The Secret History: 30th anniversary edition

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Tiny feathered creatures, it turned out, meant a great deal to her. One in particular: "Goldfinches are the greatest little birds," she told me then. "They're the last to settle down—they just fly around and they're happy for a long time, and just sing and play. And only when it's insanely late in the year, they kind of break down and build their nests. I love goldfinches — they're my favorite bird." Richard is somewhat dazzled by his fellow students: Henry Winter, dark-suited, stiff, aloof and extremely intelligent; Francis Abernathy, angular and elegant; the beautiful twins, Charles and Camilla Macaulay, and Bunny Corcoran, loud and cheery. Never does he dream that within a few months, one of their number will be dead. I'm not going to lie— all the characters were terrible people. But I couldn't help sympathising with them at times. An accomplished psychological thriller . . . Absolutely chilling . . . Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical." -- The Village Voice Finally, I thought there was too much flat, useless dialogue. I wish I had an example to show but I always forget to take notes, sorry.

I read this book in autumn, sometimes under a tree with a gentle breeze in the fall sunlight and sometimes snuggled in bed with copious cups of coffee to keep me reading through the night. people never seemed to notice at first how big Henry was. Maybe it was because of his clothes, which were like one of those lame but curiously impenetrable disguises from a comic book (why does no one ever see that 'bookish' Clark Kent, without his glasses, is Superman?). Or maybe it was a question of his making people see. He had the far more remarkable talent of making himself invisible – in a room, in a car, a virtual ability to dematerialise at will – and perhaps this gift was only the converse of that one: the sudden concentration of his wandering molecules rendering his shadowy form solid, all at once, a metamorphosis startling the viewer."

Reviews

In the book's attempt to comment on the privilege, self-interest, and academic snobbery of rich college kids in New England, the book itself comes to be just as self-absorbed and obsessive as its characters -- it turns into a constant litany of unnecessary conversations, sexual tensions that go nowhere, purple prose descriptions of the landscape, contrived plot twists that fizzle out, and forced, overblown metaphors. Never, never once in any immediate sense, did it occur to me that any of this was anything but a game. An air of unreality suffused even the most workaday details, as if we were plotting not the death of a friend but the itinerary of a fabulous trip that I, for one, never quite believed we'd ever really take. A beautifully written story, well-told, funny, sad, scary, and impossible to leave alone until I finished. . . . What a debut!" --John Grisham The only characters that I really liked died, they were Henry... and Bunny. Yes. The annoying bitch who couldn't keep his mouth shut and the only one who really reacted to a murder. Yeah, I agree that he was annoying and was a complete asshole, but was one of the only two who really had personality.

Right now I have this problem. Because I have used the word “immersive” before, and immediately upon my completion of this book it became clear that I should have saved it for right now.I also want to touch upon sexuality in this book, because a lot of the members in this group are not straight in the slightest. Like, maybe the only ones that were completely straight were Bunny and Camilla. I’m not saying that the queerness in this book is vilified, but it’s for sure not shown in the best of lights. So please use caution while going into this. To quote the article that inspired the fit of rage that has me typing away, I don't think this is "about all the things [its writer] loved," while "miss[ing] the point of them entirely." At the age of seventeen, they continue, they "wanted (I thought) exactly what its youthful characters wanted: a poetic life, a mythic life, a life shot through with meaning. I loved (I thought) exactly what its characters loved: nostalgic emblems of an era imagined as significant." I don't think you're supposed to relate to them, or to see their story as something that might happen to you if you read too much Greek myth or like pretty things too much.

Imagine if someone took a simple generic thriller mystery plot but added Latin phrases, subtle Greek history and references, a study of philosophy and logic, and unlikeable, privileged, and pretentious college students— you get this dense, ironic, well crafted, and brain killing book. Donna Tartt has a real shot at becoming her generation's Edgar Allan Poe. . . . The Secret History pulses like a telltale heart on steroids." -- GlamourTartt's voice is unlike that of any of her contemporaries. Her beautiful language, intricate plotting, fascinating characters, and intellectual energy make her debut by far the most interesting work yet from her generation." -- The Boston Globe This book is well-written, at least in a certain contextless sense. There are many sentences in it (occasionally, even paragraphs) that, if taken by themselves, look like they might have been from a book worth reading. I don't know about you, but what I strive for is finding my next great read. They're not always perfect. Sometimes they have messed up shit in them, BUT they leave me dumbfounded and in awe. Days after I find myself doing something completely mundane and unable to stop thinking about the story and the characters. That's what The Secret History did to me. As I grow older, I care less for lovely or perfect or nice or even good (in the moral definition of the word) characters, and find myself only wanting to read about the unlikable, the complex, the ones who have something to say on what I shouldn't do, rather than teach me about what I should.