Francis Abernathy - Tumblr Posts
I finished the secret story I can't stop thinking about how much they manipulated richard and how I as the reader was manipulated as well
unlike richard from the beginning I was finding them all a bunch of prentensious losers I didn't fall for the aesthetic and to me judy was the only nice person. When they talk about the fight between camila and her I was 100% sure camila and the others were in the wrong.
And in the first half even when they are including richard he is still an outsider and he can kind of feel something was a bit off. So I was enjoying reading them all at francis' and I was liking the characters more but I still find them suspicious, because Richard is showing us they are hiding something. (At the time I was theorizing they were planning to sacrifice richard in some ritual and I was thinking they would eventually change their minds and they decide to kill bunny lmao)
I think there were two turning points for richard that made him decided to be so involved. And those turning points have an effect on us readers as well. The first one was when Henry saved him and taked care of him. After that it seems like Richard starts to worship him. He already admired him before, but he started putting him on a pedestal
And the second is when he is on francis's house and Henry tells him about the murder. Henry was so smart, the way he keeps saying richard figured out and he knew he would do it. And then he's complaining that bunny always ask for money and he uses the example that richard would rather die than ask for help. It's like he and Francis are showing him that bunny sucks and how they view him differently and they respect him. Both Richard and Bunny didn't have money, but Richard had values. That's what it seems like they are saying without saying. Also them saying bunny doesn't like richard? At the time I believe but I have my doubts about that. Richard and Bunny actually seemed to spend a lot of time together, he visited Richard's room a lot, they went for walks together. They both also seemed to be the only ones who weren't completely isolated from the rest.
And this happens right after they ignored him for a week and he was alone and desperate. Suddenly they're showing they like him, respect him and trust him. Then in the other day all 4 take richard for a dinner, he's now one of them and bunny isn't.
And what is great is that since we're on richard's head we get manipulated as well. You feel upset when they ignore him and you like when they show they care.
And suddenly Henry is asking hundreds of favors to Richard and Richard is doing without questioning and I'm not questioning either because it feels almost right.
And it's only when things start to go unhinged I think especially after Bunny's burial that he starts to understand things. In Bunny's house he was still doing everything for Henry, stoling pills from him. Francis and Charles weren't putting any effort to help Henry, it was Richard and Camila.
But after the burial, Henry is different, distant. We start to realize little by little he does not care. More than doesn't care, it seems like hew views richard as a possible scaping goat. And I think this is what allows Richard to start questioning his orders and being less blind about him. Then he also finds out about Henry and Camila and he feels 'betrayed'. I think he felt left out, not only by camila but also by henry. In fact, I think Henry's attention was the main thing.
We start to realize he was never part of the group, they used him. With Henry was clear, with the twina it was after that talk with Francis that things starts to get clear. I always felt the twins were the most distant. Richard was always saying he liked them the most and they were nice to him. But it always gave me the impression it was very superficial. He didn't really knew them.
I think the only real relationship he ends up having in the group is francis, because eveyone was losing their minds and being weird and they were the ones that were "left". They were also losing, but they still felt more """normal""". So I think that kinds of ends up uniting them.
An aspect I personally really like in Tartt's writing style is how she manipulates the readers. How a reader reads TSH is similar to how an audience acts in a magic show - we know it's a bluff. We know there is a trick here, an angle, some would say a lie, but we disregard it for the more comfortable "truth" - the coin had to appear behind my ear mystically... Right?
Richard demonstrated multiple times how good of a liar he is. He managed to steal money for a car he didn't own, no one (apart from arguably Henry) from the group noticed his middle class background throughout the book, and multiple times the way he tells the readers the timeline of events they don't add - up. Somehow as a fandom we accept this fact when it comes to the mountain lion for example, but rarely when it comes to Bunny.
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Richard is (obviously) still very much infatuated with the picturesque, so it is no surprise that when he 'writes' (in cannon) TSH he wants to make his beloved Greek group seem desirable.
It's not very desirable to kill an annoying classmate.
On the other hand, if he can make Bunny out to be this obnoxious, self centered, racist twat who sucks money out of his tragically beautiful friends and isn't even gifted academically... Well, that's way more understandable.
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Bunny was torn apart from the bacchanal. On the one hand his friends seem to be murderers. His best friend in the entire world cold heatedly took the life of a farmer. On the other hand they are his friends. As a result of this back and forth bunny goes insane. He is frantically talking about the murder in the news to try and get some answers from his friends who leave him in the dark constantly, he tries to distract himself with the second trip with Henry. He is on the brink of insanity until finally he cracks. And he writes Julian the letter.
