ranting my English teacher's ear off. Please and thank you.

(She's so tired of me She loves me, i swear)

[pokichs]

So uhh...I just finished The Maidens by Alex Michaelides...Reading it, it reminded me of The Secret History and Bunny (by Mona Awad) BUT if the story is told from a bystander's perspective who has no idea what the fuck is going on.

Pleasantly enough, it did not feel like a rip-off. More like a secret lovechild between the two, you know?

Anyways, this book was fucking insane. Aesthetics: Immaculate though.

(The writing of women was kinda meh...)

[pokichs]

Sometimes the parallels between The Secret History and The Goldfinch have such a chokehold on me I think about them every night.

For example when Theo was stuck in Amsterdam without a passport and tried to commit suicide while Hobie in NY thought he was already dead. You know, JUST like in the end of tsh, when Richard dreams of Henry stuck somewhere, telling him everybody thinks he's dead and Henry denies it saying he has 'troubles with his passports' AFTER Henry had killed himself?

CHILLS. EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.

(creds to Alina Jade for putting that thought in my head)

[okuberlik]

I seriously will not survive my second year of college if Donna Tartt doesn’t drop a new book.

Please Donna, I’m begging you, save me from the grapples of the academic life and doom.

[pokichs]

Since it's snowing in april, is it time to reread The Secret History?

[pokichs]

The Greek class was limited down to six students who all coincidentally had a difficult home life (Possibly an absent father figure? Not sure, need to reread again). Julian manipulates them and twists their mind into believing they're gods and elites. The biggest victim being Henry, whose relationship with his father figure is not ideal and who sees Julian as one. The kiss was also...something. Rather the whole class sees him as one. Do I believe the theory of him being behind everything? Pulling the strings and playing Dionysus in the forest? No. But, do I think he has a strong influence over the class and fucked them up mentally? Yeah. I also think him leaving was the last straw for Henry and resulted in his death. He is a groomer and a coward. That's the hill I will die on.

[betryl]

Today I discovered that a couple of TSH characters were based on actual people Donna Tartt knew at Bennington College- amongst them were students Todd O'Neal and Matt Jacobsen, who were the inspiration for Henry and Bunny respectively.

AND JUST—

There's even their own comments about it and it's so funny wait:

Here's the source

[pokichs]

I just read the whole article and oh my god. Such a fun and eye-opening read. Here's more places I want to call out:

Winter break in Bennington is same as Hampden's:

Claude's (their classics teacher) office being described the same as Julian's:

More of interesting Claude and Julian parallels:

More of Todd and Henry parallels:

Now, reading this article, I really wanted to know who was Donna's inspiration for writing Richard. And I began to see resemblances between Richard and herself:

"Boy of modest background who is sent east to boarding school and befriends the son of a fabulously-and frighteningly-rich man. Donna was like the main character in that story" OH COME ON. As if that isn't Richard Papen.

James Kaplan also pointed that out:

A group of classics students who Donna wanted to befriend:

"But she made it clear she wanted in."

What stuck with me though:

That hit and felt very Richard like, you know?

Anyways, there's probably more, but I recommend reading the article if you like tsh. Puts a whole new perspective to the book.

[pokichs]

Is it just me or Bourgeoisieses by Conan Gray just screams Richard Papen?

(Btw does anyone have book recs about poor dudes who want to/pretend to be rich, except tsh?)