Donna Tartt was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is a graduate of Bennington College. She is the author of the novels The Goldfinch and The Little Friend, which have been translated into thirty languages. You can find more of my reviews of Donna Tartt's works here.
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 mortality they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil.
Our narrator, within the first few pages, does not hide the fact that a murder is about to take place. In fact, the murder seems like the inciting incident of this character's life, despite being the event that takes place halfway through the novel. It is this form that makes me curious about The Secret History, itself. It is clear that our narrator, Richard, is looking back on his time in college as a way to examine "what went wrong" or "how did I end up here"—and it would seem pretty obvious to anyone that if you were involved in a plot to kill someone, you'd be able to draw threads back pretty quickly to where it all went wrong, but alas. Since Richard does not hide from the get-go that Bunny is going to die, readers sit suspended with the beginning half of the novel—we know that something is going to happen, but we don't know how we're going to get there. Tartt will try to tear your attention away from the glaring fact, by painting in extremely vivid detail the Vermont town or build her characters up achingly piece by piece, but she cannot shake the thought in the back of our mind—"what happened for this group of people to plot murder?" The answer, as it turns out, might surprise you. Once we find out, and once Bunny has met his untimely demise, we are suspended once again as readers: what did happen that night? Is Bunny really dead? When is everyone else going to find out? The reason this novel is so suspenseful, so thrilling, is because so much of it is spent in a moment where readers are suspended, and done so purposefully by the narrator and author. Because the narrator and the author both have positions of power to provide this information, being the forces by which the story is being told. Yet, they don't share that information, and instead build up details that may or may not be important, redirecting our attention when we could see something important, like a magic trick.
One of my very few complaints includes Julian's character. On the first count, I was disappointed from the lack of presence Julian had in the novel. He is described as such a benevolent character, and Richard clearly romanticizes him for a reason; however, readers don't get a chance to fully understand why Richard feels such a kinship to him. We can understand it, of course, based on the factual information we get from Richard—being estranged from his own family, Julian becomes a stand-in father for Richard, and promotes his academic endeavors. But we don't actually see a whole lot of that happening on the page, making Richard's romantic sentiments towards Julian feel strange and out of place in this novel of intrigue and isolation. One of the only scenes we get with Julian in it as his capacity of a teacher was one where he led a discussion about the classics, which went right over my head. I'm sure one could articulate a really clever analysis of Julian's apparent absence in the text, yet his very clear presence in the characters' actions and responses; however, I was still expecting more of his character within these pages.
This book is very much atmospheric. If you love dark academia, if your favorite movie is Dead Poets Society, if you like listening to classical music as background noise or the soundtrack for your walk to class, I would recommend reading The Secret History. This book is very much about the isolationism of academia, the privilege that is required to partake in higher academia, and the guilt of committing atrocious and unforgivable actions. The plot is driven by characters determined to cover up their own sins, and told by a narrator who we're not sure we can fully trust. For those who like action-packed or highly suspenseful novels, I would say you wouldn't really find that here. Instead, you get discussions about the classics and what philosophers would say about murder, and an elegant study on the way guilt affects people of different classes. Tartt paints a very vivid world, which has been steeped in the themes I have mentioned above. New England, cold and already isolated from the rest of the United States by its deeper history, feels like its own sphere where anything is possible. I can very clearly remember the scenes of Richard trying to survive in the coldest winter in 21 years, and the ways Richard notices how fresh the world around him seemed based on the foliage and seasonal changes he was noticing. If you love an atmospheric, aesthetic read, I would recommend picking this book up in the fall, right when the air turns from chilly to bitter cold.
Going back to the form of this novel, where I began my analysis a few paragraphs ago. Critics have described this novel as stunning, elegant, dramatic, suspenseful, compelling, sophisticated, mesmerizing, and erudite. All of this I found to be true, once I got halfway through the novel. Yet, around that time, I was hoping for a huge shocking moment to occur near the end of the novel. The insane thing we'd been expecting since page one—Bunny's death—had come to pass and it seemed the characters were in the clear...but no one's hands are ever clean after committing murder. So what would happen next? As the characters unraveled from the guilt and anger they fostered against one another, the insane moment delivered, in the form of Henry's and Charles's confrontation. And yet, even after that had ended, and everything about the novel seemed cleaned up, Tartt leaves us with one last dreamlike thought, that makes so much sense, it is almost a wonder she decided to articulate it at all. After the murders, no one is happy—a clear fact based on how no one in the inner circle actually did something with their life once they finished their college years. There could be an amazing analysis on just the last few paragraphs of this novel alone—on how Henry was persuading or dissuading Richard to join him, on how Richard was contemplating that decision in the first place! In fact, thinking like this only makes me want to start right from the beginning, and track for all the things I may have missed the first time around.
I loved The Secret History, much more than I loved The Goldfinch. However, if you, too, love books that are rich in philosophy and detail, then try checking out The Goldfinch.
*This review can also be found on my Goodreads page*
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