For a certain type of romantic this must be an incredibly seductive read. What could be more infatuating than an inaccessible clique of students – rich, brilliant, glamorous, arrogant, vulnerable – who devote themselves to The Classics at an exclusive New England college? Who, encouraged by their charismatic teacher, strive not only to understand ancient Greece but to immerse themselves in its myths. Who seek, through their recondite knowledge, to distance themselves from the mundanity of 20th Century America by recreating a Dionysian world where feeling and sensuousness transcend mere rationality.
Such is the group of students that our hick Californian narrator, Richard Papen, encounters when he arrives at Hampden College, Vermont. Like many a reader of the book he is smitten by the glamour of these exotic classicists. But by the time he manages to establish himself in their group it is clear that something has profoundly shaken the self-confident insouciance of his new friends. What is their secret, and why does it lead inexorably to murder?
We already know from the first lines of the book that the group (including Richard) has killed Bunny – one of their fellow-students. So we are led to expect that the book will be an investigation of what caused them to commit this atrocious act and what the consequences of it will be. These are serious issues and led me, at least, to anticipate a forensic psychological examination of the repercussions of the murder on the conspirators who carried it out.
It all starts well enough with a well-drawn cast of characters – Henry the aloof, (?) unfeeling genius who is the driving force of the group. Charles and Camilla (not those ones!) the twins, mysterious and harbouring secrets. Francis the gay dandy and extravert. Bunny, the more worldly and not too bright freeloader who ends up at the bottom of a ravine. And Richard our (?) unreliable narrator.
The writing is impeccable – if anything Tartt’s beautiful phrasing is just too smooth and mellifluous for the grisly events she relates – and the plot is fascinating, up to a point. I wonder how many of you will guess the ending (or part of it) one hundred pages before you get there. To me, at least, the second half of the book is much too long with several episodes which seemed merely to becalm the story rather than move it along – though I’m sure others would argue that these added to the psychological intensity.
None of this though goes to the heart of the matter which is how the characters evolve in reaction to the planning and execution of their crime. In tackling this subject matter Tartt is courting comparison with writers such as Dostoevsky who in ‘Crime and Punishment’ (one of the greatest books ever written) looked at the impact of a similarly premeditated murder on the psyche of another arrogant student. Can ‘The Secret History’ bear such a comparison? Do the motivations of the group stand up to scrutiny? Is there a believable development of character in any of the participants, consequent upon the crime they have committed? Do they come across as real human beings struggling with the ramifications of their profound and irreversible act – or are they just characters in a book?
What do you think?
Joe Brannan's Blog 
An engaging read but one which asks a lot of the reader…
At first I struggled to get in to this book, 70 pages in I was feeling that Tartt allowed the romance and exclusivity of the classic scholars to almost dominate the story so parts of references were too intelligent for the reader (or maybe just me!) but once I was drawn in to the characters I was hooked (as long as I resigned myself to missing some of the clever points and references) Having just finished the book however I’ve been left a bit flat…
I think the story telling and Tartt’s writing invoke rich imagery and memories of university days, of the groups and strange cliques (though not quite this strange) that formed and how this looked and felt at that time. The power that the freedom and new learnings had, resonated with my feeling of university and therefore a lot of the less sinister descriptions of college life rang true.
The story of an outsider being accepted in and the subsequent realisation and disillusionment once the glamour and facades had been removed (though quite late in the book) was well written and engaging and I enjoyed how Tartt slowly revealed this within Richard’s accounts. I felt like I was on the same journey, intrigued, then bought in and ultimately tired/ fed up / no longer impressed by this elite group at the end.
The unfolding of the story was clever and you can imagine the trauma and fear of being found out would slowly disintegrate any strong characters.
It did feel at points that Tartt was over indulging the characters, that they could out smart the police, all in their separate ways disintegrate but be still so mysterious to outsiders that they were never called out by people who knew them fairly well. That they made so many slip ups in the first place to make murdering Bunny necessary but so controlled later that it never came out – mostly too that they could do this whilst almost always being drunk or on something!
One bit felt unexplored regarding Cloke’s revelation that Henry intended to point the police Richard’s way, didn’t seem to have the reaction we thought it would, even at a time when Richard was disillusioned with the group.
It felt like an odd second half/ ending for me, the Charles/ Camilla/ Henry drama towards the end of the book went on too long and the subsequent display of selflessness (if that’s what it was) by Henry I felt just didn’t add to the book. And bits were unexplored there after in enough detail, they all departed their separate ways as miserable as each other and could have written more on this.
Ultimately as you mention it felt quite drawn out and at times (whilst well written) it felt that the elaborate descriptions almost unnecessarily prolonged or delayed the story.
Undoubtedly a clever and accomplished book, engaging and mostly a pleasure to read – just a little long, and at times bit too clever and slightly depressing.
