The Secret History by Donna Tartt

(I’ve decided I’m going to start actively reviewing the books I read, and re-post them here. This is the first. You can find the review, on Goodreads, here).

Official Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I wavered between 4 and 5 stars when writing this review. I say that to start not as a slight to this novel, but to comment more on the experience of reading it. There are a lot of reviews of this book listed as a DNF, 70% or so complete, and I totally understand where those people are coming from. I never thought about putting it down, not for a second, but I did occasionally think about why one might. Regardless, this novel relentlessly occupied my mind for more than a month. When I wasn’t reading it, I thought constantly about it, even though the experience of reading it made me wonder when in the world it was going to end. If I could give it 4 and a half stars, I would, but I’m excited as hell to talk about it. Let’s get into it.

SPOILERS BELOW, BUT THE NOVEL CAME OUT IN 1992 SO DEAL WITH IT:

First off, I have to commend Donna Tartt on these characters. Oh my god, these characters. I see a lot of people say they are one-dimensional, one-note, but I don’t think that could be further from the truth. Bunny, for one, is a standout. For the first half of the novel, he’s absolutely captivating. Once he died, I missed him immensely, flaws (a nice way to say homophobia and racism) and all. Henry is enthralling, especially after I read a post that said he was a psychopath (I disagree. He feels things. He’s a mental case though). The twins. Francis. Richard himself. Cloke. JUDY POOVEY OMG.

Honestly, the only characters I thought were relatively one-note were Julian Morrow and the narrator, Richard. Richard could have been Rachel, or Becky, or whoever and it would not have changed the story for me in the least bit. But the others around Richard were so well drawn I couldn’t help but think about them non-stop, even when I wasn’t reading the book. The novel’s description mentions that a group of students fall under tutelage of a wacky Classics teacher, but I felt Julian relatively absent for most of this novel. Outside of chapter one, I was expecting more. When he finds out that his students were responsible for Bunny’s death and he just disappears, I thought that was pretty on the nose. That’s how I read Julian the whole novel — absent. Maybe that was the point.

One thing I can’t help but comment on as interesting is how BEHIND Tartt wrote Richard as a narrator; meaning, he knows everything last. Bunny, for example, sings “The Farmer and the Dell” over and over again on page (guessing) 80ish. About a hundred or so pages later, we find out that he was doing it to mess with the rest of the group after the murder of the farmer. I, as a reader, felt as “out of the loop” as Richard was. Intentional, sure, but annoying nonetheless. Despite this, Tartt does an incredible job at showing the reader the “truth”. After Bunny’s death, at the very beginning of Book 2, everything Bunny said in Book 1 is proven true. Francis kisses Richard (Bunny said he was overly aggressive in his sexuality). Charles is drunk and hiding a flask (Bunny said he was an alcoholic). Even the incestuous relationship between Charles and Camilla is proven true.

After Bunny dies, Richard goes out to a party with Judy and Cloke and comments on how nice and normal everyone is there. How surprised he is. Yeah, Richard, the other students of the college are normal. You could’ve chosen to be friends with them. Judy warns him, much much earlier in the novel, about how crazy the Classics students are. He actively chooses to ignore this throughout the book, just to feel included.

Speaking of “The Farmer and the Dell”: Henry tells Richard the story of killing the farmer, over the course of almost 50 pages! Think about that, 50 pages! John Steinbeck’s The Pearl is like 92. I saw a Reddit post that mentioned how Henry smokes 14 cigarettes while telling that story, and as a reader, you do reach a point where you’re like: “Okay, we get it.”

For this reason, and others, this novel is a slog. It’s only 8 chapters. Each chapter is enormous, and if you research it, you’ll find that Tartt wanted you to feel “trapped like Richard” or a note that she was “mimicking a Greek tragedy”. I get all that, I really do, but it didn’t make it any less of a slog. Though, when I think back at it, some of the best scenes felt unnecessary, at the time. Like when Camilla gets a piece of glass stuck in her foot at Francis’ house, and each character handles it exactly the way they would handle death. Bunny is absent, Charles is jealous, Francis doesn’t know what to do, Richard remarks how beautiful it is, and Henry is the one to actually take the glass out. It’s perfect, but as a reader, you can’t help but think to yourself: “What does this have to do with anything?” It’s not until it’s all over where you look back and think: “Wow, remember when Camilla got glass stuck in her foot? I learned so much about them all then.”

That’s why this rating was so tough for me. There were times I really wondered what the heck was going on with this novel (like when Richard spends 75 pages just being cold). But, now that its over, I can’t help but want to read it again to see all the things I missed (was the farmer actually killed by a mountain lion?) and just to live with these characters for a little longer.

I’m giving it 5 stars for that reason.

Onto the next one.

-KF