The Secret History

Oh man Oh man. I think I was introduced to this book through instagram reels. Everywhere I looked I saw this novel being recommended. But tbh it was a black cover or the other alternative was this greek statue thing, so suffice to say it wasn't at the top of my list. But then when I was browsing in Indigo (not planning to buy any books since I had just bought like 5 the day before) I saw it tucked away in a section that it wasn't really supposed to be and under impulse I bought it. 

And man it was a great great impulsive decision I made that day. I had just finished reading a bunch of other recommendations and felt pretty disappointed with a few of them and therefore I didn't have the highest expectations for this novel as I feel high expectations always ruined books for me. But man was I just put into the writing of Donna Tart as if it were a drug. I think while reading through the novel, I have never stopped and reread the passage so many times for like these few subtilties that she added or just due to her fantastic writing. I think there were countless, and I mean countless passages where I was just like: damn. 

Even after finishing the novel, I found so many hidden details online that I never would have caught, and I was simply blown away by the amount of subtilties she put in the book. I think tbh this is a book that was meant to be analyzed. One that should be part of highschool curriculums for analysis. Too bad some of the themes r a bit dark and the novel is a bit long for highschool. 

I think my favourite sections of this novel was the description of how Bunny would piss of the other characters. This built greatly into the characterization of so many of the characters and I found Donna doing this so many times, where she wrote this very much needed explanation of some strange but innate behaviour of a character that built on every single other characters personalities. I think the book really does a great job of the point its trying to establish, that everyone has a really dark side to them inside and the characters that show this really do this idea justice. 

I think while I was reading this the one constant thought I had in my head was “bruh what does this mean.” Like that's it. One of my largest complaints was just that I didn't understand greek loll. But after I did search up the meaning it was so interesting, so ig it would defeat the purpose of the greek and latin if there was a direct translation in the book or smth. 

Some final remarks. Bro all the characters r kinda wack. Like we have incenstious abuser, 2 psychpaths ig, gay SA'er, and honestly while the book makes Bunny look very very annoying, he is honestly the most rational person, although he is super weird and annoying as well. But ig thats the point of the book. Francis my personal fav lolll. 

I don't really like giving bad grades to media if I can't pinpoint what exactly I didn't like or what exactly I'd change to make the story better. In this case I'm a little lost at what to say. I enjoyed reading the book to an extent but it was left incredibly unsatisfying by the end. I didn't really like any of the characters and felt they didn't have much development throughout the story. Additionally I think the blurb is not an accurate representation of what the book is about. Really puzzled why people adore this book so much. 

the girlies are gonna hate me for this one!!!

a better title would have been: “Pretentious College Kids Murder Friend After Their Friend Wants to Expose Them for Murdering Someone Else - Group Feels No Remorse For Any of This”

nothing of interest happened .... all unlikeable characters... plot holes and time inconsistencies .... it was a no from me :(

Okay I reread this and I am losing my mind. This book is amazing? It discovers and dives into the macabre, into all things perverse and weird. This is because the class are not subject to normality - they have created their own socialisation and so they have their own rights and wrongs. Charles does not see loving camilla in more than a brotherly way as perverse or incestuous - he is not aware of the social stigmas around incest. The same goes for the rest of them. This is why Richard stands out so much as the newcomer who's been newly exposed to all of their weirdness. He comments on Charles' and camilla's relationship and they brush it off as they find it normal. He is the only one to think it weird as he's the only one who's experienced life outside of the group. They all feared Henry I think. Nobody wanted Bunny dead beside him. Henry made them all fear what bunny would do, planted an image in their minds so he wouldn't sound crazy in his idea to kill him. Everyone was accomplices in his game. Henry I find so strikingly mundane but simultaneously insane. He talks so casually about the most odd subjects that it makes one question the normality of his world. My new favourite line is from Francis, who says, “forgive me for all the things I did but mostly for the ones I did not.”

Please give my Amazon review a helpful vote - https://www.amazon.com/gp/review/R7JSE4ACTDF5?ref_=glimp_1rv_cl

Because the title calls back to Procopius's “The Secret History,” I've been wanting to read this book for twenty years, but I've never gotten around to it. I picked it up as an audiobook thinking that it would be a good way to while away drive time. Normally, high expectations are disappointed, but, in this case, I was surprised to find that I found myself drawn into the story and appreciating its slow development.

