An Aspect I Personally Really Like In Tartt's Writing Style Is How She Manipulates The Readers. How A

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

Consuming depressing media for me is more of a learning experience and less something I indulge in to associate myself with the characters... I learn from their faults and take with me their experiences. I hope this helped.

I have a question for people who read Russian literature and are happy.

How the fuck do you do this

Has anyone read IWWV ? I've been considering reading it but I've heard it's a bad rip off of TSH... Answers will be appreciated.

Help needed for a novel concept.

I have been toying with the idea of writing a novel, mainly for my own enjoyment and feeling of accomplishment, but I am quite worried it'll turn out too similar to TSH ... I would like to tackle themes of obsession with image and social prestige, but I've seen many works of fiction you can tell were influenced a bit too much by Tartt's work.. if anyone has any tips to help prevent this affect, that'll be appreciated.

about the girl that found the vintage copy of c&p...real...should have been u

Should have been ALL weirdly disturbed classic loving Tumblr girls... Should have been all..

(And thank you)

absolutely agree. I'd like to add that the way Richard writes about his experience in Hampden years after his departure shows how utterly obsessive he is. Just the fact TSH exists, and that it's a 'memoir' of Richard proves how unfathomably shallow and beauty obsessed he really is.

Still love him though <3

For me, the saddest thing about the ending of tsh is not the fact that two people literally died, but the fact that after all the effort Richard put into being accepted into a friendgroup he was still all alone in the end.

that bitter feeling of loneliness utterly crushed me.