Status
Checked out
Publication
Ballantine Books (1996), Edition: 8/30/96, 592 pages
Description
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
Media reviews
As a ferociously well-paced entertainment, ... "The Secret History" succeeds magnificently. Forceful, cerebral and impeccably controlled, "The Secret History" achieves just what Ms. Tartt seems to have set out to do: it marches with cool, classical inevitability toward its terrible conclusion.
User reviews
LibraryThing member atheist_goat
I went to a small, elite, liberal arts college. So naturally many, if not most, of my fellow students were insanely into this book. They owned multiple copies, referenced it all the time, and I am down upon my knees every morning and evening giving thanks that the concept of internet slash fiction
Finally, post-college, I was given my own copy by someone who'd been pressing me to read it for years. And I had a free evening and some popcorn, so I took the plunge. For three swooning hours I tore through the pages, finally closed it, took a deep breath, and thought, "This does not bode well for virtually all my current friendships."
This book is TERRIBLE. Not one character is sympathetic or realistic, not one line of dialogue would ever be uttered by a human being (and bear in mind I have experienced something like a thousand hours of conversation between pretentious overeducated drunk college students), and the Big Secret Horrifying Act is giggle-provoking even if you don't know any classics majors. If you do, then it's fall-on-the-floor hilarious; in that situation, my money would be on the farmer.
Avoid. If you must read about rich pretentious college students with issues, read Brideshead Revisited, which I find annoying but is at least well written. Follow that with The Bacchae and you're good: all Tartt's influences, none of her writing.
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was not really around yet.Finally, post-college, I was given my own copy by someone who'd been pressing me to read it for years. And I had a free evening and some popcorn, so I took the plunge. For three swooning hours I tore through the pages, finally closed it, took a deep breath, and thought, "This does not bode well for virtually all my current friendships."
This book is TERRIBLE. Not one character is sympathetic or realistic, not one line of dialogue would ever be uttered by a human being (and bear in mind I have experienced something like a thousand hours of conversation between pretentious overeducated drunk college students), and the Big Secret Horrifying Act is giggle-provoking even if you don't know any classics majors. If you do, then it's fall-on-the-floor hilarious; in that situation, my money would be on the farmer.
Avoid. If you must read about rich pretentious college students with issues, read Brideshead Revisited, which I find annoying but is at least well written. Follow that with The Bacchae and you're good: all Tartt's influences, none of her writing.
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LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
This is one of my all-time favorite books. I've read it numerous times since it first came out and I enjoy it every single time and every single time I am so sorry to finish it. It belongs to what I think of as a trio of books about school along with Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand and Gaudy
The Secret History isn't so much a whodunit as a whydunit - you know the who immediately, the why is somewhat more mysterious (and in many ways is never fully revealed). I love the sweeping romanticism of this book - set at fictional Hampden College in the eighties. I was in college at the same time and some of the characters are familiar - the punk rockers, the druggies, the incredibly annoying hippies. Our hero is a California transplant, at college on scholarship and thrust into a small group of privileged students studying the Classics with the enigmatic Julian Morrow.
This is a winter book - cold at its heart, colder in its setting. There are deaths and funerals and philosophizing - lots of masks constantly worn. At its center is the narrator, Richard, and his love of the picturesque and Henry, who may or may not be a psychopathic killer. In this reading I found Julian Morrow to be the most chilling character - he is the old man in the road with the answers you probably won't like once you get them.
If you haven't read this, it's worth reading. Donna Tartt is a good writer and a good storyteller (a worthwhile combination). It takes her forever to write a book (this one took 8 years). Her second book, The Little Friend, is an odd Southern gothic that I also enjoyed, although it doesn't have the staying power of the first. It was 10 years between the first and second novel. Her third novel is due out in 2012. I'll be interested to see how she gets past her sophomore slump.
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Night by Dorothy L. Sayers. Let me be clear - these books are nothing alike - the only thing they have in common is their college setting. In a way, though, they are alike - they each deal with Dionysian events and their consequences in closed and exclusive college settings.The Secret History isn't so much a whodunit as a whydunit - you know the who immediately, the why is somewhat more mysterious (and in many ways is never fully revealed). I love the sweeping romanticism of this book - set at fictional Hampden College in the eighties. I was in college at the same time and some of the characters are familiar - the punk rockers, the druggies, the incredibly annoying hippies. Our hero is a California transplant, at college on scholarship and thrust into a small group of privileged students studying the Classics with the enigmatic Julian Morrow.
This is a winter book - cold at its heart, colder in its setting. There are deaths and funerals and philosophizing - lots of masks constantly worn. At its center is the narrator, Richard, and his love of the picturesque and Henry, who may or may not be a psychopathic killer. In this reading I found Julian Morrow to be the most chilling character - he is the old man in the road with the answers you probably won't like once you get them.
If you haven't read this, it's worth reading. Donna Tartt is a good writer and a good storyteller (a worthwhile combination). It takes her forever to write a book (this one took 8 years). Her second book, The Little Friend, is an odd Southern gothic that I also enjoyed, although it doesn't have the staying power of the first. It was 10 years between the first and second novel. Her third novel is due out in 2012. I'll be interested to see how she gets past her sophomore slump.
