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mangoslixes · 2 years

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The Secret History Review

for @readerbookclub

I really loved the book <3 I'm so glad glad it was picked for this month, since it gave me an excuse to finally pick it up. I'd been seeing it around everywhere and I really wanted to read it.

It's such a cleverly written satirical novel about the dangers of romanticising liberal arts, it's just 🤌🏼

How did your opinion of the book change as the story progressed?

I had a theory when I started the book. I thought it would involve a weird cultish ritual where the secret club planned to sacrifice Richard Papen to Bacchus for eternal life or something along those lines, but they end up killing Bunny instead for some coercive reason. A very wild, chaotic theory, but it did get proven wrong, of course.

The book was miles better than what I had imagined it to be. I really liked the way it flowed, especially over to the second part. It got darker, every character's facade, including our narrator's started to crack and we saw them without their pristine, well put together aesthetic. Everyone in this book is so twisted and unlikeable, but I think that's the thing that got me interested more and more as the story progressed. It was clear they were all going to be miserable in their own ways by the end of this, just as they deserved. I wish Richard suffered more though, and Charles, both of those characters thrived comparatively better compared to Henry, Camilla and Francis, despite being the worse than the lot (debatable).

So even though I was horrified reading through it all, I loved the book. It's clever, it's dark, I never want to pick it up again, but it's still a great book.

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

I would, but only to the friends who like satire. I don't think this book is for everyone, either because it's just not something they would read, or just because they won't get the satire and end up idolising or hating it, with no middle ground.

Did this book remind you of something? Another book? A film or TV show? A song? What was it and in what ways are they similar?

Oh it reminded me of this song lol

The lyrics seem to fit our little club of dark academia and bacchanal obsessed kids pretty well tbh.

What message was the book trying to convey? Do you agree with it?

Oh it was definitely about why it's really not the best decision to romanticise liberal arts, but in a more extreme sense.

We see Richard Papen, in love with the idea of studying Greek and classics, because he's already in awe with the way the five students look. He starts us off with a line stating that his fatal flaw is a longing of the picturesque at all costs, so it doesn't come as a surprise. He's not so different from your average social media dark academia enthusiast, detached from the grasps of reality of academia and what actually lies in the discipline, entranced only by the aesthetics of it, which Julian actively feeds into.

For example, the Bacchanal. Julian paints an aesthetic about beauty and terror and chaos in a way that it influences a bunch of rich kids to experience it themselves. They are so obsessed with the aesthetic of it, that they don't even seem to come to terms with the level of horror that their little drug trip has caused. "We saw him, we saw Dionysus." Yeah, okay, maybe in your feral state, you did see Dionysus, but you also ripped apart an innocent man, let's talk about that first.

The book hints on it several times too. A little off the line of idea I'm going with, but what comes to my mind is where Charles, after being questioned about Bunny's murder, says how he never really realised that they all rely on appearances so much, that it's not that they're really that smart, it's just that they don't look like they did it. And that's true isn't it? None of them are really that smart or sly, they just look the sort of people who wouldn't be involved in something so heinous. Appearances over reality.

Speaking of reality, it starts to dawn on Richard too, during the last chapter, when the "aesthetic" of it all starts to fall apart in front of his eyes. He realizes how little options he has compared to the others, the lack of safety net that they have. How he has merely adopted ideas throughout his time in university and has nothing to show for the three years he has spent there. He's been so trapped in the idea of things, so seduced by the possibilities in his head that he's taken aback when the prettiness is all stripped away.

And I do agree with the message the book is trying to convey. Academia isn't fun, it isn't really a pretty aesthetic you can adopt. It is rarely ever pretty, no matter how much you romanticise it in your head.

Did reading this book change what you think of “Dark Academia”?

Yes. The book did make me dislike the aesthetic in general. At first, I was neutral with the moodboards and everything else around social media, but after this book, it's kind of made me not like it anymore? Just me though, I love it for the people who want to make moodboards or indulge in it all for the fun of it.

But I also found it really funny how people tag this book as a necessity to have the dark academia aesthetic, when it's about the dangers of indulging in one to an excess.

This book was part of our “morally grey” reading list. Do you think it belonged there?

I'm so sorry, but I didn't think so.

I don't think anyone in this book falls in the morally grey area. I didn't sympathize with their problems or their reasons for what they did, and that's generally what a morally grey character is meant to do. Richard would have belonged in that area if he had a less stoned brain cell that made decisions for him though.

The Secret History is a famous book. Had you heard of it before? If so, was it what you expected?

I had seen it around almost everywhere, especially the quotes under dark academia aesthetic things. It wasn't what I was expecting at all. For one, it turned out to be satire, very clearly so from the first chapter itself, and two, I thought it would be a glorification of dark academia, which again, it wasn't. Both things I haven't seen around in tumblr posts, so it was a surprise. And I've also seen people love Richard Papen?? A big surprise considering how much I disliked his character and I couldn't even see the appeal.

But overall, mostly pleasantly surprised by the book.

