For my formal critique, I believe that Tartt’s message was delivered. I have seen a lot of theories online, so when I went to reread this book there was a lot more clarity. This also made me realise I didn’t read the book properly the first time. There were a lot of inconsistencies that left me frustrated the first time around, but by the second I was able to understand the characters better. As I’ve been reading, there has been a lot more doubt for Richard’s pov. He is found constantly on drugs or running on little to no sleep, he is also lying about almost everything. I’ve noticed that the other students in this Classics group are drawn to him because he is a comfortable mystery. Yet, I find this to be very unsettling. This isn’t the first time I’ve read a book where the narrator is unreliable, in fact those are often my favorite kind of stories. But this is the first time I’ve felt so detached and couldn’t really resonate with the main character.
With this being a reread for me, a lot had been revealed. I am now starting to see that Bunny and Richard are almost the same person that simply handle information differently. I don’t believe that Richard is a better person or friend than Bunny, because in a way I believe that he set Bunny up to get murdered. I don’t know if he ever intended for his jealousy to go so far, but he certainly wasn’t unhappy with the outcome (which he admits enough time within the book). Richard definitely mourns Bunny at times, but the jealousy seems to run thick when it comes to this elite group of students. Henry’s understanding of the classics is so potent that his native paideia (Greek for upbringing – I found this so funny) is almost foreign to him, Francis’ convenience with money, Charles ability to be liked by people (which Richard admits to finding difficult), and Camilla essentially being the prize to win at the end of this conquest. Bunny was the first to go in this sequence because he was the easiest target, it just happened to work out in his favor that Bunny was also morally grey and not a great friend.
I can’t pinpoint the exact imprint that this book is supposed to leave on the audience, but I have the same feeling each time I’ve read it. I am constantly in this state of questioning the characters, and a bit of reality based on how the events played out in the book. I am dissecting my own emotions to see how much they influence my decisions, voluntary or not. How much of my actions are fueled by my emotions or lack of? How can I have more control over my own reality? I would like to say that this book brings me closer to God, but it doesn’t. But it does help bring me closer to myself in a dark manner. This book makes me confront the bad and ugly sides of myself, and that confrontation is what brings me closer to Christ. There are a lot of harsh details about myself that were in my subconscious. Like the saying goes, all things in the dark will be brought to the light.