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realreader-blog1 · 6 years

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First and foremost, I must try my best to convey to you the truly hypnotic sense of this novel. It’s unbelievably difficult to explain, but this book is so astoundingly complex and atmospheric that I can’t help but think about it all the time, even after I’ve finished it. It’s slightly bittersweet, though, because nothing else I read even comes close to The Secret History. More often than not I struggle to put into words why this book is so unique to me. So here is what some others have come up with which I feel do a decent job of describing such a fascinating book: “A huge, mesmerizing, galloping read, pleasurably devoured... Gorgeously written, relentlessly erudite.” -The Times (London) “I adore the slow, building tension and the sense that I, as a reader, was being skillfully manipulated.” -Maggie Stiefvater “...the novel certainly hit me hard, hard enough that I found myself on Google at 4:30AM searching for articles, comments and others enchanted by this wonderful work of art.” - Micheal Cater Essentially, this book is about Richard Papen, a young man from a small suburb in California who, with much financial aid, is able to attend Hampden College in Vermont. Richard finds his entire life to be rather pathetic, and upon moving across the country, begins to build a new identity for himself. Particularly through his acceptance into a very exclusive, cult-like Greek class with 5 extremely pretentious students and one enigmatic professor called Julian, Richard creates an entirely new life for himself. Even more interestingly, in the very first page of the prologue, two things are revealed: One of the members of the group has been murdered, and the rest of the group is responsible for his death. Donna Tartt tells you exactly who kills who in the first page. The story becomes not a whodunnit, but a whydunnit. Interestingly enough, it makes the novel incredibly more suspenseful. Richard begins telling the story starting from when he met the rest of the group, taking us through all the events which lead up to the murder, and then the second half, Book II, follows the aftermath of the killing. To my surprise, this approach was so much more powerful than any other mystery I’ve come across. As we follow Richard through his first months at Hampden, he becomes absolutely infatuated with everything around him, simply because it is so different from his lackluster upbringing. From the Greek lectures to his new group of peers to the college campus itself, Richard’s narration almost seems as if he observes everything through a rose-tinted lens. He even admits that his recollections are blurred in this way: “It is only here that the stilted mannequins of my initial acquaintance begin to yawn and stretch and come to life. It was months before the gloss and mystery of newness... would finally wear off.” Each description is borderline dreamlike, and yet there is an ever-present foreboding feeling constantly looming in the back of the mind, because Richard and the readers know that one of them ends up dead. Donna Tartt’s decision to name the murderer and murdered on the first page, I think, gives the same powerful anticipation like that of The Iliad and The Odyssey, which tell exactly what is going to happen before it even does. This, along with potentially many other allusions which I am not well-read enough to catch, parallels the characters’ obsession with Greek and the Classics, making The Secret History somewhat of a Greek tragedy in itself. The ending in particular is especially dramatic, and shows how this group was so obsessed with tragedy, that they turned their lives into one. The opening sentences of Chapter 1, on a basic level, sum up much of the book very well: “Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.” This exact idea is seen in countless ways throughout the book. It is in the groups’ fascination with dramatic tragedy, in Julian’s decision to have an extremely small and selective class, even in Richard’s descriptions of Camilla’s ‘glowing’ beauty. The students’ obsession with aesthetic and beauty at all costs is seen even in their iconic physical appearances: the twins who often wear white, Henry with dark English suits and permanently carrying an umbrella like an accessory, Francis with French cuffs and fancy neckties. Their obsession naturally carries into their rather sophisticated behaviors as well, and it seems as though these characters are practically living in the wrong century. All of them, save Richard, have more money than they know what to do with, and are extremely privileged, living in their own little bubbles filled with ancient philosophy. Henry, at one point, is incredulous to hear that a man had actually walked on the moon, proving these characters’ extensive and voluntary isolation to reality. It is understandable why some may find the characters intolerably pretentious, however to me, that is all the more reason to admire the book. The characters are not superficially likable in the slightest, and are rarely, if ever, relatable. But they are also pretty despicable human beings, and you aren’t supposed to like these people. They’re murderers for crying out loud. But above all, they’re realistic. Through their actions, they prove the lengths people are willing to go in order to save themselves. This book contains an unprecedented level of complexity, paired with masterful writing to create a true work of art. My words can never do justice to what experiencing the novel is truly like, and I could never have enough time to go in depth on every detail which inspired thought. This is one of those books you can’t stop thinking about once you’ve finished. For the first time in my remembered life, I can confidently say I have one favorite book.

#the secret history #mystery #murder

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