The story is a kind of 1980s bildungsroman - a kind of “The Great Gatsby” for the Age of Cocaine. This is probably not surprising since the author, Donna Tartt, went to school with and dated Brett Easton Ellis, the author of nihilistic, drug-soaked novels like “Less than Zero” and “American Psycho.” There is a sense of this nihilism in The Secret History, but also there is the alcohol saturation of The Great Gatsby.

The story begins with Richard Papen, a middle-class community college student, who applies to an Ivy League college, Hampden College, and is accepted. The story follows Richard as he gets accepted by Julian Morrow's Classics program and becomes friends with his fellow Classics students: stoic Henry, homosexual Francis, the twins Charles and Camilla, and the loudmouth Bunny. The story opens with the murder of Bunny by five other Classics students, so that is not a spoiler. The first part of the book builds up to why the murder happened; the second half of the book deals with the aftermath of the murder.

The first half of the book is a bit slow as Tartt sets up the relationships between the parties and builds up their characteristics. This half occasionally dragged, but was redeemed by excellent writing and a fair number of literary allusions. However, the second half of the book paid off in tension and the secrets of the characters.

I won't be the first person to note that these are not likable characters. The whole group are pompous, pretentious, perpetually drunk and have too much money for their own good. If you played a drinking game in the second half of the book of taking a shot whenever a character was described as drinking, you would be in the hospital getting your stomach pumped. It made me wonder about Tartt's years in her Ivy League college; did it really float on booze or was this what Tartt imagined as the archetypal college environment? Likewise, I was surprised by the references to the casual use of meth at an Ivy League college. We tend to think of meth as low-class; was it a new and trendy drug in the late 1980s?

Tartt's writing is superb. I also enjoyed watching her develop her plot. Things happened because they had to happen, but they also happened because the characters made them happen. The characters shared their secrets and kept their secrets in a way that tantalized and kept the reader interested.

Tartt was the reader of the audiobook. She did a very nice job, surprisingly nice in its professionalism. The one odd bit was that Tartt has a southern accent, and she gave her Yankee characters something of a southern twang (although she also did a starchy Vermont accent when the occasion required.) All in all, the audiobook was an enjoyable experience.

While I thought that the main characters were not likable, I found myself coming to like them. (Oddly, as I reflect on the book, the only character I consistently liked as a character was the drug-using, drug-dealing friend of Bunny's, Cloak Rayburn, who seemed to provide a comedy element to the story and the occasional good advice.) I also came to like these unlikable friends, as I came to accept their quirks. College is a time of quirkiness and making fast friends who remain for a lifetime.

But, perhaps, not over murder, although a good college friend should help you move the body.

I have a habit of glancing at the blurb of a book just long enough to get the general gist of the story, but I then quickly avert my eyes to avoid potential spoilers.

This often leads to wildly different expectations about what I think the story will be versus what it actually turns out to be.

Take The Secret History, for example. I expected a thriller or mystery: rich college students, full of hubris, going on a murderous rampage in a quiet, tranquil U.S. town. That is, indeed, what Donna Tartt’s debut novel is about. And yet, I was completely unprepared for how genuinely funny this book ended up being.

The group of sociopaths at the center of the story are not meant to be liked. Their few redeeming traits are far overshadowed by a myriad of terrible ones. While I did grow fond of two characters, I couldn’t, if pressed, make any convincing arguments in their favor.

But, my god, they are hilarious. A chaotic mix of incompetence, depravity, arrogance, and sheer stupidity, they somehow manage to make you laugh with nearly every line—delivered with perfect deadpan humour, even as their lives (predictably) spiral out of control.

If I have one criticism of The Secret History, it’s the length. Much of the second half could have been trimmed, with some plot-lines cut, to deliver the ending in a more impactful way. But that’s easily forgiven when the majority of the book is such a joy to read.

4 Stars.

No, y'all are crazy.

If Donna Tartt hadn't included that prologue, I never would've made it past, I don't know, perhaps page 30. The only thing that kept me going was the curiosity of why these asshole kids killed their asshole friend. Once I figured out why, I only finished it because I was curious what the last 60% of the book included. Surely something even better than a friend group turning on one of their own, right? Nope. Not in my opinion at least. Call me stupid, but I don't understand the motivation behind the major event near the end. Just... why? I also absolutely cannot believe a college student from California would be as smart as... uh what's the main character's name again? The one who has no purpose in the story? The one who could be completely eliminated without affecting the plot? Hold on, I'll look it up... oh yeah, Richard. That Richard would be as smart as he is and allow himself to almost freeze to death. Californian's understand cold weather and death by exposure just like people in other parts of the country.

