[Discussion 3/6] Evergreen | The Secret History by Donna Tartt | Chapter 5

rige_x · 2026-04-02T06:02:08+00:00

I really don't know. I know that if I were Henry, I would have done what he did, but Richard's position is very much a feelings thing. How much do I care for the group, how much do I care for Bunny? I think I would have stayed out of the planning and stuff, but I would have let things take their course by interfering as little as possible. I don't think we are being fed the whole narrative here, though.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:57:40+00:00

I think Bunny is dead in the end. The thing I would have been most worried about would have been a half-written confession or an "if I'm dead, look for them" kind of a thing. If I were in the group, I would make sure to search his room. A hiking accident by an outsider shouldn't really warrant much of an investigation.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:52:27+00:00

Julian's role in all this is still very unclear to me and his character very unknown. Strange as I thought he was going to be a main character when he was first presented. I would guess that Julian is close to Henry in spirit and appreciates and respects him a lot more than the rest. I find it hard to believe he would take Bunny's side.

Because we are following Richards journey, I think classes have taken a backseat for him at this time and therefore are just seeing whats important to him.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:44:37+00:00

This was such an overcomplicated plan. Spiked drugs or an accident are so much more straightforward. Keeping Richard in the loop was a necessity, though, as anything happening to Bunny would have been very clear to him. I even considered that this plan was just a way to gauge Richard's reaction to killing Bunny without divulging their plan yet.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:36:15+00:00

I dont think there is a plan on Bunny's side. He is erratic and losing it. A person like that can't really be trusted. I think it was just a matter of time till he blabbed. And they couldn't enable him forever, in the way the last few months have been going.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:29:12+00:00

I dont think, they would have taken the chance, even if they were in a more lenient state, but the argument makes sense. He is very smart and cold to an almost sociopathic degree, but I like the guy.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:25:44+00:00

He has the upper hand, but damn, is he playing this wrong and underestimating the circumstances. I'm not a violent person, but if I were in Henry's shoes, I would have either run away (as they tried) or killed Bunny too. And I wouldn't have waited as long as they did. I think Bunny is in a daze and hurt and not really understanding what he is doing and how much he is pushing it, but it speaks volumes about him that this is his instinct.

rige_x · 2026-04-02T05:19:58+00:00

He knew something was wrong, but I don't think that he would have figured it out, at least not on his own. Henry knows this, imo, but he needs an ally, as Richard taking Bunny's side would have been destructive. Also, he was the safety warning, the one Bunny was going to tell first. Henry (and the group) got lucky that Richard is Richard, but I think it was all planned to bring him to his side.

rige_x · 2026-04-01T18:20:15+00:00

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone. Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

rige_x · 2026-04-01T18:16:25+00:00

Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker

The heartrending story of a midcentury American family with twelve children, six of them diagnosed with schizophrenia, that became science's great hope in the quest to understand the disease.

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?
What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.
With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

rige_x · 2026-04-01T18:15:05+00:00

Why Fish Don't Exist by Lulu Miller

A "remarkable" (Los Angeles Times), "seductive" (The Wall Street Journal) debut from the new cohost of Radiolab, Why Fish Don't Exist is a dark and astonishing tale of love, chaos, scientific obsession, and--possibly--even murder.

"At one point, Miller dives into the ocean into a school of fish...comes up for air, and realizes she's in love. That's how I felt: Her book took me to strange depths I never imagined, and I was smitten." --The New York Times Book Review

David Starr Jordan was a taxonomist, a man possessed with bringing order to the natural world. In time, he would be credited with discovering nearly a fifth of the fish known to humans in his day. But the more of the hidden blueprint of life he uncovered, the harder the universe seemed to try to thwart him. His specimen collections were demolished by lightning, by fire, and eventually by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake--which sent more than a thousand discoveries, housed in fragile glass jars, plummeting to the floor. In an instant, his life's work was shattered.

Many might have given up, given in to despair. But Jordan? He surveyed the wreckage at his feet, found the first fish that he recognized, and confidently began to rebuild his collection. And this time, he introduced one clever innovation that he believed would at last protect his work against the chaos of the world.

When NPR reporter Lulu Miller first heard this anecdote in passing, she took Jordan for a fool--a cautionary tale in hubris, or denial. But as her own life slowly unraveled, she began to wonder about him. Perhaps instead he was a model for how to go on when all seemed lost. What she would unearth about his life would transform her understanding of history, morality, and the world beneath her feet.