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Do I believe bunny was racist, homophobic, sexist, and overall an unpleasant person? Yes. Do I believe Richard exaggerated there traits to make Bunny out a worse person and get sympathy from the readers, while disregarding Bunny's mental state? Absolutely.
Stay yourself, stay curious.
not to be a henry winter apologist but every time i reread the book i can’t help but feel like bunny deserved it
like he somehow managed to hit the trifecta of being a homophobe, a racist and an asshole
I'm currently filling an admission to a VERY prestigious religious - studies program, and I was requested to write about a piece of media which influenced me as a person.
Fools just gave me free rein to infodump on TSH
Stay yourself, stay curious
Francis: what are we going to do about the window?
Richard: am i a joke to you
Just finished my annual The Secret History re-read so while I suffer from the incapability of doing anything without thinking of Henry Marchbanks Winter, here are some of my most memorable scenes from the book
BOOK 1
you know what tremendously and utterly disturbs me in tsh fandom as a part of society? the fact the there`s practically nothing to find, no content with henry\francis, when these two are just perfect together they`re like this disgustingly exquisite and uptight old married couple and have such a fun and interesting chemistry that i was just so thrilled to read the scenes with them what the fuck, guys?? step up your game and open your eyes on this masterpiece of a power duo
That’s literally richard papen what are you talking abt
i want friends like this
I think my absolute favorite thing about TSH is how vague the whole story actually is in the end. I still have so many questions and things I'd like to know, but at the same time not knowing them and being able to speculate about what has or hasn't happened is probably the main reason why I'm still thinking about it.
And it's not even only about the plot! But also about the characters, their actual motivations, their true feelings, their relationships and dynamics, and more. There are so many clues and details here and there to be used to find out the truth, but they're still indefinite enough to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions.
I love seeing everyone's takes. I may not agree with them sometimes, but it's still so COOL to see so many different theories about even the littlest things. I only have to read one single post about something that I hadn't even considered before to start doubting all I had taken for granted. And that's amazing!!
That's what really made the book for me, and I'm quite sure that I wouldn't have liked it as much as I did if everything was explained. And that's also why Richard is a fantastic narrator and the only one who could've told this story so effectively.
It's been said a lot of times before but I'll say it again because it's true: the country house section is one of the best, if not THE best section of the book.
It's weird to say considering how "useless" it is in terms of plot (there's the Bacchanal happening in the background but of course we know nothing about it yet), and there are many parts that are way more interesting in which actual things happen. Plus, it is quite long, so a lot of pages of basically nothing.
And yet in retrospect, that's the part that stuck with me the most in the end, and it still is one of the first things that come to mind when I think back on TSH.
It was just that vivid. Maybe it's because I've experienced something similar myself so I could sympathize with how Richard was feeling too. I just remember I was totally immersed in it the first time I read it. I really felt like I was there. And even if it did last longer than I expected and I wanted to go on with the story already, I didn't feel bored.
Apart from simply ✨the atmosphere✨ and ✨the aesthetic✨ being on point, I think the main reason for this is that it really fed the illusion, and it made you FEEL like Richard. We knew from the very first page (lines!) that this book was probably not going to be a joyful one. But while they were in that country house, everything seemed fine. Richard was finally making his way into the group, they were starting to be more open towards him, they were all having a great time together, we got to see their little stupid shenanigans which made us know all of them better and me inevitably attached to all of them (Bunny throwing Henry and Francis in the water will never not be funny to be) and they even started daydreaming about the possibility of living together in that house without anything changing in the future.
It was clear even while I was reading it that all those things would have never become true, and that the illusion would have shattered soon. But still a little part of me kept on believing that maybe that could last, because the way it was narrated by Richard was... weirdly hopeful, which isn't something I can say about any other part of the book I believe. It was hopeful, and yet there was that unsettling sense of dread creeping through the lines, because you KNEW the murder was coming soon and everything would end. But just like Richard, I just... didn't care in the moment.
The country house section to me was somehow a snippet into what could have been if they never murdered Bunny- or even before, if they never had the Bacchanal at all. Could things have gone wrong at some point still, for whatever other reason? Probably yes. Maybe they weren't meant to last anyways, maybe they weren't even friends in the first place, everyone has their own thoughts about this. But it's sweet to think about. Now knowing the whole story and how terrible the situation actually got makes those pages even more painful. Those really were their happiest times.
Also I could talk about Camilla cutting her foot too but that's maybe another post for another day before this becomes way too long lol.
Also also the cherry on top for me was definitely that last couple of lines which got to me HARD and make my heart ache still:
There was a ragged burst of laughter; faint, but clear, it floated back across the evening air. That laughter haunts me still.