How did you find Richard as a narrator? How do you think having Richard as a narrator affected the story?

Richard was an unreliable narrator. Having him as the narrator was also important though, because initially, we can see his thoughts and views differing from Julian and the others. We see that clearly, and it's important because Julian and the others haven't struggled to come here as he has, they don't have the background he does. They're posh, snobby and privileged, and it shows in contrast to Richard. His views warp, obviously, but it's mostly him trying to fit into this little elitist group and it's cleverly written out.

Our view about Richard is almost neutral, sometimes sympathy and secondhand embarrassment. Compared to the others, he is more human, until he's not. He mentions some odd things in passing, very casually, and we don't really pay attention to them. His views about certain characters, his attention to certain features about people in a masculine and feminine sense, his theories on certain relationships, his ideals about Julian, the chick he choked to death, that one Camilla paragraph near the end. They all add to his character.

Richard is a perfect narrator for a book like this, he does a great job to really nail in the satirical, clever writing of Donna Tartt. Is he likeable? No. Is he a perfect unreliable narrator? Yes.

#.reyreads #book club #book review #the secret history #donna tartt #booklr #books #reading #booklover #bibliophile #book blog #spotify #I'm a little late for it I apologise

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adhyayana-v · 3 years

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Were there any Stardust quotes that you really liked?

Yesss!! There were many pretty quotes and the ones I liked for some reason are:

"If you had kept her chained, and she had escaped her chains, then there is no power on earth or sky that could ever make me help you"

"Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?" Pointless, really... "Do the stars gaze back?"

"There is something of the dormouse in him still…Sometimes I wonder if she transforms people into animals, or whether she finds the beast inside us, and frees it" (just because he's a dormouse from inside ..lol jk)

"He stared up at the stars: and it seemed to him then that they were dancers, stately and graceful, performing a dance almost infinite in its complexity. He imagined he could see the very faces of the stars; pale, they were, and smiling gently, as if they had spent so much time above the world, watching the scrambling and the joy and the pain of the people below them, that they could not help being amused every time another little human believed itself the center of its world, as each of us does"

"I gain my freedom on the day the moon loses her daughter, if that occurs in a week when two Mondays come together. I await it with patience"

#stardust #readerbookclub

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astreamoflight · 3 years

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Reader Book Club May Book Question List: Stardust

1. What were your expectations before reading this book? Did it meet them? I’ve read Stardust before, back when I was in high school, but I really didn’t remember anything about it. I really enjoyed this book! I love the classic fairytale elements and how each archetypical story beat hits perfectly.

2. How did you feel about the romantic relationships in this book? I really liked the relationship between Tristran and Yvaine. It was classic fairytale. I was sad at the end, though, that Yvaine is unable to rejoin her sisters in the sky.

3. Is this a book you would have otherwise read? I’d read this book before! I read a lot of fantasy. I’m always open to reading more fantasy in the club, but I love how the club encourages me to branch out.

4. What did you think of the magical world of Faerie? I loved Faerie in this book. Classic faerie is wild and dangerous, and I feel like Neil Gaiman captured that feeling well.

@readerbookclub

#readerbookclub #stardust #neil gaiman #books #booklr #emma reads

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appleinducedsleep · 8 months

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Maybe trees do have souls. Which makes wood a kind of flesh. And perhaps instruments of wooden construction sound so pleasing to our ears for this reason: the choral shimmer of a guitar; the heartbeat thump of drums; the mournful wail of violins--we love them because they sound like us.

🌲 Michael Christie, Greenwood

#books #quotes #booklr #book photography #greenwood #michael christie #bookblog #book community #readerbookclub #anne reads books

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themelodyofspring · 8 months

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Even the grandest trees must've once been seeds spun helpless on the wind, and then just meek saplings nosing up from the soil.

Greenwood, Michael Christie

#greenwood #michael christie #currently reading #readerbookclub #booklr #mypics #books #books and flowers #bookblr #books and plants #open books

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stefito0o · 1 year

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This month's read for the @readerbookclub 😊

#my photos #the posthumous memoirs of Bras Cubas #machado de assis #bookclub #books #reading #currently reading #booklr

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readerbookclub · 2 years

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Foodie - September Book List

This month’s list is all about food! In all of these novels, food plays a central role in the story or character’s lives. As a foodie myself, I’m really excited about these books! I hope you like them too :)

As always, please vote for which of these books we should read. Link is at the bottom of this post.

And on to the books...

Cinnamon and Gunpowder, by Eli Brown

The year is 1819, and the renowned chef Owen Wedgwood has been kidnapped by the ruthless pirate Mad Hannah Mabbot. He will be spared, she tells him, as long as he puts exquisite food in front of her every Sunday without fail. To appease the red-haired captain, Wedgwood gets cracking with the meager supplies on board. His first triumph at sea is actual bread, made from a sourdough starter that he leavens in a tin under his shirt throughout a roaring battle, as men are cutlassed all around him. Soon he’s making tea-smoked eel and brewing pineapple-banana cider. But Mabbot—who exerts a curious draw on the chef—is under siege. Hunted by a deadly privateer and plagued by a saboteur hidden on her ship, she pushes her crew past exhaustion in her search for the notorious Brass Fox. As Wedgwood begins to sense a method to Mabbot’s madness, he must rely on the bizarre crewmembers he once feared: Mr. Apples, the fearsome giant who loves to knit; Feng and Bai, martial arts masters sworn to defend their captain; and Joshua, the deaf cabin boy who becomes the son Wedgwood never had.

