The Secret History [Donna Tartt]

Summary: Six students at a small East Coast college are involved in a murder and a series of peculiar events.

Rating & Recommendation: 4.5/5; recommend for those who love a good mystery and don't mind a little high brow conversation

Review: I'll admit, I love pretentious characters, but I can see how most people hated them (especially Henry). I consider myself well read and intelligent, and most of the references to history and mythology went over even my head. I think that was the point, though. I think Tartt wanted readers to feel disconnected and removed from Richard and his friends, because we are removed from these types of people. They don't subscribe to life the way most people do, which means they can't actually live amongst most people. They're a world unto themselves, which is the kind of thinking that creates the problem in the first place.

"In America, the rich man tries to pretend that the poor man is his equal in every respect but money, which is simply not true. Does anyone remember Plato's definition of Justice in the Republic? Justice, in a society, is when each level of a hierarchy works within its place and is content with it. A poor man who wishes to rise above his station is only making himself needless miserable. And the wise poor have always known this, the same as do the wise rich."

Tartt is able to write with such knowledge of a specific subject (she does this again in The Goldfinch), that you can't help but be impressed by it. At least I couldn't.

The crafting of The Secret History was award-worthy. From early on, you know it's a tragedy, and as it unfolds, you can pinpoint the very distinct references to Greek tragedies. By half way through, I was marking all of the points at which the students become tragic heroes: where their pride overpowers their logic, where their fear overpowers their morals. Richard in particular even acknowledges his tragic flaws - the points at which a hero makes the mistake that contributes to his own demise. He's unreliable, but even he can see exactly where things went terribly wrong.

"I suppose if I had a moment of doubt at all it was then, as I stood in that cold, eerie stairwell looking back at the apartment from which I had come. Who were these people? How well did I know them? Could I trust any of them, really, when it came right down to it?"

Compared to The Goldfinch, The Secret History is just more enjoyable. It's because of the structure - the reverse mystery (you're told early on that Bunny is murdered). With that in mind, the story unfolds more naturally than The Goldfinch, despite seeming more implausible at the outset.

I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time. It contains great commentary about the fluidity of morality and the subjectivity of right and wrong. What is right? Right for whom? Wrong according to what? The whole book has an underlying sense of “Will justice be served?” but by the end I was questioning my definition of justice.

I would call this masterful, and I understand why it caused such waves when it debuted.

#donnatartt #debut #mystery #suspense #unreliablenarrator #bookclub