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LibraryThing member BrianDewey
Tartt, Donna. The Secret History. Fawcett Columbine, New York, 1992. This novel started so promising. I loved the densely literary beginning. I loved the characters and the plot. I found myself fantasizing about living this type of life, no matter how perverse it might have been. But thenthe
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bacchanaian ritual that forms the central tragedy of the book is never really developed. And the entire second half of the book is a disapointing d. I kept waiting for the unexpected event: that never came. If the book ended with the first half, it would have been much better. Show Less
LibraryThing member Meredy
Six-word review: Marked forever by one evil deed.
Extended review:
I recently read The Rabbit Back Literature Society, by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen. On the cover of the hardback edition is a blurb that says: "Mixes the small-town surrealism of Twin Peaks with the clandestine-society theme of Donna
Having enjoyed Rabbit Back, I found this tantalizing. I hadn't read The Secret History, but I'd read The Goldfinch and, despite some exasperation with its bloated size, I was willing to take another chance on its very capable author. So on my next visit to a real brick-and-mortar bookstore I purchased a copy in order to make a small but not negligible statement with my $16.00.
And here's my conclusion about that blurb: comparing Rabbit Back to this feat of fiction is sort of like saying "If you liked Disney's Aladdin, you'll love the Mahabharata." There's a difference of at least two orders of magnitude.
Which is not to fault Rabbit Back for being what it is, but only to say that these are not two things of a kind except in the merest manner.
In fact, as I (inevitably) allowed my mind to riffle through apt comparisons, the first phrase that occurred to me was "a high tale of love and of death." That's from the opening line of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, in the classic 1913 translation by Hilaire Belloc of the twelfth-century legend. Even though the two works are superficially nothing alike, I find the latter to be a more apt parallel for Donna Tartt's first novel than the lightweight, whimsical, and ultimately unsatisfying Rabbit Back.
Both Tristan and Iseult and The Secret History are deep dramas of passion and error, of flawed humanity and its sometimes beautiful waywardness. Both possess a mythic quality of fatefulness and inevitability. Both deal in the big questions and in how people answer them with their deeds, their minds, their souls.
It would not do to take the comparison too far. The medieval tale has had a lasting effect on our Western culture and its literature that no contemporary novel is likely to have. It is short, 96 pages in my Dover edition, compared with 559 for the Tartt novel. And its principals are led by love and by a code of honor that has little in common with a misguided impulse to murder in the name of loyalty and self-preservation. Nonetheless, The Secret History strikes a resonant chord, perhaps because it too is a tragedy, and perhaps because there lurks behind it a sense of deities at play, amusing themselves with the sufferings of their mortal playthings, unhampered by any constraints that resemble human morality.
As in The Goldfinch, the author has a spellbinding way of depicting the inner life of her main character. I found myself asking the hard question: under those circumstances, how far might I have gone? How sure am I that I would not have done what they did, would never have fallen under the sway of a charismatic leader? What makes me think that I am any less flawed and weak than those who allowed themselves to commit that one evil deed?
The intoxicating and morally disfiguring experience of admission into an exclusive circle dominated by an aberrant personality: this is territory that has been explored many times. Other recent ventures into this terrain include Dismantled, The Bellwether Revivals, and The Likeness. None that I have seen is rendered more compellingly than The Secret History, a tale of love and death that is not unimaginably remote from where we live.
Extended review:
I recently read The Rabbit Back Literature Society, by Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen. On the cover of the hardback edition is a blurb that says: "Mixes the small-town surrealism of Twin Peaks with the clandestine-society theme of Donna
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Tartt's The Secret History." --The List (UK)Having enjoyed Rabbit Back, I found this tantalizing. I hadn't read The Secret History, but I'd read The Goldfinch and, despite some exasperation with its bloated size, I was willing to take another chance on its very capable author. So on my next visit to a real brick-and-mortar bookstore I purchased a copy in order to make a small but not negligible statement with my $16.00.
And here's my conclusion about that blurb: comparing Rabbit Back to this feat of fiction is sort of like saying "If you liked Disney's Aladdin, you'll love the Mahabharata." There's a difference of at least two orders of magnitude.
Which is not to fault Rabbit Back for being what it is, but only to say that these are not two things of a kind except in the merest manner.
In fact, as I (inevitably) allowed my mind to riffle through apt comparisons, the first phrase that occurred to me was "a high tale of love and of death." That's from the opening line of The Romance of Tristan and Iseult, in the classic 1913 translation by Hilaire Belloc of the twelfth-century legend. Even though the two works are superficially nothing alike, I find the latter to be a more apt parallel for Donna Tartt's first novel than the lightweight, whimsical, and ultimately unsatisfying Rabbit Back.
Both Tristan and Iseult and The Secret History are deep dramas of passion and error, of flawed humanity and its sometimes beautiful waywardness. Both possess a mythic quality of fatefulness and inevitability. Both deal in the big questions and in how people answer them with their deeds, their minds, their souls.
