#the secret history

[finisconoratopus]

there's no other way to get through this amount of revision than to romanticise the fuck out of it. so back to the secret history I crawl.

[rosewaal]

[castielsbees]

I have finished reading the secret history I am a changed woman

[secret-histories]

I’m… oh lord oh god help me

546 / unstable and radiant

[jorblesandco]

Some TSH analysis, uncategorized

julian calling the greek class (minus bunny and richard) "magpies" is so fun to me bc . while they are symbolic of intelligence and resourcefulness they are also symbolic of deceit and opportunism

richard didnt eat his lamb chops at his first dinner with the twins and bunny ate richards chop instead . lamb could be a religious ref to following, how richard is not quite yet in the thick of it with the group, not yet a follower of henry/andor julian . but later in the book he does eat lamb in camillas room at the hotel if i remember correctly , perhaps he is consuming his own innocence, his own morality . finally accepting his role as a follower maybe . also something to do with morality

Henry as death, as Satan/the devil (Richard has described him as Satan, some girl at a party said the greek class were all devil worshippers and Who do they worship except Henry)

Rot and death, particularly rotting fruit -- something about opulence and overindulgence: richard says in his notebook from when he was 18: “There is to me about this place a smell of rot, the smell of rot that ripe fruit makes. Nowhere, ever, have the hideous mechanics of birth and copulation and death-those monstrous upheavals of life that the Greeks call miasma, defilement-been so brutal or been painted up to look so pretty; have so many people put so much faith in lies and mutability and death death death” and then the first few days at hampden (literally 2 pages later) “stunned and drunk with beauty ... Trees creaking with apples fallen apples red on the grass beneath, the heavy sweet smell of apples rotting on the ground”

Richard first name John:  john the apostle . outlived all the other apostles .beloved . follower . etc . interesting the things that could be associated with that; john also means “graced by god”so that could also be looked into; could be that richard abandoning his given name that he has abandoned any grace that could have been given him . could be that he is the apostle to Henry in a way that the others weren't .... could be he has fallen from grace; extremely interesting to me that richard as a name has zero biblical references and means "brave ruler" . something something about the front richard was putting on . the grandiose he wanted so badly to imitate but in the end couldnt and he will always remain but a humble john follower and apostle . perhaps

[isaiahpadams]

Toi mon amour, mon ami

[makingyoufeels1ck]

something i think is genuinely so fucking hilarious about bunny corcoran is that he’s like really homophobic but was so down to be apart of the bacchanal ??? 😭 like oh yeah to hell with the queers but i mean if you guys are down for a sex ritual with my three other male friends im down too like…

[lyrebirb]

rereading the secret history and just realizing how most of the quotes are stripped bare of context

[write-the-room]

why is Richard sickly for like 95% of the book he's always complaining about being exhausted and faint and nauseous and riddled with headaches and his solution is LETS HAVE MORE PILLS AND ALCOHOL??

LIKE SIR PLEASE JUST EAT A VEGETABLE IM BEGGING U

[mrstellmeafuckingsecret]

no one in this world loves francis abernathy the way i do

[whimsifae]

the most fun a girl can have is finding parallels, noticing patterns, making connections, contemplating

[super-nova5045]

and just when you think you’re at your absolute lowest a blonde motherfucker comes along and makes everything so much worse

[i-dont-trust-butterflies]

Please, don't stress about it so much

One day we'll all forget about it, remember?

[ther0sesared3ad]

The urge to learn every language and play every instrument and travel the world and live through every historical time period and be a writer and a poet and an actor and

[owoatmilk]