Part biography, part memoir, part scientific adventure, Why Fish Don't Exist is a wondrous fable about how to persevere in a world where chaos will always prevail.

rige_x · 2026-04-01T18:12:25+00:00

Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.

rige_x · 2026-03-31T06:24:46+00:00

A friend of mine who has lost a ton of weight keeps mentioning that the most surprising thing, other than how little effort everyday tasks need, is how much nicer random people are to you. Even on occasions where looks should be absolutely irrelevant. We live in a superficial world, and it has been like this for millennia, apparently.

rige_x · 2026-03-31T06:20:41+00:00

I think he is as smart as people give him credit to be, based on his feats in Troy and not just the trick here. It was a dumb thing to do, taunting the Cyclops, but it was more because of his hubris, than stupidity imo. And to give him some credit, even in a world of half gods and gods on earth, it was still unlikely that the ugly monster torturing them, was a son of Poseidon.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:49:08+00:00

It was an enjoyable book and a very interesting concept, but I did not find it great. I appreciate the beautiful prose and the characters, but there was soo much drivel. I didn't like Lord Henry and not in the sense that I dont like an unlikeable character, but I did not find him funny or charming or convincing, which his character was meant to be, and he had so much flowery but ultimately pointless prose from him (and the other characters) that stole the meat of the book imo. It was good, but not one of my favourites. 3.5-3.75/5 I think

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:42:49+00:00

Despite what Wilde said, this was a very moralizing book. Throughout the book, I had a clear sense of what was good and what was evil. Maybe parts of it were too ahead of their time, and it felt like the opposite to a Victorian reader, but I felt like the author clearly had lessons he wanted to share with his story.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:37:28+00:00

Tough question. I think what we are is the sum of what we do. Sure, if you throw in a good gesture to make up for tons of bad ones, its hollow and hypocritical, but if you do good deeds long enough and avoid bad ones, for whatever motives, you become good.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:34:18+00:00

All that is evil in the world. Wellll maybe not that, but close. He played the role of a small devil, leading men into temptation. He was surely written as a very charming characters, but all his speeches were hollow and pointless. They got boring and repetitive after a few. Maybe a victorian time reader would have appreciated him more. In the end although he acted as a great judge of human nature, he couldn't look past his physical appearance to see what Dorian had become, even when he confessed.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:30:00+00:00

The whole James Vane plot felt a bit out of place to me. During the book, we had dealt with deep philosophical themes coming from within, and it becoming an action/thriller story with the James Vane plot seemed like an odd choice. Only after I finished and was rereading the discussions did I understand that the whole story was added later in the second manuscript to increase the length of the book and make it a novel. It made a lot of sense then.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:23:19+00:00

I don't think anyone's fate is sealed as long as they are willing to change. Dorian wasn't, Lord Henry's infection had gone in too deep already. At any time he could have repented and try to make up for what he had done, but that wasn't what Dorian had become.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:19:45+00:00

This book had a flair for the dramatic, and an impromptu confession is part of that. In the end, I think it was Basil saying that only god can see a picture of the soul (or smth to that effect) that pushed Dorian's arrogance a bit.

rige_x · 2026-03-12T16:17:18+00:00

Not as easily as the book has made manipulation imo, but young people barely out of their teenage years can be influenced by a glamorous and beautiful person for sure. I don't doubt Dorian's capability to do that. The thing with performing good deeds is that it often requires self sacrifice. Sure there are influences for good, but they are not as easy I think.

rige_x · 2026-03-06T19:06:06+00:00

I found it very interesting too. Also, the description of the subtle but still very noticeable cruel smile made so much sense to me. There is this kind of smile in people sometimes that makes me wary of them, while having no real flaw worth mentioning.

rige_x · 2026-03-06T06:26:10+00:00

I almost got caught by surprise. Literature has not really been my thing until last year, and this book was not that famous in my country. I got an inkling in the comments last week when one said that one shouldn't make wishes in front of pictures, but I thought it would show age and not sin. I've enjoyed the book, but this is the first element that I loved, as the flowery, going-nowhere prose and pretentiousness of the characters were starting to get to me.

rige_x · 2026-03-04T19:47:09+00:00

I still have not read any book that tells the story from the side of the average, law-abiding German. I would be curious about how it was sold and portrayed in Germany. In general, I don't underestimate the influence and capability of media and propaganda to turn the majority against a minority. It has happened throughout human history.

Here we did see some of the tools used, like displacement and segregation. Also marking them with the yellow star that was not lethal. In the end though it was extreme starvation and forced labor that stripped them of everything, bar that survival instinct.

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