For Everyone Who Finds Oliver's Behavior Confusing Or Illogical Or Just Plain Weird In Saltburn: That's

For everyone who finds Oliver's behavior confusing or illogical or just plain weird in Saltburn: that's likely how Oliver felt all the time about most other people around him.

Being neurodivergent in a world that expects everyone to think and act and engage with others in the same way (but never quite spells out what that way *is*) doesn't just mean that you act in a way that other people find weird and confusing. It means that you often find the way other people act and interact with the world to be weird and confusing right back.

Unlike Michael Gavey, who decided everyone else's weird confusing behavior was a them problem that he didn't care to understand, Oliver wanted to understand his "normal" peers and fit in with them.

Unfortunately, Oliver fixated on a guy who was popular because of his money and good looks but was also so privileged that he only had incredibly warped and unhealthy relationships of his own with his peers, so Oliver's best attempts to learn how to fit in and get other people to like him by pleasing and emulating Felix wound up with him murdering his way into lonely castle ownership and a coke addiction, instead of making any actual friends.

Meanwhile, said rich guy and his family never "saw through" Oliver's actions, because Oliver had fed them a story where all his socially awkward traits could be explained by a background of external trauma sources rather than an inherently neurodivergent view of social interactions, so they expected him to be a neurotypical kid with Trauma and thus neatly explained away any unexpected behavior while still assuming that his behavior in general would be mostly normal by the standards they were used to.

by Øystein Aspelund

Dear Saltburn fans and/or people who know pretentious literature: Halp.

What is a literature nerd book that English Lit major Oliver might have wanted to read but found hard to get his hands on, that the Catton library at Saltburn might have a rare copy of?

These are some super helpful suggestions, thank you!!

I admit I had to look some of these up and have only skimmed a summary so far, but ... A first edition Mary Shelley novel from later in her life, about a sad lonely guy who finally makes some friends, only to systematically lose everyone and end up somehow even more lonely and living out the rest of his days as a wanderer endlessly seeking for companionship he may never find again?

Not gonna lie, that screams Oliver all over. And apparently it was mostly hated and ignored till about the 1960s, which could explain why Oliver has heard of it but had never gotten his hands on a decent copy till now!

That French grimoire, on the other hand... Not quite the right vibe for the Oliver I've been writing, I think, but this may have introduced a tiny side plot/headcanon, at least, in which Venetia owns this book (perhaps it used to be in the Salburn library, but has lived in Venetia's room ever since she first discovered it, obsessively read about all the creepy legends and superstitions surrounding it, and decided it was hers and lives in her nightstand, now), is practically religious about regularly scheduled rereads of the whole thing, and occasionally uses it to terrify Felix with supernatural stories that make him go all squeaky and cover his ears while she laughs at him. It's another book I hadn't heard of before today, but from your description and a brief skim of the link, it seems very much like a thing Venetia would enjoy and Felix would find creepy.

Thank you again for these suggestions!

Dear Saltburn fans and/or people who know pretentious literature: Halp.

What is a literature nerd book that English Lit major Oliver might have wanted to read but found hard to get his hands on, that the Catton library at Saltburn might have a rare copy of?

📷 Jacob Elordi by Jonny Marlow

Wait is that...over there, is that...

A new chapter of Maneater?

(feat. bathtub shenanigans and Felix being an impulsive treasure)