It would not do to take the comparison too far. The medieval tale has had a lasting effect on our Western culture and its literature that no contemporary novel is likely to have. It is short, 96 pages in my Dover edition, compared with 559 for the Tartt novel. And its principals are led by love and by a code of honor that has little in common with a misguided impulse to murder in the name of loyalty and self-preservation. Nonetheless, The Secret History strikes a resonant chord, perhaps because it too is a tragedy, and perhaps because there lurks behind it a sense of deities at play, amusing themselves with the sufferings of their mortal playthings, unhampered by any constraints that resemble human morality.
As in The Goldfinch, the author has a spellbinding way of depicting the inner life of her main character. I found myself asking the hard question: under those circumstances, how far might I have gone? How sure am I that I would not have done what they did, would never have fallen under the sway of a charismatic leader? What makes me think that I am any less flawed and weak than those who allowed themselves to commit that one evil deed?
The intoxicating and morally disfiguring experience of admission into an exclusive circle dominated by an aberrant personality: this is territory that has been explored many times. Other recent ventures into this terrain include Dismantled, The Bellwether Revivals, and The Likeness. None that I have seen is rendered more compellingly than The Secret History, a tale of love and death that is not unimaginably remote from where we live.
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LibraryThing member ropie
The plot of The Secret History is straightforward and quite predictable. It's the way in which Donna Tartt draws the reader very, very slowly into the world of her Classics students, however, revealing facets of their characters and lives, which made the novel work for me. The fictional collegiate
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environment of Hampden, Vermont, seemed to be a perfect backdrop for the growing feeling of paranoia and deathly-ness that surrounds the main characters. In actual fact, the disparity between the grandeur of high academia and the reality of the sleepy town is really what initiates the series of catastrophes that propel the novel. I knew nothing of this book when I bought it and was hoping for an easy, entertaining read, in the manner of Stephen King. I was not disappointed; in fact I was engrossed for a whole week. Show Less
LibraryThing member blackjacket
Proof of the author's skill at crafting a suspenseful tale is that the murder is revealed on the first page, yet I read on. Nor are the main characters particularly appealing, but I allowed myself to become absorbed in their solipsistic, arrogant world nonetheless.
Greek classicism is really just an
I was waiting for the professor Julian Morrow to be fleshed out more, or at least to hear some of his profound utterances that made him such a figure of respect and awe for the students, but the reader is denied any real flashes of wisdom. Even Henry, a genius at translation, seems oddly ordinary in his speech.
Despite it's length, I can see why people re-read this, for the first time the plot pulls you forward. I imagine subsequent readings would allow the reader to pay attention more to the friendships, the moments where decisions are made, and the gestures that point to greater turmoil, for it is a novel of great attention to detail and luxuriates in creating atmosphere.
Other mediums have done similar tales with much greater tautness - Hitchcock's thrilling Rope springs to mind, while the charm and faint menace behind Henry's self assuredness reminded me of Patricia Highsmith's writing.
Despite my quibbles, I felt real pleasure reading this. Yes, they are dreary uni students who spend their days smoking, drinking and staring out from rain drizzled windows, but the world Donna Tartt creates is a richly textured one and I appreciated the ride on this different kind of thriller.
Greek classicism is really just an
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intellectual prop for the students to appear aloof - this is not a novel of ideas per se. There is one or two references at the beginning about Greek ideas underpinning the bacchanal that kills the farmer, but, again, these are not essential to the story, just an exotic way to do a killing and accentuate the overinflated sense of superiority these students have.I was waiting for the professor Julian Morrow to be fleshed out more, or at least to hear some of his profound utterances that made him such a figure of respect and awe for the students, but the reader is denied any real flashes of wisdom. Even Henry, a genius at translation, seems oddly ordinary in his speech.
Despite it's length, I can see why people re-read this, for the first time the plot pulls you forward. I imagine subsequent readings would allow the reader to pay attention more to the friendships, the moments where decisions are made, and the gestures that point to greater turmoil, for it is a novel of great attention to detail and luxuriates in creating atmosphere.
Other mediums have done similar tales with much greater tautness - Hitchcock's thrilling Rope springs to mind, while the charm and faint menace behind Henry's self assuredness reminded me of Patricia Highsmith's writing.
Despite my quibbles, I felt real pleasure reading this. Yes, they are dreary uni students who spend their days smoking, drinking and staring out from rain drizzled windows, but the world Donna Tartt creates is a richly textured one and I appreciated the ride on this different kind of thriller.
