Neyso - Ney

I like the fact that Daphne Hardy gave the name “darkness at noon” for Koestler’s book because she was the first one who translate it to English and it also was the only one version of the book left after the original carbon copy was lost. Until 2015 when student found it in archive Daphne’s translation was reading around the world for 79 years. I think this is so beautiful. Oh, I forgot to say they were lovers

1940/2019

Как же я хочу быть гениальной. До слез

Me mistyping half of my life

Me mistyping half of my essay is hell on earth

Bunny Corcoran ;The Death Of Innocence

(I wouldve added images beside the first one from the book with highlights to provide evidence for a statement but like damn, tumblr wont let me for some reason. i'll try from a different device later)

I think Bunny was also supposed to be the picture of innocence.

I know what you're thinking: how can a loudmouth bigoted ass character 😒 be innocent? I'm with you. Surprisingly, Donna wrote extremely 3 dimensional characters. Sometimes, to really understand a certain character, you have to look at all their aspects, zoom out of the negatives (which Richard would have preferred to remain zoomed in on to justify his compliance in the murder of someone who considered him a friend) and look at them as a WHOLE.

Let's define the word innocence in this context with the help of my sturdy old friend, Google.

1. The obvious, Bunny committed no crime. He was innocent in the legal sense.

2. Without experience

We can say he was less experienced in the basics of life (was 24, didn't have a bank account, couldn't even drive i think? We never see Bunny drive. Didn't even have finances or know how to manage them-clearly. He might not even have understood the gravity of his over-spending nature)

3. Lacking

Clearly, when compared to his peers, he was lacking;

Financial help from his family (except when it came to comparing him to Richard). You could argue the twins were as poor as him- its mentioned in the book. But the case here is different. Bunny's parents were rich, yet he was not. The twins came from a middle class family, and they had their grandmother sending them money. Someone was taking care of them. Bunny had been thrown into boarding schools his whole life and learned to "fend" for himself by becoming a thief and a mooch. Two very different lifestyles.

He could also be considered to lack in academics. He struggled with dyslexia (and I think also ADHD), which is implied to have affected his studies/studious motivation

Bunny was also lacking in pretentiousness; and I'd wager that, though he probably was insecure, he wasn't insecure in a way that made him chase an aesthetic to such a fatal degree. Yes he was a man of illusions, yes he kept these illusions up to maintain a certain image of himself (in that regard, he was very similar to Richard, whose narration of Bunny is usually judgmental). But Bunny was not pretentious like Henry, Julian etc were. He wasn't walling himself in to be an elitist in a scholarly way, I think this fact is reflected in the fact that he had friends and connections outside of the class.

4. Not responsible for a crime but suffering it's consequences

Bunny isn't involved in the bacchanal, yet he suffers its consequence. He finds out about it, has multiple breakdowns to the point of getting drunk and writing an absolutely insane letter to a teacher with his feelings and suspicions bared, and he also opens up to Richard in his drunken carelessness. A mistake which cost him his life. He wasn't just killed because he was annoying, or that he knew too much-- Bunny had to die because he couldn't deal with the weight of knowing what had been done. Or perhaps, he couldn't deal with what the reality of his closest friend was.

5. Not corrupted

Easily, Bunny isn't corrupted with what I call " visions of grandeur" like everyone else in the class is. They all thought they were something. Henry and Julian especially. They were obsessed with ideals that, in a practical sense, ran the risk of polarizing their own selves. We could also speak on the fact he technically wasn't free from moral wrong. He was homophobic, rude, kind of hateful. But in a more fundamental way, he wasn't corrupted in the sense that he did anything that was major AND physically wrong.

I know verbal offences are valid too, and I'm not excusing his hatred/hate speech, I'm just saying.

Even him stealing that goddamn cake from the fridge or something, which Richard tried to conveniently paint as "he doesnt care for people (forget that he can't read)". YES, stealing other people's food is bad, but is it (done for survival?) as bad as:

incest (also pre-unhinged Charles, I dont know if what the twins did was consensual or if Charles used to force himself on Camilla or use an abusive dynamic to make her submit. I think that only came on after Bunny died, but idk)

poisoning someone's dogs

killing a baby chick or whatever weird shit richard did as a kid. and then as an adult the many questionable things he did

francis lowkey seemed like a sexual predator and i understand this might make people upset but i feel like he preyed on Charles' weakened mental / alcoholic state to sleep with him when charles (despite being bi) was not comfortable with the fact that he was attracted to men and wouldnt sleep with francis when he was sober.

Julian is just all wrong

6. Simple ; naive

So, without repeating anything- I genuinely feel like Bunny was so simple sometimes he was genuinely a dumbass. His death itself....how did he see the man he KNEW wanted to kill him (and I know this because in the letter to Julian, Bunny explicitly mentions "He" (Henry, not "THEY" the class) is going to kill him)

He sees them all there and still lets his guard down. He was so naive, that despite his very real paranoia of being stalked/killed, he still engaged with them like they were just a bunch of friends.

Another thing, child-like attributes are often related to naivety. (Him bouncing on everyone's beds that one morning, he was hyper, couldn't regulate his emotions, even his anger and aggression was very childish/immature in nature)

7. Not intended to cause harm

This is the only one I disagree with, because this was the only sense in which Bunny was NOT innocent. He very much had antagonistic qualities and intended to cause emotional harm to those he didn't like.

CONCLUSION

But yeah, overall, he practically fits the innocent role, which is why i think, after his death, things take such dark turns-- the reader loses their innocence too, in a sense, with the things that are revealed about the twins, about Charles, about Francis/Charles, about that one awful moment where Richard thinks the vilest shit about Camilla. The group starts falling apart and becomes disillusioned with each other- Richard starts seeing everyone for who they are, as well. His irritation towards Henry and the rest becomes palpable, and he also realizes his true friends could have been Judy etc (the normal students).

To lose one's innocence, we first have to encounter a scenario or go through something that gives us a greater awareness of the pain or the evil we are surrounded by. Here, losing Bunny was the catalyst in making Richard (and by extension, us) realize the characters and situations for what they really were.

Show me your world and guide me through every wound on your bonds, let me see your heart and take your breath away every time we kiss and I lift you up. Let me be with you and never go away from me, stay forever, stay forever

Are you okay they ask I respond as quickly as I can so they will not notice the earthquakes in my voice or the tsunamis in my eyes or the drought in my heart.

Ellen Everett

Я хочу только плакать

This was the original idea. Statue chuuya !

Appreciation post for all the beginner artists who work hard despite the AI ​​looming over us. You are fabulous. You are precious. Keep up the hard work, you are needed.

It’s easier to kms

jk