(When we begin the novel, of course, Bunny is already in a ditch, dead. The twins, Charles and Camilla Macaulay, dress in decadent all-white outfits, and Edmund Corcoran, better known as Bunny, is always in “knee sprung trousers” and a fraying “shapeless brown tweed” jacket. Francis Abernathy, “the most exotic of the set,” wears “beautiful starchy shirts with French cuffs magnificent neckties,” and occasionally, to Richard’s delight, a false pince-nez. Henry Winter can always be found in dark English suits. Each of the five students, Tartt writes, present “a variety of picturesque and fictive qualities”-an aura of romantic peculiarity largely supported by clothing. After he’s denied entry to an ancient Greek class taught by cultish professor Julian Morrow, who is “very particular” about his students, Richard becomes entranced with the small clique that has managed to get inside Julian’s rarefied course. Richard Papen has recently transferred to Hampden College, a small fictional school set in the hills of Vermont, based on Tartt’s own alma mater, Bennington College.
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