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LibraryThing member ReginaR
This book embodies everything that I love in fiction, it is a perfect example of why I love to read. Every word and phrase that appears on the pages of this book (and it is pages, as this book is not available in ebook format as of yet!) is so beautiful and so rich. Everytime I sat down to read
The setting for this tale is a small, secluded (and mythical) Vermont liberal arts college populated by elite students. The story is told from the point of view of a male transfer student who is running from his blue collar background and his disinterested parents. He escapes into a group of students who have further secluded themselves from the student body even more in this remote environment. Richard – the protagonist – begins to study classics, focusing on Greek and attempts to pretend he is someone he is not - privileged, wealthy, elite. The circle of friends he finds himself among, appear to all be very wealthy and focused on academics in a way that is very odd for modern college students. They are extremely insular, not willing to permit anyone into their ranks. Richard, now admitted after he demonstrates his knowledge of ancient Greek, begins crafting himself in the image of those around him. The opening scene (in fact the prologue) begins with a murder scene, there is no mystery here. The reader knows who dies and how. The murderers are clear, there is no question as to motive. The focus of the story are the events leading up to the murder and the murders aftermath on its participants. What Tartt unwraps for the reader is a very disturbing tale. Will a need to fit in trump morality? What needs to happen for a person to separate from a group focused on hurting those around them? Or will most people just follow the group, no matter the evil effects on those around them? What is the greater good – is it the survival of a group of friends? The story is about loss of innocence, the extreme focus inward to the neglect of else, and group think. It is a beautiful and haunting tale. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute spent reading this book.
Readers who enjoyed Tana French’s The Likeness, will enjoy this book.
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this book, I felt as if I was in the midst of eating a perfectly cooked filet mignon and a very rich but salty potato side dish accompanied by a strong red wine. This book was a true treat for my senses. It is a character driven book, the characters are central and the tale is about them – not about their surroundings or their events. It is the characters that rule this tale. So what was this book about? Excess, consumption, greed, selfishness, loss of innocence, pack think and ego maniacs – sound delicious? The setting for this tale is a small, secluded (and mythical) Vermont liberal arts college populated by elite students. The story is told from the point of view of a male transfer student who is running from his blue collar background and his disinterested parents. He escapes into a group of students who have further secluded themselves from the student body even more in this remote environment. Richard – the protagonist – begins to study classics, focusing on Greek and attempts to pretend he is someone he is not - privileged, wealthy, elite. The circle of friends he finds himself among, appear to all be very wealthy and focused on academics in a way that is very odd for modern college students. They are extremely insular, not willing to permit anyone into their ranks. Richard, now admitted after he demonstrates his knowledge of ancient Greek, begins crafting himself in the image of those around him. The opening scene (in fact the prologue) begins with a murder scene, there is no mystery here. The reader knows who dies and how. The murderers are clear, there is no question as to motive. The focus of the story are the events leading up to the murder and the murders aftermath on its participants. What Tartt unwraps for the reader is a very disturbing tale. Will a need to fit in trump morality? What needs to happen for a person to separate from a group focused on hurting those around them? Or will most people just follow the group, no matter the evil effects on those around them? What is the greater good – is it the survival of a group of friends? The story is about loss of innocence, the extreme focus inward to the neglect of else, and group think. It is a beautiful and haunting tale. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute spent reading this book.
Readers who enjoyed Tana French’s The Likeness, will enjoy this book.
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LibraryThing member Brianna_H
The Secret History has the best written characters I have encountered in a long time. This is a book that will keep you up all night because you just CANNOT stop reading it. While reading The Secret History, I found myself almost (I said ALMOST) wishing that I was right there in the story with
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them, sitting in Professor Julian Morrow's classics class, having cocktails with Henry, smoking cigarettes with Camilla. The Secret History is a suspenseful mystery novel and an engrossing character study. It is intelligent and smacks of academia. Read this book if you love novels set in colleges, as I do, or if you simply love mysteries or gripping stories in general. Show Less
LibraryThing member booksbooks11
Engaging characters who were just at some times annoying and a little hard to accept, but still I was totally hooked and made a great holiday read. Follows a group of undergraduates into a path we know in some particular circumstance any of us could follow and that what makes it so compelling. The
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comparison to Crime and Punishment is justified but a little disturbing to me as it really didn't have the same depth of penetration into the soul of the protaginst. Having just read a few other reviews, I have to agree with the negative one, I wasn't aware of any hype over this book so my expectations were not that high, had they been I think I would have been similarly peeved. It's not literature, just an interesting story and the characters sometimes make it off the page but not always. Show Less
LibraryThing member lahochstetler
I absolutely adored Tartt's other novel, The Little Friend, and I had high hopes for this one too. I was not disappointed. The novel tells the story of five students at an elite New England liberal arts college. All of the students are tremendously, unusually devoted to their studies, and this
Donna Tartt is a phenomenal storyteller. She creates plots that are deep, rich, and complex. Much like The Little Friend, The Secret History is a highly psychological book. I was absolutely gripped by this book from beginning to end.
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devotion leads them to tragedy as they murder first, an outsider, and then one of their own. The fact of the murders is not the suspenseful part of the plot. Indeed, the murder of one of the group's own is revealed on the first page. Rather, the interest, intruige, and suspense comes in how the students cope with the knowledge of what they've done. Their suspicion, fear, and even some remorse wreak havoc and lead the group to an even more tragic climax. The main characters in this book are Classics students, and indeed, the book itself reads much like a Greek tragedy, with precipitous decline, and knowledge thereof. Donna Tartt is a phenomenal storyteller. She creates plots that are deep, rich, and complex. Much like The Little Friend, The Secret History is a highly psychological book. I was absolutely gripped by this book from beginning to end.
