The Gloomy Bunch (AGAIN) !

the gloomy bunch (AGAIN) ! 

Reached the part in The secret History again where the conversation goes as follows:

"We're all a lot better off.”

"Some of us are, you mean.”

Henry smiled acidly. “Oh, I don't know,” he said. “Πελλαιου βους μεγας ειν Αιδη.”

This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself I laughed. There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell.

Once again I wondered at it and looked up several translations (one of them seems very logical in context, you can find it here: https://ahorsemanontheroof.tumblr.com/post/131000026984/pellaiou-bous-megas-ein-aidei). None of these translations satisfied what I wanted to know and yes probably a million people took this step before me, but I thought a moment about the context of the dialogue.

Henry: “We’re all a lot better off.” Implying: when Bunny is dead, he can’t harm them anymore and so it was worth to kill him.

Charles: “Some of us are, you mean.” I always thought this was a snippy comment, meaning that only Henry was better off with Bunny dead because he seems to be the only one who has no bad conscience.

But in fact, Charles probably meant Bunny’s dad, about whom he was just talking, since of course Bunny’s dad is not better off with his son dead.

Henry seems to understand that Charles is talking about Bunny himself (of course Bunny isn’t better off dead) and so the response is:

Henry smiled acidly. “Oh, I don't know,” he said. “Πελλαιου βους μεγας ειν Αιδη.”

And Richard’s explanation is: This was something to the effect that, in the Underworld, a great ox costs only a penny, but I knew what he meant and in spite of myself I laughed. There was a tradition among the ancients that things were very cheap in Hell.

And the reason Richard laughs is that Henry says as much as ‘Stuff in hell is cheaper’, with regard to Bunny who never had money and drained Henry, Francis and even the twins of theirs to get the stuff he wanted, which is now over because he is dead and Henry points out that, in Hell, Bunny doesn’t have to spent as much money in order to get what he wants. Which is a very morbid joke, as Richard understands it.

I finally get this part without any knowing of ancient languages!

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.

Btw like ten years after TSH proper ends, Richard ends up in Connecticut and on a whim, goes to Bunny’s grave, where someone has laid flowers. He leaves quickly and because he’s obtuse, he does not realize until days later that he ended up there on the day of Bunny’s death. He never finds out who left the flowers. (Ferns.)

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.'