The whole thing was just dreadfully dull.

“Wow.” That was my first thought after finishing this novel. First of all, how the heck does one write a book thicker than a dictionary with 628 pages that is only eight chapters? Some of those chapters could be books in and of themselves. But aside from that, I love Donna Tartt's writing. Her words for me, float beyond the page- they are truly made of that magical quality Stephen King was referring to when he said “books are magic”. I was impressed by how realistic and honestly horrible the characters were. There was a lot of beauty to be found in the darkness and despair. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting. Tartt does not shy away from harsh and real topics such as addiction, depression, suicide, racism and homophobia. Her characters are impeccably flawed and exceptionally interesting. All the events in ‘The Secret History' could happen in real life, yet the story has a big element of the world beyond, of ghosts, and gods from the classics. Truly a reflection on real life. On one hand we have matter, what we can touch and see and explain. And on the other hand we have emotions, visions and dreams that can convince even adults that magic exists, and is within all of us.

I think a lot of people loved or hated The Secret History, but at the end I find myself in the middle of the road. I can see how it would be a book that divides opinions, if nothing else because of the (perhaps over-confident) way in which Donna Tartt writes and the subject matter she chooses, but I finished it feeling undecided.

First off, the book is long. My ebook read 735 pages. I don't mind that, but the way she split the chapters was absolute nonsense to me. It is very hard from the perspective of a reader to look down and see your next chapter is 175 pages long. Considering this is not a book I will read in one sitting, it's hard to know a good place to stop.

Second, Tartt is a good writer. A distractingly good writer, at some points. And she is extremely clever about character development. Each character is unique from the others and has some likeable and unlikeable qualities. It's hard to know who to root for, which makes for a compelling read.

But the plotting felt off to me. Overall I would consider Tartt an exhaustive writer—she makes sure you know everything. But the order in which she reveals that everything (not really plot twists, as you see them all coming) was much better in the first half than the second. She didn't build tension in a consistent way, so around 2/3 of the way in you wonder how she is going to end it because it already feels over.

That said, the ending was a bit of a disappointment to me. There was no build up and it didn't resolve properly. Suddenly the characters make decisions that don't make sense. It almost feels like it was all for nothing.

I can't say I get what all the hype is about, but I generally enjoyed reading it and, if nothing else, appreciated some of Tartt's cleverer passages.

One of the most fun, most entertaining things about reading is the intertextuality game. It???s something that happens when one???s reading habits become deep enough and broad enough that one begins to see threads made of themes, tropes, images, and concepts linking certain books together. The best thing about the intertextuality game is that the more one reads, the broader and deeper the potential links between books become???enough that one can reread a book, and connect it to other books one has read before in ways that one didn???t when one first read said book. Even with books one has never read before, the intertextuality game provides a web upon which one may hang one???s own expectations and draw one???s own connections, to be reaffirmed or broken according to the author???s intent and/or talent.

It???s especially rewarding when one comes across a book that one recognises from another, previous read. Last year, at more or less this same time, I was reading Tam Lin by Pamela Dean, a beautiful (and long) ode to the college life I wish I???d gotten to lead. Inspired by the Scottish ballad of the same title, Tam Lin is about Janet Carter and her life as a college student studying English literature at Blackstock College. Surrounded by her friends and cute Classics boys, Janet works her way through her life at Blackstock, followed at all times by a light touch of magic and mystery. The book is weighty, to be sure, and not just because it???s a long read: Dean deals with some interesting questions about what it means to be an intelligent, well-read young woman studying in the somewhat-isolated environment of a private college, surrounded by interesting distractions both physical and mental.

But for all that, Tam Lin is actually a light, rather cheerful read. There???s a certain sparkling quality about it, like the flash of sunlight on water, that means it could never be truly dark, even when it deals with some rather difficult subjects. The same cannot be said of Donna Tartt???s The Secret History, which, as Hope and I have agreed, is Tam Lin???s dark mirror reflection.