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LibraryThing member Bibliophile38
Simply, one of my favourite novels. Humor and friendship filled. It makes me wish I was a scholar earlier in life. The 10 years it took to write shows in the thoughtful story telling. The characters are so strongly written that if they walked into a room, then I would be able to recognize them
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easily. Show Less
LibraryThing member stretch
This novel was a great read. It's not the greatest novel ever written, and I don't think it tries to be. I really enjoyed reading this book but I think it had a few hiccups and slow points (it would have been nice if it had been a little more plot driven).
The approach of telling the reader about
Now the hiccups, one the more persistent problems for me was establishing a consistent time period. Cultural events seemed to place it in the early 90’s or late 80’s. But the students dress and actions, like listening to music that their parents listened to, the lack of television, or recreation doesn’t seem to fit college students in the early 90’s. Then there’s the rampant drug and alcohol use, being so intoxicated on such a regular basis makes it hard to believe that any coherent plan to cover up or plan a murder is even possible. I also found the homosexual and incestral undertones a bit hard to accept. Maybe its apart of the whole ancient Greek emersion and fit the tragic Greek comedy theme, but still I found it to be a little to overt and over the top. The last annoyance was the frequent injection of foreign languages instead of English. Most of the time it was pretty easy to get at what she was trying to say but at times she was inconsistent and at times left me scratching my head at key points in the story.
I know this review isn’t exactly glowing, it really was a good read. I really don’t know what to say or feel about this book.
The approach of telling the reader about
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the murder and who committed such a horrendous act right from the start and its subsequent fall out was a unique angle that was a nice switch from the typical suspense novel. The pretentious nature of this book and its characters is hard to overlook. I found it amazing that a character driven novel could have so many despicable characters and still be enjoyable. I find it hard to imagine a bigger collection of snobs and shallow people. Hampden college certainly plays into ever stereotype of a rich, private Liberals arts college imaginable. I think this hurt the book in the end, but allowed the despicable traits to flourish in such an environment. In any other setting this novel wouldn’t work. In the end snobbish intellectuals with no redeeming value, in a college where nothing but money and position matter, something like a petty murder or two and its subsequent cover up fits.Now the hiccups, one the more persistent problems for me was establishing a consistent time period. Cultural events seemed to place it in the early 90’s or late 80’s. But the students dress and actions, like listening to music that their parents listened to, the lack of television, or recreation doesn’t seem to fit college students in the early 90’s. Then there’s the rampant drug and alcohol use, being so intoxicated on such a regular basis makes it hard to believe that any coherent plan to cover up or plan a murder is even possible. I also found the homosexual and incestral undertones a bit hard to accept. Maybe its apart of the whole ancient Greek emersion and fit the tragic Greek comedy theme, but still I found it to be a little to overt and over the top. The last annoyance was the frequent injection of foreign languages instead of English. Most of the time it was pretty easy to get at what she was trying to say but at times she was inconsistent and at times left me scratching my head at key points in the story.
I know this review isn’t exactly glowing, it really was a good read. I really don’t know what to say or feel about this book.
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LibraryThing member hippietrail
This book is good but it started off great. As it progresses I'm finding that bit by bit it sheds more of its literary pretensions and reveals itself as not much more than a gussied-up crime novel. I find the characters' names distractingly schlocky but also the styles and vocabularies used by the
Another thing which annoyed me was some very female observations coming from what is supposed to be a male narrator/protagonist. How many blokes know a "clutch" is a type of handbag?
These are all minor points to be sure and I'll certainly read more by this author when I have the chance. I think she has potential beyond what we see here.
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narrative, and the various characters tend to jar a little. I've had a tough time pinning down the era. The students mostly use outdated language which suits them, but that jarrs with eighties valley-talk from others, and constant mention of hippies. I also find it odd that when somebody quotes Ancient Greek, it might appear in the book translated into English, transliterated, or in Greek script.Another thing which annoyed me was some very female observations coming from what is supposed to be a male narrator/protagonist. How many blokes know a "clutch" is a type of handbag?
These are all minor points to be sure and I'll certainly read more by this author when I have the chance. I think she has potential beyond what we see here.
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LibraryThing member bragan
This novel tells the story of five people, students of ancient Greek at a small college in Vermont, who have murdered their friend and classmate by pushing him off a cliff. We learn about this act immediately, and then the rest of the first half of the book is devoted to what came before it, and
Based on all the enthusiastic praise I'd heard for this book, I was expecting... I don't know. Something thrilling and twisty, deep and dark. It isn't quite that, though. At least not the twisty and thrilling part. It's really quite leisurely, even. But it is, in its own way, compelling, the sort of novel you just want to sink into for a good long while, and the end is really quite gripping, even if not at all in the way I would have anticipated going in.
This is also a really good example of the fact that stories don't have to have likeable characters to be good, because all of these people are just awful. But they're awful in convincing and interesting ways.
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the second half to what came afterward.Based on all the enthusiastic praise I'd heard for this book, I was expecting... I don't know. Something thrilling and twisty, deep and dark. It isn't quite that, though. At least not the twisty and thrilling part. It's really quite leisurely, even. But it is, in its own way, compelling, the sort of novel you just want to sink into for a good long while, and the end is really quite gripping, even if not at all in the way I would have anticipated going in.