Quentins, by Maeve Binchy

Is it possible to tell the story of a generation and a city through the history of a restaurant? Ella Brady thinks so. She wants to film a documentary about Quentins that will capture the spirit of Dublin from the 1970s to the present day. And Quentins has a thousand stories to tell: tales of love, of betrayal, of revenge; of times when it looked ready for success and times when it seemed as if it must close in failure. But as Ella uncovers more of what has gone on at Quentins, she begins to wonder whether some secrets should be kept that way...

Sourdough, by Robin Sloan

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it. Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market, and a whole new world opens up. When Lois comes before the jury that decides who sells what at Bay Area markets, she encounters a close-knit club with no appetite for new members. But then, an alternative emerges: a secret market that aims to fuse food and technology. But who are these people, exactly?

The Kitchen Daughter, by Jael McHenry

After the unexpected death of her parents, painfully shy and sheltered 26-year-old Ginny Selvaggio seeks comfort in cooking from family recipes. But the rich, peppery scent of her Nonna’s soup draws an unexpected visitor into the kitchen: the ghost of Nonna herself, dead for twenty years, who appears with a cryptic warning (“do no let her…”) before vanishing like steam from a cooling dish. A haunted kitchen isn’t Ginny’s only challenge. Her domineering sister, Amanda, (aka “Demanda”) insists on selling their parents’ house, the only home Ginny has ever known. As she packs up her parents’ belongings, Ginny finds evidence of family secrets she isn’t sure how to unravel. She knows how to turn milk into cheese and cream into butter, but she doesn’t know why her mother hid a letter in the bedroom chimney, or the identity of the woman in her father’s photographs. The more she learns, the more she realizes the keys to these riddles lie with the dead, and there’s only one way to get answers: cook from dead people’s recipes, raise their ghosts, and ask them.

Five Quarters of the Orange, by Joanne Harris

When Framboise Simon returns to a small village on the banks of the Loire, the locals do not recognize her as the daughter of the infamous Mirabelle Dartigen - the woman they still hold responsible for a terrible tragedy that took place during the German occupation decades before. Although Framboise hopes for a new beginning she quickly discovers that past and present are inextricably intertwined. Nowhere is this truth more apparent than in the scrapbook of recipes she has inherited from her dead mother. With this book, Framboise re-creates her mother's dishes, which she serves in her small creperie. And yet as she studies the scrapbook - searching for clues to unlock the contradiction between her mother's sensuous love of food and often cruel demeanor - she begins to recognize a deeper meaning behind Mirabelle's cryptic scribbles. Within the journal's tattered pages lies the key to what actually transpired the summer Framboise was nine years old.

Please vote for our next read here.

#book list #booklr #food books #cinnamon and gunpowder #eli brown #quentins #Maeve Binchy #sourdough #robin sloan #the kitchen daughter #jael mchenry #five quarters of the orange #joanne harris #readerbookclub

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tams-writeblr · 3 years

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Hey there! I have an ask for the book club :) "Shiv Skeptic" clearly means a lot to Alex and Isaiah, and his music helps the two of them bond. Have you ever had a musician/artist that meant a lot to you?

Hi! Thank you for the ask!

Yes, of course there was a band that deeply impacted me when I was about the age between Alex and Issaiha! When I was around 13 my best friend introduced me to the favorite band of his older brother (the brother was already 18 at that time) which was the German punk band Die Ärzte. I know they are known in some parts outside of Germany, mostly European countries, so I don't know if anyone reading this knows them.

Die Ärzte have some really funny songs, that's why they are called fun-punks too but they also have a variety of very political strong songs, which I always preferred. My favorite will always be their 2005 album Geräusch (probably since it's the album that was released the year I started listening to their music) and their 1998 album 13. I also highly recommend Planet Punkand Die Bestie in Menschengestalt.

I still listen to their music a lot, even if it's not as much as it used to be and I'm ecstatic that I'll finally see them live next year, after 17 years of being a fan! I saw their lead guitarist solo with his band when I was like 15 but seeing the three of them united is something that still fills me with joy.

I didn't manage to go see them earlier, since I suffered form heavy anxiety when I was younger and crowds would just make me wanna cry. The concert when I was 15 was hell for me and I ended up standing in the very back. But I got my issues under control now, so I hope I can enjoy that concert next year as much as I should! I really related to Alex' fear of going into the crowd when reading that part!

What's an artist that impacted you a lot? Were you able to see them live and if yes, how was that experience for you?

#readerbookclub #the cost of knowing #the cost of knowing asks #readerbookclub asks #about die ärzte #die ärzte

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