The Secret History: Things of Note
- Lex
- Jan 21, 2023
- 5 min read
Enter my The Secret History: Things of Note, it is just as it sounds, through page 100 or so of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, if you’d like to go in blind/spoiler free I’d recommend looking away, but you’re welcome to come along if you’d like.
Here, as you will see, I like to turn analyzation into a bit of an art form itself, adding in my own flourishes around the edges of owned text.
The Secret History
Chapter 1
· "Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw’, that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? …and I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs" (The Secret History pg 1, Donna Tartt)
· A moi. L’histoire d’une de mes folies. Translated to “to me. The story of one of my follies”
· “Quod erat demonstrandum” translates to “used to convey that a fact or situation demonstrates the truth of one’s theory or claim, especially to mark the conclusion of a final truth”
· Mezzanines
A low story between two others in a building, typically between ground and first floors
· Miasma
‘a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor’
· Pythagoras: been so brutal or been painted up to look so pretty; have so many people put so much faith in lies and mutability and death death death
Pythagoras
Greek philosopher and mathematician who theorized that numbers constitute the essence of all natural things. He developed the Pythagorean theorem and was one of the first to apply mathemeatical order to observations of the stars
also known as
a deep crater in the NE quadrant of the moon, 136 kilometres in diameter
in the British dictionary
Greek philosopher and mathematician. He founded a religious brotherhood, which followed a life of strict ascetism and greatly influenced the development of mathematics and its application to music and astronomy
C582-c500 b.c. Greek Philosopher mathematician and religious reformer
Pythagorean Theorem
H2 = a2 + b2
For any right triangle with sides a and b and hypotenuse h, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides (glenn research center)
Dictionary.com
· Lyceum
Ly-ce-um noun a hall for public lectures or discussions (merriam webster)
· Xerox key
Derives from xerography, a technology for duplicating images and documents, xerography works on the basis of electrostatic charges. The xerography process is the dominant method of reproducing images and printing computer data and is used in photocopiers, laser printers and fax machines (techtarget.com Ivy Wigmore)
· Neanias
Translates from ancient Greek νεᾱνίᾱς (neāníās, “young man”) (Wiktionary.org)
Also described as a m (genitive neāniae); first declension
(And a neat little pronunciation and case chart also from Wiktionary.org as seen below)
pronunciation[edit]
· (Ecclesiastical) IPA(key): /neˈa.ni.as/, [neˈäːniäs]
Pronunciation
· (classical)IPA (key):
Case
Singular
Plural
neāniās
neāniās
(Chart and definition from en.wiktionary.org)
· Cubitum eamus translating from Latin, “will you go to bed with me?” (Cubitumm-eamuss.tumblr.com)
· Savoir faire noun “the ability to act or speak appropriately in social situations” French /ˌsavˌwär ˈfer/
· Plotinus/ the eclogues
Plotinus
204/5-270 C.E.
· Founder of Neoplatonism
· Antiquity (after Plato and Aristotle)
· Neoplatonism def: “an invention of early 19th century European scholarship and indicates the penchant of historians for dividing ‘periods’ in history” (Gerson, Lloyd, "Plotinus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/plotinus/>.)
· Plotinus-> initiates new phase of the Platonic tradition
· Born in Lycopolis, Egypt in 204 or 205 C.E.
For more fun facts on Plotinus’s life, writings and other works, try this link to the Stanford edu page, (*also source for facts above*).
· Agamemnon pg. 40
o Greek legend i.e. Trojan War king of Mycenae or Argos
o Husband of Clytemnestra, father of Orestes (son), and 3 daughters Iphigeneia (Iphianassa), Electra (Laudice) and Chrysothemis
o Sacrificed Iphieneia to Artemis
o Events as written by Aeschylus, Greek poet
Sourced from Agamemnon | Legend, Family, & Facts | Britannica
· Being weary from the march, the soldiers stopped to offer sacrifices at the temple. I came back from that country and said that I had seen the Gorgon, but it did not make me a stone 328
· Tulips … the letter psi in Greek is shaped like a tulip
· Roofline, riverwell
· Wooden windows
· Rough pg. 331 nightmare
· Ray Millard in the lost weekend seeing bats
· Nihil sub sole nevum
Latin to English “nothing new under the sun” (Google Translate)
· Fields of shame
· Charlie sheen
· Vacillated
‘Alternate or waver between different opinions or actions; be indecisive’ (Oxford Languages)
· Pg.98 Duck
· The Bride of Fu Manchu (first published 1933, republished June 2013)
· Souffle and chafing dishes
· Like a magic casket in a fairy story pg. 99
· The Farmer in The Dell 101
By Mother Goose Club
· Lyrics
· The farmer in the dell The farmer in the dell Hi-ho, the derry-o The farmer in the dell
· The farmer takes a wife The farmer takes a wife Hi-ho, the derry-o The farmer takes a wife
· The wife takes the child Hi-ho, the derry-o The wife takes the child
· The child takes the nurse The child takes the nurse Hi-ho, the derry-o The child takes the nurse
· The nurse takes the cow The nurse takes the cow Hi-ho, the derry-o The nurse takes the cow
· The cow takes the dog The cow takes the dog Hi-ho, the derry-o The cow takes the dog
· The dog takes the cat The dog takes the cat Hi-ho, the derry-o The dog takes the cat
· The cat takes the mouse The cat takes the mouse Hi-ho, the derry-o The cat takes the mouse
· The mouse takes the cheese The mouse takes the cheese Hi-ho, the derry-o The mouse takes the cheese
· The cheese stands alone The cheese stands alone Hi-ho, the derry-o The cheese stands alone
Published c.1820 (Wikipedia.org) Lyrics (LyricFind)
· Barometric reading
- High reading=high pressure-> good weather vice versa (artofmanliness.com)
- Normal being 29.9, “range 29.6 to 30.2 inches Hg (752-767 mm Hg) ..at sea level! Rarely (at sea level) do readings exceed 30.4 inches Hg (773mm Hg),” (dnr.wisconsin.gov)
- Special notes: pressure drops by 26mm (mm, about 1 inch) for every 1000 feet above sea level
Therefore, true uncorrected barometric pressure = 29.65 x 0.9795 = 29.04
(Facts and equations above sourced from this page by the WI DNR)
· The memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon
Covering years 1675 to 1723 on the court life at Versailles during the reign of Louis XIV
Author Louid de Rouvroy duc de Saint-Simon
Originally published in 1829 (Google books)
· Tubac meaning “place of dark water’ in the O’odham language,” (thd.tubac.org)
Enter my The Secret History: Things of Note, it is just as it sounds, through page 100 or so of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, if you’d like to go in blind/spoiler free I’d recommend looking away, but you’re welcome to come along if you’d like.
Here, as you will see, I like to turn analyzation into a bit of an art form itself, adding in my own flourishes around the edges of owned text, Donna Tartt and others as sourced, flourishes of my own belong to me.
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