This is also a really good example of the fact that stories don't have to have likeable characters to be good, because all of these people are just awful. But they're awful in convincing and interesting ways.
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LibraryThing member indygo88
This is a good and well-written book, although I'm not sure it lives up to all the hype it's been given. It's been on my shelf for quite a few years, waiting to be read. I've read Tartt's other two, newer novels and I still don't know that I favor one over the other. Tartt is a good writer,
The Secret History is a story told from the viewpoint of Richard, who as an adult is looking back on a particular year he spent at Hampden College in Vermont. While there, he falls in with a somewhat unique & eccentric group of students studying classic literature. From the outset of the novel, the reader is made aware that a death is forthcoming, and gradually the various layers of the story unfold. While not necessarily what you would classify as a murder mystery, the novel does share some characteristics of one, although more than anything, it seems a study in character development and exploration. The whole plot is somewhat disturbing, some portions are downright odd, and the characters' feelings and motivations are questionable. I was constantly going back and forth as to whether I liked Tartt's characters, including Richard the narrator. In the end, after finishing the novel, I felt not exactly dazed and confused, but certainly dazed and not quite sure what to make of it all. Overall, an enjoyable and though-provoking novel, but not necessarily flawless.
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although I do think she tends to be wordy, and her novels always seem to be longer than they need to be in order to get her point across. The Secret History is a story told from the viewpoint of Richard, who as an adult is looking back on a particular year he spent at Hampden College in Vermont. While there, he falls in with a somewhat unique & eccentric group of students studying classic literature. From the outset of the novel, the reader is made aware that a death is forthcoming, and gradually the various layers of the story unfold. While not necessarily what you would classify as a murder mystery, the novel does share some characteristics of one, although more than anything, it seems a study in character development and exploration. The whole plot is somewhat disturbing, some portions are downright odd, and the characters' feelings and motivations are questionable. I was constantly going back and forth as to whether I liked Tartt's characters, including Richard the narrator. In the end, after finishing the novel, I felt not exactly dazed and confused, but certainly dazed and not quite sure what to make of it all. Overall, an enjoyable and though-provoking novel, but not necessarily flawless.
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LibraryThing member thorold
This is a 1990s remake of Crime and punishment with a dash of Gatsby, set on the campus of a small college for thick children of rich Americans in Vermont. By some mistake never fully explained, half a dozen bright, ambitious young people have wound up there and are being taught Greek by a
Naturally, their intensive studies draw them into an unhealthily tight-knit relationship, and before long the bonds within the group are being tested by their shared knowledge of a dreadful secret.
Despite the silly premises it’s built on, this turns out to be quite a gripping story, with some interesting observations of the way class and privilege operate in US society. It doesn’t seem to make as much as it might of the classical background: most of the time the kids might as well be studying microbiology or town-planning for all the influence it has on the way they think. And for my taste there was rather too much booze-and-pills stuff in the last part of the book.
Interesting and ambitious, but I felt it had been oversold. Not easy to see why it would be considered a modern classic.
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charismatic tutor who must be some three decades over the statutory retirement age if even a fraction of the legends about his past are true. Naturally, their intensive studies draw them into an unhealthily tight-knit relationship, and before long the bonds within the group are being tested by their shared knowledge of a dreadful secret.
Despite the silly premises it’s built on, this turns out to be quite a gripping story, with some interesting observations of the way class and privilege operate in US society. It doesn’t seem to make as much as it might of the classical background: most of the time the kids might as well be studying microbiology or town-planning for all the influence it has on the way they think. And for my taste there was rather too much booze-and-pills stuff in the last part of the book.
Interesting and ambitious, but I felt it had been oversold. Not easy to see why it would be considered a modern classic.
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LibraryThing member SqueakyChu
This book grabs you psychologically right from the start! This book is as tight in tension as anything I’ve ever read. In it you find yourself immersed in the character of the somewhat misfit student among high-brow intellectuals with a darker side. Since we know from the opening pages of the
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book that one of the members of this group ends up being murdered, it is with great hesitancy that we continue to read. It like a dark shadow that accompanies the pages. Excellent technique by the author. It works extremely well! Show Less
LibraryThing member SteveLindahl
I attended a liberal arts school in the late sixties and early seventies, so I knew people who fit the mold of the main characters in The Secret History: reasonably smart, from well to do families, and generally acting as if our interests were less valuable than theirs. I also knew a few students
The Secret History is a crime novel from the point of view of one of the criminals. That’s clear from the beginning, so this isn’t a spoiler. Richard Papen is an impulsive young man with a family that doesn’t want him around. He picks his college for arbitrary reasons and picks his major because overcoming the challenge of signing up for Greek is more important than thinking of his future. Right away we see his decisions are a little edgy, but we like and sympathize with him. I find Richard very believable in the context of the novel. I know some reviewers have felt Tartt’s male characters are not male enough. Perhaps Richard thought a little too much about what he and his friends were wearing, but other than that I had no trouble with his masculinity.
