The Secret History by Donna Tartt

A ‘haunting, compelling, and brilliant’ (The Times) novel about a group of students who, under the influence of their professor find their lives changed forever, by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch

Truly deserving of the accolade ‘modern classic’, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement – compelling and elegant, dramatic, and playful.

Under the influence of their charismatic Classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, their lives are changed profoundly and for ever as they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.

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So, I am late to the party with this novel.  First published in 1992, The Secret History is one of those novels that I think I should have read a long time ago, but have only just got around to it.  Better late than never, I guess!  While it’s taken me some time to get to it, I thoroughly enjoyed it.  At some 620ish pages, it’s longer than average, but I read it in three sittings and was completely absorbed from the beginning. 

I have to admit that I’ve been in two minds as to whether or not to review it.  What can I really add to the discourse on a novel that’s so well-known and widely read?  But, if I’ve only just read it, maybe there are others out there who are also still to get to it.  So, here goes – I’ve kept it relatively brief, but I would say that if you’ve been tempted by The Secret History, it’s well worth a read, particularly as a rather nice 30-year anniversary addition has recently been published. 

Set in and around Hampden College in Vermont, it’s narrated by Richard Papen.  He’s escaped a miserable future in California and arrives, alone but excited, to study English Literature.  His attention is soon drawn to a small group of classics students – Henry, Francis, Charles, Camilla, and Bunny – and their enigmatic teacher, Julian.  This group, who remain aloof from their peers, are immediately alluring to Richard, and a chance encounter enables him to join them in their studies, although I don’t think that he ever really becomes one of them.  I felt that even after he joined them that he was somehow on the periphery, despite his best efforts to be seen as one of them.  That said, Richard narrates these events retrospectively, and so it might just be to give him a sense of objectivity as he relays what happened at college.

I found Richard to be an odd character.  He comes from a poorer background than his course mates, and takes great pains to hide the truth of his circumstances, claiming to be better off than he is and not wanting to be thought lesser in any way.  He’s proud, and too proud to admit that he’s struggling at times, not helped by the presence of some extremely wealthy individuals around him.  He quickly shows himself to have a flexible relationship with the truth, not being at all hesitant to embellish and lie to make himself look more favourable to those around him.  This might normally raise questions as to the reliability of his account, and yet I think that’s not an issue here.  He seems willing to bear all to us, the reader, in a way that he can’t or won’t to his peers while at college. 

The events of the novel focus on Bunny, whose fate we discover on the very first page.  What follows is a book of two halves as we learn the whydunit while the second half deals with the aftermath.  I did prefer the first half.  While I knew the what, the who, and the how, I really wanted to know why.  That said, I wasn’t especially concerned about Bunny himself – the group as a whole isn’t particularly likeable, and Bunny has some characteristics that make him off-putting to the reader, or to me, at least.  The second half of the novel I found to be a little slower in pace as they deal with the aftermath of these events and while there’s still some tension (of a different kind) it didn’t quite live up to the first half of the novel for me personally.  

The Secret History is a fantastic novel and while knowledge of the classics isn’t necessary, it’s clear that the themes of the novel echo those plays and texts that this small group studies.  I adore Tartt’s writing – both in this and The Goldfinch – and if you’ve ever considered picking up a copy, just do it.  I found this to be a gripping read throughout.