The week my book club almost broke up over a single character

Last Thursday, our group of eight was discussing 'The Secret History' and everything went off the rails when we got to Bunny Corcoran. Karen from the group, who's usually quiet, said she found him 'a tragic figure,' while my friend Jake called him 'a whiny drain on the whole plot.' The debate got so heated about whether he deserved his fate that we had to pause for ten minutes. Has your club ever had a fight this bad over how to read one person in a book?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota4152d ago

Wait, you guys really saw Bunny as tragic? To me he was just a spoiled brat who never faced real consequences until it was too late. Like when he kept blackmailing his friends instead of just getting a job, or how he mocked Richard's poor background. He wasn't a victim, he was a bully who finally picked on the wrong people.

lindag332d ago

Yeah but that's the whole point, right? I read this analysis once that said Bunny was tragic because he was a spoiled brat. He was raised to be that way, to think his charm and family name were a free pass. So when his friends, who he saw as his audience, finally turned on him, he had zero skills to deal with it. He kept pushing because he literally didn't know how to stop. @dakota415 is right that he was awful, but that's what makes it sad. He was a product of his own bad upbringing crashing into a situation way over his head.

gibson.avery2d ago

His family had a house in the Hamptons and a trust fund, so he had plenty of options. Calling him a product of his upbringing ignores all the choices he made as an adult. Honestly, he just chose the easy, mean path every single time.