Henry Winter and Bunny Corcoran are the two most interesting characters in the book. In a way they flip roles over the course of the book. Although, there are other things going on that push them in unique directions. I can't say much more than that without revealing the plot. Camilla and Charles are interesting in a very broad way, yet I didn't feel I got to know them as well as the other students of Julian Morrow. And every college has its Judy Pooveys, who might be attracted to someone or interested in something that's going on, but always too stoned to care. The teacher, Julian, is also fascinating because he epitomizes the concept of a college environment as a sanctuary where ideas can grow and anything can be discussed, but he has been living this ideal for so long he's lost all concept of the way events stimulated by his ideas can affect him. As the story unfurls, his reactions are wonderful.
The main characters in The Secret History meet as students in a Greek class. This, however, is unlike any language class I ever took. It's more about thinking and philosophy than it is about communication or reading. Here's a quote about that subject. Richard Papen is reflecting on something Julian Morrow has taught him:
The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation.
It seems like a wonderful thing, to gain a new way of thinking, but it depends on what the new ideas are.
What I liked the most about the book was the slow way Donna Tartt built her plot, carefully giving her readers enough information about her characters to believe the plot was progressing. I read this book and I’m currently listening to the audio of Tartt’s latest novel, The Goldfinch. I waited to finish this one before starting The Goldfinch. They aren’t linked in any way, so the order doesn’t matter, but the style is similar. I’m glad I didn’t try to read them both at the same time. But they are both great reads.
Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions
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who were more interested in drugs and alcohol than anything else the university had to offer, including their classes. So Donna Tartt’s setup worked well for me. But in real life I didn’t get to follow the lives of those people as closely as I did in The Secret History where I found their self-centered reactions to the complex situation believable. I also found myself pulling for people who had done some horrible things.The Secret History is a crime novel from the point of view of one of the criminals. That’s clear from the beginning, so this isn’t a spoiler. Richard Papen is an impulsive young man with a family that doesn’t want him around. He picks his college for arbitrary reasons and picks his major because overcoming the challenge of signing up for Greek is more important than thinking of his future. Right away we see his decisions are a little edgy, but we like and sympathize with him. I find Richard very believable in the context of the novel. I know some reviewers have felt Tartt’s male characters are not male enough. Perhaps Richard thought a little too much about what he and his friends were wearing, but other than that I had no trouble with his masculinity.
Henry Winter and Bunny Corcoran are the two most interesting characters in the book. In a way they flip roles over the course of the book. Although, there are other things going on that push them in unique directions. I can't say much more than that without revealing the plot. Camilla and Charles are interesting in a very broad way, yet I didn't feel I got to know them as well as the other students of Julian Morrow. And every college has its Judy Pooveys, who might be attracted to someone or interested in something that's going on, but always too stoned to care. The teacher, Julian, is also fascinating because he epitomizes the concept of a college environment as a sanctuary where ideas can grow and anything can be discussed, but he has been living this ideal for so long he's lost all concept of the way events stimulated by his ideas can affect him. As the story unfurls, his reactions are wonderful.
The main characters in The Secret History meet as students in a Greek class. This, however, is unlike any language class I ever took. It's more about thinking and philosophy than it is about communication or reading. Here's a quote about that subject. Richard Papen is reflecting on something Julian Morrow has taught him:
The value of Greek prose composition, he said, was not that it gave one any particular facility in the language that could not be gained as easily by other methods but that if done properly, off the top of one's head, it taught one to think in Greek. One's thought patterns become different, he said, when forced into the confines of a rigid and unfamiliar tongue. Certain common ideas become inexpressible; other, previously undreamt-of ones spring to life, finding miraculous new articulation.
It seems like a wonderful thing, to gain a new way of thinking, but it depends on what the new ideas are.
What I liked the most about the book was the slow way Donna Tartt built her plot, carefully giving her readers enough information about her characters to believe the plot was progressing. I read this book and I’m currently listening to the audio of Tartt’s latest novel, The Goldfinch. I waited to finish this one before starting The Goldfinch. They aren’t linked in any way, so the order doesn’t matter, but the style is similar. I’m glad I didn’t try to read them both at the same time. But they are both great reads.
Steve Lindahl – author of Motherless Soul and White Horse Regressions
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LibraryThing member jddunn
This is a rare book where I couldn’t find a single sympathetic character, and yet I still liked it a lot. And shit, I look at Raskolnikov as a sympathetic character, if that’s any indication. No likable characters, foreknowledge of what’s going to happen in the end, and yet, it still managed
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to be compelling. The force of the narrative and the tangibility of the atmosphere pulled me along despite myself. I felt like taking a shower after every chapter, and yet I kept reading. Comparisons to Greek tragedy are apt. A lot of the characters there seem cold and brutal as well, and it’s similarly fatalistic and foreordained, but still oddly compelling in much the same way. Show Less
LibraryThing member sarahemmm
Attempted to read this for my book club, but couldn't finish it. Donna Tartt is not for me, I'm afraid.
