- “I hope we’re all ready to leave the phenomenal world, and enter into the sublime?” (Julian Morrow, professor of ancient Greek, at the beginning of Richard’s first lesson with him.)
- “I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”
- “There is nothing wrong with the love of Beauty. But Beauty-unless she is wed to something more meaningful-is always superficial”
- “Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry. “And what is beauty?” “Terror.”
- “There was a horrible, erratic thumping in my chest, as if a large bird was trapped inside my ribcage and beating itself to death.”
- “How quickly he fell; how soon it was over.” (Richard on the murder)
5 Selected pieces of writing.
“It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely? To throw off the chains of being for an instant, to shatter the accident of our mortal selves? Euripides speaks of the Maenads: head thrown I back, throat to the stars, "more like deer than human being." To be absolutely free! One is quite capable, of course, of working out these destructive passions in more vulgar and less efficient ways. But how glorious to release them in a single burst! To sing, to scream, to dance barefoot in the woods in the dead of night, with no more awareness of mortality than an animal! These are powerful mysteries. The bellowing of bulls. Springs of honey bubbling from the ground. If we are strong enough in our souls we can rip away the veil and look that naked, terrible beauty right in the face; let God consume us, devour us, unstring our bones. Then spit us out reborn.”
“Could it be because it reminds us that we are alive, of our mortality, of our individual souls- which, after all, we are too afraid to surrender but yet make us feel more miserable than any other thing? But isn't it also pain that often makes us most aware of self? It is a terrible thing to learn as a child that one is a being separate from the world, that no one and no thing hurts along with one's burned tongues and skinned knees, that one's aches and pains are all one’s own. Even more terrible, as we grow old, to learn that no person, no matter how beloved, can ever truly understand us. Our own selves make us most unhappy, and that's why we're so anxious to lose them, don't you think?”
“It's funny, but thinking back on it now, I realize that this particular point in time, as I stood there blinking in the deserted hall, was the one point at which I might have chosen to do something very much different from what I actually did. But of course I didn't see this crucial moment for what it actually was; I suppose we never do. Instead, I only yawned, and shook myself from the momentary daze that had come upon me, and went on my way down the stairs.”
(Richards decision not to tell bunny about the 'murder'..? essentially his decision to take the others side leading to his involvement in his death.)
“Sometimes, when there’s been an accident and reality is too sudden and strange to comprehend, the surreal will take over. Action slows to a dreamlike glide, frame by frame; the motion of a hand, a sentence spoken, fills an eternity.”
“If I had grown up in that house I couldn't have loved it more, couldn't have been more familiar with the creak of the swing, or the pattern of the clematis vines on the trellis, or the velvety swell of land as it faded to gray on the horizon . . . . The very colors of the place had seeped into my blood.”
5 Motifs
/themes?
- The greek language
- Murder/violence
- greek ritual
- hallucinations
- Beauty
- Empathy(lack of)
5 Characters
- Richard Papen. 19 years old, narrator. Gawky, insecure, anxious to fit in. - relatable. 'Richard is a vessel for the reader.'
- Charles Macauley. Twin.
- Camilla Macauley. Twin.
- 'Bunny' Corcoran. murder victim.
- Francis Abernathy.
- Henry Winter.
5 Location
- Murder scene 2 - forest
- Francis's country country house, summer
- Murder scene 1 - In the woods - greek ritural
- Richards winter house.
- Hampden college - architecture
- vermont landscape in the winter, thick snow - mountains
5 pieces of information
- Donna Tartt is a Roman catholic.
- She says she writes all the time, "like a pianist with scales or an artist with a sketch book"
- Famous for taking a lengthy time to complete a novel - approximately 10 years between the release of each one. "I've tried to write faster but i don't really enjoy it."
- Her childhood heroes were Harry Houdini and Robert Scott.
- Her literacy influences are 19th century writers; Dickens, Wild, Kipling.
- She wrote her first poem at the age of 5. Eight years later, she was published for the first time, by a local literary journal.
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