The Secret History begins with a murder. Richard Papen, the novel???s narrator, recalls the moment when he and his college friends murdered another one of their number, one Bunny Corcoran, whereupon he delves into the whys and wherefores of that murder: what led up to it, and what came after. At the same time, he describes his life as a student at Hampden College: the people he met there and the things he did, but more importantly, the people who would become key to the murder mentioned in the very first part of the novel, who were all a part of the exclusive environment of the Classics classes taught by their professor and lone Classics specialist at Hampden, Julian Morrow.

As I mentioned earlier, The Secret History is Tam Lin???s darker twin, mostly because they share a great many traits, but at their core, are not the same at all. Both Tam Lin and The Secret History deal with the closed, hothouse environments of liberal arts colleges nestled in the countryside: Blackstock is located in Minnesota, while Hampden is located in Vermont. Charismatic and somewhat-mysterious Classics teachers are prominently featured in both novels: Melinda Wolfe in Tam Lin, and Julian Morrow in The Secret History. Literary references???to Classical as well as English literature???are everywhere in both novels, and are the key to understanding what happens in the story.

However, that is where the similarities end. Tam Lin is a celebration of college life, a shared appreciation for beauty and art in all its forms (though primarily in literature), and what it means to be young and in love with the world. The Secret History is the shadow cast by all that light: where love turns into obsession, camaraderie into hatred, and the Latin saying ???amor vincit omnia??? is stated, not with triumph, but with a hurt and weary heart.

One of the first things the reader may have noticed is that, though it???s often touted as a ???mystery???, The Secret History opens with the criminals already known to the reader. There???s no need to figure out ???whodunit???, because the reader already knows that. What is offered, instead, is an explanation as to why the murder was committed in the first place: discovering motive instead of a criminal. I personally find this interesting, and in a way far more engaging than the usual pattern of mystery novels that involve figuring out who was behind the crime. ???Why???? tends to be a more interesting question, to me, than ???Who????, especially in mysteries, because I find it pointless knowing who was behind a particular crime if I don???t know why they did it in the first place. It was, therefore, a pleasure to read The Secret History, because I already knew who had committed the crime, but knowing why they did it in the first place was an exceptionally engaging journey. It makes me wish that more crime and mystery writers would actually consider focusing on motive instead of just the criminal, especially when the potential for exploring the darker side of the human mind is very high.

Equally pleasurable was reading all the literary references, particularly to the Iliad and the Odyssey (especially the latter, as I have an enormous soft spot for it). I have absolutely no Latin or Greek, but a working knowledge of Greek tragedy is all that???s really needed to understand the novel, which is structured along those lines in the first place. Greek tragedies such as Oedipus Rex and Medea put a heavy emphasis on the characters playing out their fate, of being unable to break away from it in the first place. There is also a heavy emphasis on the concept of justice???not the justice of the law, but a moral justice, embodied by the Furies of Greek myth.

This is precisely how the plot of The Secret History plays out. Bunny???s murder was an attempt to avert fate, since killing him was a cover-up for a previous murder committed by Henry, Francis, and the twins during a Bacchanal gone horrifically awry. This drives them, and Richard (who was not included in the Bacchanal, but came along during Bunny???s murder) deep into the throes of guilt. From there they are tormented by the Furies (who are, anyway, supposed to represent guilt) in their own unique way: Francis??? paranoia and hypochondria become worse; Charles spirals deeper into alcoholism and starts abusing his own twin sister, Camilla; and Richard has strange and terrible nightmares. Only Henry appears to be unaffected, but it???s made clear in the novel that he, too, is deep in the clutches of the Furies. And just like a tragedy, Greek or otherwise, it ends with suicide, while the rest are left to drift away and figure out the rest of their lives the best way they can.

As with Tam Lin, it was these literary references, both in terms of the novel???s structure and the quotes used throughout, that annoyed a great many readers, with many reviews calling the novel and the main characters ???pretentious???, and Richard ???dull??? and ???flat???. I agree with these assessments: the novel and the characters do feel pretentious, and Richard does indeed read as a bit more milquetoast than one might like for the protagonist of a murder mystery. But I think those readers who point these out as bad things are approaching the novel the wrong way. Of course the novel would feel pretentious: that???s rather the point of the whole thing, given the setup and the characters involved. It helps to remember that the novel is structured around the framework of a Greek tragedy, and anyone who???s at least briefly studied the script for Oedipus Rex knows that pretension and pretence is part and parcel of the genre: one can easily draw parallels between Oedipus and Henry, for instance, not least because they both suffer from the gravest flaw the ancient Greeks could think of: hubris.