LibraryThing member lycomayflower
A well-written and reasonably compelling exploration of the situation leading to a murder of a young man by his friends and the repercussions emotionally and psychologically for the murderers (the murder is revealed on the first page; the fact of it is a given from the beginning). I say "reasonably
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compelling" because while I remained interested in the novel and its outcome throughout, I found the whole premise somewhat tiring and claustrophobic by the two-thirds mark and because I'm not sure what to do with the thing now I'm finished. The group of friends The Secret History follows is made up of somewhat strange characters, all set apart from their fellow college students in some way (smarter or richer or poorer or more stuck up), and the six main characters form an elite but unenvied group of Classics scholars by dint of being selected by the campus Greek scholar to study with him. But it is never clear whether their ability to murder (and to follow one of their group in particular, who is the calculating force behind all the trouble they find themselves in) is a function of their oddities, or of their immersion in Classics, or of the influence of their instructor (who we are told is sort of the epitome of liberal artsy genius professorship but who reads as particular but not particularly special on the page), or their actual similarities to most other people. It is perhaps unfair to feel that the novel must do something in this way, must reveal something about the nature of murder--especially since the novel excels as character study--but its very nature seems to insist upon being about the ability to murder, even if it seems not to offer any sharp understanding of the subject. A decent read, and extremely well crafted, but somewhat disappointing in the end. Show Less
LibraryThing member phredfrancis
I was pleased to see that many of my friends here on Goodreads had enjoyed this book, giving it very high ratings. My own experience, however, was less pleasing than this had led me to expect. The overall story was a good one, and I was sometimes fond of the writing, but it struck me as strange
One aspect of the book that should have made me cautious early on (though I was practicing an open-minded approach) was the author's dedication to Bret Easton Ellis, because long, lingering gazes at surfaces suffused the book, much as they do Ellis's work too. I understand (or think I do) the intention to portray a certain class of people and their fixation on style, manners, and position, but staring at surface and hearing flat, cool commentary from a parade of similar characters had the effect of deadening this oddly passive tale of murder and betrayal. Even after the 559 pages of the novel, the characters remained vague and difficult to know, though given what I learned about them, I didn't much want to know a single one of them.
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that in a book full of shock, dread, and anxious fear that the emotion of the scenes never once moved me. That's too bad, because the book didn't have enough in the way of intellectual offerings, despite its classical and academic trappings. A more focused narrative, a more engaged narrator, and a third less text could all have made this brooding thriller a bit more thrilling.One aspect of the book that should have made me cautious early on (though I was practicing an open-minded approach) was the author's dedication to Bret Easton Ellis, because long, lingering gazes at surfaces suffused the book, much as they do Ellis's work too. I understand (or think I do) the intention to portray a certain class of people and their fixation on style, manners, and position, but staring at surface and hearing flat, cool commentary from a parade of similar characters had the effect of deadening this oddly passive tale of murder and betrayal. Even after the 559 pages of the novel, the characters remained vague and difficult to know, though given what I learned about them, I didn't much want to know a single one of them.
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LibraryThing member sailorfigment
Somewhere I read a synopsis of the book and it sounded riveting. The book was terrible. Maybe it was the bored way the author read the audio, like she didn't care about it, either. It took forever for our characters to get anywhere and when they finally got there the book just kept going. It could
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easily have been half the length. A bunch of bored rich kids (and Richard) with nothing better to do. Show Less
LibraryThing member Tanya-dogearedcopy
The book opens with five students from a small private college in Vermont walking away from the body of a sixth, making sure they have cleared the evidence from the scene. Told from the point-of-view of Richard Papen (a transfer student from an unsupportive and less-than-wealthy family in
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California), this mystery is not a "whodunit" or even "howdunit" but a "whydunit". The story spools out through a haze of drugs, alcohol, sex and a Classics course in Greek as we witness the mental states of the students deteriorate under the strain of paranoia, guilt, jealousy, insecurity and self-absorption. It all adds up to a psychosis-inducing cocktail and a compelling tale as riveting as it is awful. Despite the interior dialogues of Richard and the insertion of relatively esoteric ideas (e.g., untranslated words and phrases in Greek and Latin, Ancient Greek concepts of the self, etc...), this isn't really a deep dive into the psyche of the individual or group-- so there is little emotional leverage to fully engage the reader. But I have to admit that this may be because I went in thinking that this would be a lit-fic book and started looking for meaning where perhaps none existed: There must be a reason why "Bunny" was the only one with a nickname (all others are addressed by full first names), right? These students represent archetypes, yes? What does Julian, their teacher represent? But trying to extract meaning out the story is as pointless as it is counter-productive to just enjoying the story for what it is: a remarkable debut novel from a young author (They were under thirty-years old when the book was published) and an entertaining, page-turning thriller with some surprising plot twists. Show Less
LibraryThing member lorilyn
Donna Tartt is a masterful writer and this is one smart, compelling book.
Subjects
Awards
Audie Award (Finalist — 2014)
Prix des libraires du Québec (1994)
Read with Jenna (2022-12 — 2022)
The Great American Novels (1992)
Waterstones top 25 books of the last 25 years (No 8 — 2007)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1992
Physical description
592 p.; 5.5 inches
ISBN
0449911519 / 9780449911518
Local notes
fiction