College Coffee

One of my favourites is “She was the Queen who finished out the suit of dark Jacks, dark King, and Joker” used by Richard to describe Camila. Not only is she one of the most complex characters, but also one people tend to forget and underestimate. The truth is, Camila is one of the most important characters in this story and plays an important role in the ending.

By being the only girl in the group, she at some point attracts the attention of every single one of the boys, except for Francis, who isn’t interested but still cannot deny her appeal. Through the book, Richard gives many hints of his attraction towards her, so does her brother, Charles, and obviously Henry. It is Henry’s interest in Camila that causes Charles’ anger and ultimately the tension that separates the group further after Bunny’s death.

I am not saying this is not done for a critical purpose. All the contrary.

But Camilla is the male gaze. She represents the masculine perception of women only for what she brings in to the aesthetic experience. We barely know anything about her, besides that she is pretty and mysterious.

In this sense —and perhaps this is a choice I am making because I have no idea of what Tartt’s intentions are— I believe TSH can be seen not only as a criticism of superficiality in the sense that is often discussed (namely, Richard ruining his life for apprearnaces and aesthetics), but also in the sense that the male gaze allows the male spectator to choose who to perceive as a subject and who to perceive as an object, as atrezo, as a decorative element.

This is why we ship Richard and Henry. We know Richard sees (or wants and desperately tries to see) Henry. We could go as far as to say that the whole plot revolves around Richard’s obsession to work out Henry’s mind, even to become a Henry-like being himself. As a narrator, we see Henry’s subjectivity.

With Camilla, this does not happen. In reality, Richard does not care about her mind. Her mysterious nature is functional to his desire. To his world, his ego, his identity. She only exists as an extension of his person, his perception and his desire, as an idol to adore and to blame for his weakness. Even as the cause of Henry’s inaccessibility. Richard may say or act like he would want to know what Camilla thinks but, ultimately, he does not. The moment Camilla became anything more than an unattainable idea of a woman, she would stop being desired.

We ship Henry and Richard because we want to have someone obsessed with who we are in the way Richard is, not a mere aesthetic obsession that remains not only unaware but unbothered by our "essence".

We don't want to just be perceived and idolised in the way Camilla is; we want the Other to feel the anguish of not being able to decipher every inch of our soul, for them to for them to see us and to even partly become us in the way Richard is transformed by Henry's presence.