Neither are any of the characters meant to be truly sympathetic: if one can connect with them, that???s well and good, but one need not do so in order to enjoy the novel. They are meant to be held up as examples of what can go wrong when one tries to escape from one???s fate, when one tries to elude moral justice. Also, I assume that any reader is capable of knowing the difference between liking a character as a person, and liking a character because they???re an interesting character, and therefore knows to appreciate the characters in The Secret History despite knowing that they are, in fact, really terrible people.

I???m also partly certain that the ???pretentious??? descriptor is made largely by people who don???t understand exactly what Tartt is trying to do with this novel because of their own lack of experience with the genre she???s playing with and the texts she???s referencing. This is forgivable; after all, one may not have an interest in Greek tragedy, nor even encountered it in the course of one???s education. However, to dismiss a novel as ???pretentious??? simply because one doesn???t quite understand what the writer is referencing or trying to do is, to my mind, rather indicative of laziness and impatience on the reviewer???s part.

As for Richard, I do agree that he seems rather plain, but then again, he???s meant to be, once one understands that Tartt is recreating a Greek tragedy in novel format. Richard is, in my opinion, meant to act in the same way as a Greek chorus: as witness, and as narrator, not really a true actor in the sense of his actions doing much to affect the action of the other characters. There are many characters cast in his mould throughout literature, unremarkable folk who stand witness to the greater deeds???and foibles???of others: Sancho Panza from Don Quixote for instance, or John Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Like those characters, Richard is a stand-in for the reader: a stand-in with some very interesting thoughts of his own, to be sure, but a stand-in regardless, a camera through which the reader sees what happened to him, and what happened to those around him.

However, the things perceived by other readers to be flaws are the reasons why I loved reading this novel in the first place. I love it for the reasons I loved Tam Lin, albeit my love for The Secret History is limned with shadow and involves a great deal more head-shaking at the foibles and errors of the characters???it is, after all, a Greek tragedy. But I love it, for all that: love it because it is dark, because it is tragic. One cannot understand the light, after all, without knowing what darkness looks like.

Overall, The Secret History is a beautiful, darker reflection of the story I read in Tam Lin???a parallel made even more interesting when one realises that the latter was published just one year ahead of the former. Though much about the two novels is similar, there???s no denying that The Secret History is a Greek tragedy built around a murder mystery, and therefore does not have any of that sparkling light to it that Tam Lin appears to have. Despite that???or rather, precisely because of that???it makes for an excellent read.

I heard a lot of breathless enthusiasm about this book, so my expectations were high. This is a 3.5 star upgraded to 4 because it was a good read and, theoretically, I would give this a re-read in later life. Unfortunately I have little to no knowledge of the classics which I think prevented me from enjoying the story as much as I might‰ЫЄve – I mean enjoying more than just a layer or two – but regardless the story and the writing drew me along. I kept expecting to get bored in the second half – I kept thinking, what more could happen? There can‰ЫЄt be much more to this story, right? But it kept moving and I stayed interested, almost in spite of myself. I‰ЫЄm not sure if that had to do with the writing itself or with the narrator‰ЫЄs voice or with the backwards-murder-mystery aspect.

I enjoyed Richard‰ЫЄs voice and, as always in first-person narratives, the tension between what he thought about what he and his friends were doing versus what I thought about what they were doing. He comes across as likeable for the most part but there is the eternally nagging sense that he‰ЫЄs a bit of a monster. Although Richard‰ЫЄs characterization was strong– in so much as he remained in the background, as an invisible observer – the characterization of his male friends was a bit thin. I had a hard time telling the difference between Henry, Charles, and Francis, aside from their most obvious features – but that may have been because I paid less attention at the beginning of the story. My favourite part of the story was Richard‰ЫЄs winter alone in Hampden, my least favourite the visit to Bunny‰ЫЄs parent‰ЫЄs house for the funeral. It would be a fun book to reread (after getting some small grasp of the classics of course) and see what I missed and how the characters seem different after seeing them through to the end.

An amazing accomplishment. The dialogue, alone, sustained for so many pages, is impressive! I'll be thinking about this book for a long time, and wish that I had been reading it with someone else so that I could discuss.
I like Goldfinch better, partly because these characters didn't go very far. The setting and personalities started to wear a bit.
There were times in the first half that I considered bailing. It was slow in parts and quite dark, but I'm glad that I persevered.