Everyone remembers where they were when reading 'the snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation' for the first time.
Ok let's try something.
Reblog with your favorite TSH lines!
Just, a quote, a piece of dialogue, a random specific passage- anything you'd like that you feel stuck with you!
I'll start- I have several, but the first that comes to mind is this one:
I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.
'Are you happy here?' I said at last.
He considered it for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said. 'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'
'I hope we're all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?'
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
Some random Henry moments and quotes that I really like (in no particular order):
Henry winked solemnly at her from across the table.
Many times, I've seen Henry pick up the telephone with an irritable, cautious 'Hello,' and may I never forget the harsh and irresistible delight of his 'Khairei!' when Julian happened to be on the other end.
"Some little place I've got here, huh?" I said, and laughed. He glanced up at the hole in the ceiling. "Yes," he said brusquely. "Like the Pantheon."
"Reason is always apparent to a discerning eye. But luck? It's invisible, erratic, angelic."
"Anything might happen, Francis. He might be hit by a car tonight, and save us all a lot of trouble."
"You wore chitons?" "Yes," said Henry, irritated. "It was all in the sake of science."
But that came to a quick end when Henry, who was very nearsighted, shot and killed a duck by mistake. He was quite shaken by it and we put the pistol away.
Henry took a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes; and exhaling sharply, a hand to his chest, he fell back in his chair as if he'd been shot.
"Who is it?" "Henry." "Tell him I'm in the bath." "He's in the bath," I said. "He is not in the bath," Henry said. "He is standing in the room with you. I can hear him."
"I haven't eaten anything in three days." Henry marked his place with a ribbon and slipped the book in his breast pocket. "Well," he said amiably, "go get a doughnut, then." "I don't have any money." "I'll give you the money, then." "I don't want a goddamn doughnut."
[...] the armchair in which 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.
"Anything is grand if it's done on a large enough scale."
Henry glanced up. "Salve, amice," he said, and a subtle animation flickered in his rigid features, usually so locked up, and distant: "Valesne? Quid est rei?" "You look well," I said to him, and he did. He inclined his head slightly. His eyes, which had been murky and dilated while he was ill, were now the clearest of blues. "Benigne dicis," he said. "I feel much better."
I already have an idea on how this will go and want to see if I'm right
The Greek Class as these animated text things:
(all gifs belong to @animatedtext)
Richard:
Henry:
Bunny:
Francis:
Charles:
Camilla:
All of them:
Bonus – Julian:
Along with Camilla's and Bunny's, another pov I would love to see is Charles'. He had such a tragic development throughout the book, but we get to know very little about what he actually went through, and it makes it easy to put all the blame on him – of course, he was an abuser and that doesn't change, but it would still be so interesting to actually get his own opinion, without Henry, Camilla or Francis speaking on his behalf. Not to justify him, but just to see things the way he did and get yet another interpretation of the whole story.
We'd get to know what his and Camilla's relationship was actually like – and it would probably look even worse from his perspective. His encounters with Francis, too. He puts the blame on Charles taking advantage of him, even though they were probably both taking advantage of each other in some ways – but we never got to hear how Charles felt about the situation.
We'd get to see him slowly lose his mind to alcohol, and it would probably be even more subtle than how it felt from Richard's pov, making it even the more chilling. Him getting progressively more depressed, more irritable, more violent (and therefore, I believe, more guilty about his own behavior too), to the point of being basically drunk all the time, and feeling like a totally different person to how he was at the beginning.
And then we'd get to see him get more and more paranoid about Henry. I would have loved to see more of their dynamic, because while I've seen some people reducing it to a love triangle with Camilla (?), it wasn't just that, and Charles had quite a few valid reasons to hate him. Henry pulled Charles into the whole mess basically against his will – he was the only one who, more than once, tried convincing the others the murder was a bad idea, and no one listened to him and listened to Henry instead. He was depressed for Bunny's death. He got coerced by Henry to get involved with the police too, having to bear the weight of everyone possibly ending up in jail if he did something wrong.
He realized that all of this was mostly Henry's fault, but then the situation with Camilla came along, and Charles suddenly understood he had just become the next target Henry might have wanted to get rid of – and he even tried to. He had every right being scared of him, but the others barely even believed him. So the paranoia turned into genuine fear for his life, until he eventually snapped, and we know what happened next.
All of this was hidden behind Richard's pov, which definitely made it difficult to understand his actions or how he was feeling. As much as I don't like him as a person, he really grew on me and genuinely became one of my favorite characters. And seeing it all from his perspective would be terrifying.