Which came this year, after Emily and I read Emma together and needed to turn to something a little... I would say lighter, but that's the wrong word. Faster, perhaps? Less mundane?
And mundane The Secret History is not. Tartt has crafted a suspense of the highest brow here, following a group of exceedingly pretentious college students through their studies of Ancient Greek. She looks, in great detail, at how their lofty philosophical ideals come into play--or don't, as the case may be--in real life, peeling back the layers of the group's pretension until readers realize that, at heart, they are just like every other group of college kids in the world: partaking in copious amounts of sex, drugs and alcohol, and generally trying to reinvent who they are, where they've come from, and what they want to be when they grow up.
Except, of course, for the murder. Most college kids don't commit murder (I hope.)
Tartt reveals the cruel deed on approximately page 2 of the novel, so for those few of you who haven't read this, I haven't ruined anything. Read it anyway, I promise. And then we can talk about it. Because it is eminently discussable. There are virtually no likeable characters, if you list out their characteristics and motivations, and yet we sort of don't hate them all? Even though they are murderers? And there isn't much whodunit mystery, because we know who did it from the beginning. And I have no idea in what year--or even decade--the novel is supposed to be set, because sometimes it seems like it must be the 60s or so, but then they have a college computer. So that's confusing.
Small details aside, though, the novel is a masterpiece of suspense. The creep-level of Tartt's novel is due in large part to how believable it all is. It seems such a natural progression of events, from cover-ups to frustration to outright killing, that it is easy to forget how downright terrible the murder is in the first place. And Tartt absolutely masters the psychology of it all, how it impacts each member of the group and the group overall. It's actually hard to say which is more suspenseful, the build-up to the act itself, or the fallout from it, but that's part of what makes it so wonderfully captivating.
I know I'll be picking up Tartt's new novel, due out this fall.
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For those who have read this and Tana French, does anyone else see similarities between this and The Likeness? Creepy college kids with secrets to hide, excluding themselves from normal college life in favor of the company of each other?
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The Secret History | Donna Tartt | September 1992 | Vintage | Paperback | 576 pages | Buy from an independent near you
I've been curious about this one. The words 'suspense', 'creep-level' and 'psychology' in your review tells me I need to add it to my TBR list. It does indeed sound good.
ReplyDeleteIt is excellent - I hope you pick it up soon! (The cover, for what it's worth, doesn't do it justice.)
DeleteHa, I read this back-to-back with The Likeness. I had no idea they shared any similarities. I did a whole post on comparing them because I couldn't believe how similar they were!
ReplyDeleteI could absolutely see how reading them back-to-back would warrant an entire comparison post. I read them about 2 years apart and even then was struck by the similarities -- not that they are the same, per se, but they have so many similar elements. I'll have to check out your post!
DeleteIt's been years since I read this but I do remember loving it. I'd need a re-read to remember the details, but I found it captivating, and the characters disturbingly unhateable despite their hateability (they're absolutely words, I swear). I also read it the year before I went to uni which was...interesting!
ReplyDeleteYes! Disturbing unhateable despite their hateability is EXACTLY is (and those are totally words).
DeleteI desperately wanted Tana French to be like Donna Tartt, and I ended up feeling really disappointed. I know better than to go into one book with specific expectations about what it's going to be like.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I love this book A LOT. I have reread it a ton of times and loved it more just about every time.
I read the Tana French first, and about two years earlier, and had no idea going into either that they would be similar, so I rather enjoyed the similarities. But I can see how expectations could muddle that experience.
DeleteThis is definitely going on the re-read pile for years to come!
"There are virtually no likeable characters, if you list out their characteristics and motivations, and yet we sort of don't hate them all? Even though they are murderers?"
ReplyDeleteOoooo see now I want to read it. Because weird me will probably like one of the characters, just like in Wuthering Heights...
Oh, and I haven't read Wuthering Heights so maybe I need to pick that up soon?
DeleteI loved it! And everyone in my book club hated it. *tears*
ReplyDeleteWhat!? That is shocking! How could they hate it?
DeleteOne of my favorite books that I finally read last year! I was completely sucked into it all and knew within a few chapters that the library book I had just would not due for my long-term devotion to it so I had to buy my own copy. There was a ton of sex and drugs, and I also was completely confused by the timeframe, but I'll attribute that to the fact she wrote most of this in the late '80s/early '90s. When I did a little more research on it and the book, I was surprised to find that she was part of a literary brat pack of sorts, with one of her close friends being Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame. Bizarre, makes you hope most college kids don't commit murder, huh?!
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way, and can't believe it took me so long to finally pick this up (though I find I say that a lot about books these days, as the list just keeps growing...).
DeleteDidn't know about the literary pack, but that's interesting!
Er, just noticed that it should be "do," and not "due" in my response to you. Of course, I was thinking about library books in the same sentence, so that's obviously where it came from. :)
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