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My hot take that Theo WAS inlove with pippa and just because his love for her was born out of his mothers death doesn’t mean he didn’t love her. The reality is it wasn’t feasible or healthy in any way. A part of Theo’s (many) problems is that his grief causes his love for one person to bleed into another. He compares pippa to his mother, and his loss stops them from having any vaguely good relationship because he can’t see her as her own person.

But this isn’t the only person that Theo does this too. There’s many times in the book that he compares Boris to his father (Especially after his death). To me the difference between his relationship with pippa and his relationship with Boris is that he has the ability to see Boris as his own person and he doesn’t connect Boris too a time where he wasn’t traumatised and he still had his mother. Theo believes that having a relationship with Pippa would fix all his problems. He idolises the possibility with obsession, but what he’s really longing for is his life before the explosion. Funnily enough he doesn’t do this with just Boris and Pippa. He also does this with Kitsey as well.

there’s multiple moments in the book that you can see his grief from losing Andy bleeds into his relationship with Kitsey, his grief from losing him makes their relationship move fast, as Theo often laments in the book how much time he wasted not getting into contact with Andy. He wants the closest thing to him, and that just happened to be Kitsey. Am I saying that Theo had romantic feelings for Andy? Absolutely not. What I’m saying is that Theo allows his love for people he’s lost mix with people who are still around. he doesn’t just do this with love interests (Pippa, Boris and Kitsey) He does this with Hobie and Ms.Barbour as well, in a way that’s easier to comprehend as he views both these characters as parental figures

anyway in conclusion: he loves Pippa for all the wrong reasons and not for who she is, or what she wants/needs.

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Richard Papen pisses me off so bad especially in opposition to Judy Poovey like Judy is the exact representation of "young girls coming to conclusions men need a philosophy class to get" and she's also actively participating in the modern equivalent of bachannalias all week without murdering innocents. Also she's actually nice, dresses fancy and doesn't hide being a cringe fail bisexual. Richard keeps criticizing her bc he's misogynistic but really he fucking WISHES he lived like her. Meanwhile he gets high at a party once and discovers basic empathy. Jesus Christ

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they literally had a gay dog named poppers. pultizer prize fr.

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see even from the very beginning i knew the greek class had to have some sinister shit going on, not because of the prologue, but because there were FIVE people in that class and THREE of them were blond(e)s

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donna tartt writes the shit out of a first-person pov

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something about richie's "kinky briefcase, sexual accountant" character is so fucking funny to me, like i genuinely think about it all the time

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college-age bill denbrough is such a fucking prick 😭

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rip larry decker you would've loved online gambling

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yes richard and francis boned, no i don't find that to be the gayest thing to happen in the book

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the secret history and the goldfinch being set in the same universe is so insane,,,,, richard was nursed back to health by henry after getting hypothermia in that holey purple warehouse so that boris and theo could co-parent a dog and be weird about the fact that they have feelings for each other

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we're never getting another donna tartt book are we

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why do i wanna reread the goldfinch already,,,,

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theo being SO excited to take boris to reunite with popchyk after all those years apart VS boris refusing to let theo take him to a second location lest he beat the shit out of him and/or kill him over the secondhand (now thirdhand) stolen painting that theo was still under the impression had been locked in a high security storage facility for a decade

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You know what I did in college? Conversational russian

a long post about my thoughts on their first meeting after being apart

I don't believe Boris didn't have any nonverbal reaction to it. It's basically a love confession. What Theo says is i missed you so much and you mean so much to me i studied your language for a year and imagined you reading me the book aloud, i would remember the way you say things and feel nostalgic about certain situations we were in ("i had to bring you food, it was like Anne Frank"). I wanted so bad to learn your language but i couldn't.And then Boris straight up ignores all that and changes subject. If i remember correctly in the film he looked sort of scared of what he heard, maybe sorry and guilty. And it looks right. Terribly guilty, terribly sorry, probably sad about not being able to actually enjoy spending more time with this one person?