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Thanks Georgie – I think you have highlighted so many important points that show how the author developed the characters and their relationships – and there were some really good surprises as the plot unfolded – although, the author seems to be telling the story after suffering a few binges and blackouts herself – some of this is very fuzzy, but, I can smell those ash trays!
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Good to hear that so many of you are getting on well with this long, challenging book. I look forward to hearing more interesting comments soon. Georgie makes a good point when she says that the author indulges her characters too much. I agree and think that she is just a bit in love with them all. Maybe this is why she never manages to portray them as the cold-blooded murderers that they are. The whole thrust of the writing tugs the reader onto the side of the killers and you find yourself hoping that they won’t make a slip up and get caught. Sure, you can argue that she doesn’t let them off scot-free – they drink too much and have bad dreams…and ultimately one of them dies whilst the others, at best, live sad lives eternally marked by these evil deeds. But even so, I just didn’t feel the Tartt go into the psyche of someone who commits a murder in the name of self-preservation. I think this is largely due to the fact that she was a young woman in her twenties who had little personal experience of the dark side of human nature. Contrast this with an example I gave before – Dostoyevsky, who stood before a firing squad before being pardoned at the last minute – when he writes about the mental state of someone who has just committed murder, the hysteria, insanity and desperation leap off the page. This of course is an unfair comparison but it illustrates the challenge that Tartt set herself in dealing with this material.
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Finally read! Must confess for me I found it a big long and drawn out but have the following comments:
All a bit unbelievable – an elitist group of students yes but the plot (murders) and the rest of it – not for me. The constant reference to Greek and Latin got a bit much although I understand this was probably necessary. I didn’t understand most of the references and quite honestly didn’t feel any urge to find out more.
A book of two halves for me. Book I was too long, Book II, however, was more engaging. Like a lot of novels though I felt a lot was crammed in towards the end.
The characters were too pretentious apart from Richard. I felt that Richard just wanted to belong but was always an outsider. He believed he was accepted by the group and was a friend to them all but was he really – they kept so much from him and I just felt they were playing games with him. I did not feel any warmth towards any of the characters and did any of them really care for the others in the group?
Too much reference to heavy drinking and drug use I’m afraid. It seemed this was all they did. Not much reference to doing any actual work – felt there needed to be more of this to give a better view of life in the college – would all of this have gone unnoticed?
Not sure how they actually managed to get away with the murder of Bunny – Richard seemed to be invisible to the police. But did they really get away with the murder given the way they spiralled out of control towards the end of the book.
I have read Donna Tartt’s book ‘The Goldfinch’. This is a much better read and a book I enjoyed. Although again lengthy, I would recommend it as one to read.
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I agree wholly with the comments already provided and have had to resist the urge to merely ‘copy and paste’.
I, too, think there was an overuse of Greek mythology references, way too much drinking, pretentious characters, etc. In particular, I think the constant excessive drinking acted as a distraction from the story, and that Tartt often got caught up in emphasising their reliance on alcohol to deal with the events without progressing the story quickly enough. Also, I thought Julian would appear more in the story considering the influence he had on the students, but he only really had fleeting appearances in the classroom.
When reading other reviews on this book I stumbled across this (which I think perfectly sums it up):
“essentially, this book contained 300 pages of scenes where the characters do nothing but drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, go to the hospital for drinking so much alcohol and smoking so many cigarettes, get pulled over for drunk driving, talk about alcohol and cigarettes, do cocaine, and gossip about each other (while drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes)”.
Interestingly, in the book I read after this one (‘All The Beautiful Lies’ by Peter Swanson), a main character (librarian) lists The Secret History in his top 5 crime novels. Quite a coincidence!
This is a book that I probably would have picked up in the shop and quickly put down again after seeing how long the chapters were. But, having persevered, I am glad to have read a book outside my usual sphere and say thanks for the recommendation.
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Thanks Dan, I agree this book demonstrates the importance of short chapters in driving motivation to complete the book!
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So, more mayhem and murder! – This book was quite a challenge – for the first time ever I am going to complain about the print size being too small. Suzy and I have been chatting about this book and I have to agree with her that a key problem with engaging with this story was a real lack of interest in the main characters. I could not visualize them very well – actually they seemed faceless . As I finished the book I was reading the accolades that were on the cover – I really think these are very generous and overblown. It was a good read, a long read – I think it is difficult to care about what undergraduates think – and as for describing this as a psychological thriller – well not so much, for me anyway. Although, I did have a sense of being culpable and lured into the plot to kill off the hapless Bunny – and I was very relieved when I realized it was nothing to do with me! Overall – not sure I would consider this to be a modern classic – and it was not a “galloping” read as Vanity Fair claimed – plodding comes to mind.
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