They wanted to run away together, it was an impulsive decision but anyway. Boris didn't even care about taking Kotku with them. They were so important and helpful for each other, taking care of one another, splitting house chores (Boris did the laundry, Theo cooked), providing comfort, sharing feelings, laughing so much. If you think about it, even if it only lasted two years, their relationship worked better than any other. Other friends, love interests. I'm not counting parental figures bc it's different, here they are equal, both take some responsibilities. Pippa said she can't be with Theo because if one of them goes down, the other will follow and so they will basically destroy each other in their pain. Vegas kinda proved that it's not like that with boreo. Their pain is different, so it doesn't trigger them. When one of them felt bad the other one took care. It worked, they survived. Boris saved Theo's life several times. But after they parted they both had OD'd and felt lonely. It can be argued to what extent they are good for eo, considering that both of them are addicts that encourage eo using, but their relationship kinda works. They are a good team. They are worth each other.

Plus there are these romantic/sexual undertones that make them anxious. Boris immediately knowing what Theo thinks about after mentioning "crazy things" they did together, as if he feels they have to discuss it too, as if it bothers him too, as if it means something for him too.And keep in mind this is their first meeting after the kiss. After the untold "i love you". So yeah they are touchy and sensitive about certain subjects. And since they are so uncertain about what to do with it, they have issues addressing and discussing it. So yeah there's no way you couldn't tell by Boris's expression that he wasn't really "plainly unimpressed". Theo probably didn't want to see him being impressed because the confession itself made him feel vulnerable. Or, what is more likely, he just didn't notice that Boris felt something so strong he purposefully acted unimpressed. Anyway Theo sort of felt hurt by it, maybe even rejected, maybe he wanted to see some gratefulness or get some affection.

ALSO "comfy in nautica" mentioned in the very confession. I read interpretations of this songs on genius and well i find it interesting. So the way i see it it's the song about finding courage to act the way you want to without conforming. There's more to unpack, I'll probably make a post about this song and other songs mentioned in the book. But added in this context i think it means Theo is trying to be happy by saying what he really wants to say, finally. He wasn't able so say i love you during their farewell, but here he says it in such detail.

ALSO funny thing - the only other people there being a "beautiful couple", man and woman, looking "unearthly pale", both with short dark hair. Man was nibbling and chewing????? the inner side of woman's wrist and Theo goes "Pippa😔" at that sight😭😭 Wtf man it made me laugh so hard, why does androgynous vampire couple make you think of Pippa? The guy is chewing her palm, thats a weird way to show attraction, kinda underlines Theo's unhealthy obsession with her rather than being in love. And why are they unearthly pale and have the same haircut? And mentioning them in this very scene with Boris? Kinda sus tbh

ALSO when they get back to Hobie's we are introduced to Mrs. DeFrees, whos relationship with Hobie is kinda blurry. Like. Theo goes "well i thought they are dating but turns out she has a husband so probably not but its weird because they live far from each other and yet they are together all the time and sometimes they spend the weekend together at her house in other place anyway I haven't figured it out so i think they are PROBABLY JUST GOOD FRIENDS". Good job Theo, you just described the confusion of a situation you two have

ALSO Theo went upset when Boris called Hobie his partner, but then few minutes after he himself said "he's my business partner ". Like DUDE that's exactly what he meant! You are obsessed with this homo stuff

ALSO i like to think that Popchyk represents Theo's inner child or st, mainly because Audrey called Theo puppy and because in many situations he acts the way i think Theo feels. And because in good literature every detail serves the purpose of telling the story, sometimes weather represents character's mood, sometimes an animal symbolizes character's feelings ☝️(Not saying this is 100% the case tho)So Hobie points out that he has never seen an animal being as happy as Popper was seeing Boris. And it kinda applies to Theo too, i mean he lived all these years with Hobie more or less in comfort, but Boris's visit made him almost ecstatic to the point he literally confessed his feelings, which is, we know, very hard for him. We learn that Popchyk loves Boris exceptionally, he sleeps on his head like a fur hat but never does it with Theo. Another interesting thing - when Popper got back, he rushed to drink water and had been drinking for so long Theo thought about whether Boris gave him water at all or not. I guess it could mean that while Boris makes him happy he still forgets about some of his vital needs

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the thing about the goldfinch is that i've thought about it constantly since i first started reading it and even more so after i finished reading it, but so few of the thoughts i have of it are non-abstract enough to put into words so i'm just like on a constant feedback loop of thinking about this book and being unable to talk to anybody about it because there are no words

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kinky briefcase, sexual accountant

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the fact that stan remembered being friends with bill for MONTHS before getting the call from mike,,,,,