Rating: 100% | A+ | ★★★★★ Warnings: + Violence Synopsis (from Goodreads): 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 they slip gradually from obsession to corruption and betrayal, and at last—inexorably—into evil. Spoiler-Free Review: I feel strangely indebted to this book. The Secret History ignited in me a nostalgic euphoria I have not felt since I was ten years old and ripping my way through each year's new Riordan book. It has been a long time, longer than I would have liked, since I have been completely whisked away by a story. In comparison to other five-star reads, The Secret History is a self-contained epic whose characters are fiercely themselves. Therefore, the ache at the end of the story is simple—it is the ache of leaving a good story. The book is viciously propulsive. There are only eight chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue dividing 599 pages, yet never is the story lugubrious or exhausting. Tartt writes like no other author I've met thus far—rich, gorgeous sentences woven into a thick tapestry of bubbling emotions. I could read The Secret History a dozen times and still find new stones to turn over, with my ultimate fate remaining the same—utter devastation. (Click "Read More" for spoilers.) Plot (30/30): Never once does Tartt waver; she knows precisely where the plot is going, and, in the vein of Greek tragedians, so too do the characters know where their fates lie. They are confidently, exceedingly self-assured. And then Bunny's murder passes like a blip in the night. The story is not about him, not fully—rather, it is about this group of six terrible and beautiful and foolish characters, and how they allow themselves to fall apart. The reader is initiated into the Hampden group via Richard. The intimacy of the narration demands it. And Tartt is such a convincing storyteller that the reader never hesitates to question, like Richard, how exactly they have escalated from warm holidays in Francis's country house to murder. Characters (30/30): Richard, Henry, Bunny, Francis, Charles, and Camilla seem to spring forth fully formed. But, of course, they aren't spontaneous germinations—they're the conscious inventions of one Donna Tartt. That is all the more impressive. Six distinctive voices: Richard's inquisitiveness, Henry's calculation, Bunny's apathy, Francis's trepidation, Charles's humor, Camilla's gentleness. Unlike M. L. Rio's If We Were Villains, which employs a similarly large cast, Tartt allows her characters to slowly come into their own. At no point are the characters decisively the villain or the hero; they float, for the entirety of the novel, in the gray ether. They feel excruciatingly real because of Richard's clever portrayal as the everyman interloper. The reader trusts him to tell the truth, and Tartt exploits this link to incredible effect. Writing (20/20): I have some 60 flagged passages in this book, and the first (after the epigraph) is on page 4: I have come to realize that while for years I might have imagined myself to be somewhere else, in reality I have been there all this time: up at the top by the muddy wheel-ruts in the new grass, where the sky is dark over the shivering apple blossoms and the first chill of the snow that will fall that night is already in the air. Tartt's gorgeous writing immortalizes the crispness of Hampton and the Vermont seasons. Tartt holds a communion of her own with nature—one that demands absolute devotion to explaining each detail. Of course, this pedantry is crucial in the end. It is the rain and its prayed-for delay, that uncovers Bunny's body and drives the story to its sharp end. The Secret History is named after Procopius's Secret History from a millennium and a half ago, adding an unsavory layer to Richard's narration. This connection renders Richard's narration not only beautiful but also shockingly deceptive. In each one of his breaths, Richard not only casts doubt upon his friends but also absolves him of guilt. He is always too drunk, or too good-hearted, or too weak, to act against the group's desires. The Secret History is a satire with a heart—endearing and painful all at once. Closure / Set-Up (20/20): The story ends at the beginning. In the prologue, Richard believes himself to have been stranded all this time at the scene of Bunny's murder. In the epilogue, Richard is stranded once more: I was still in the hospital, half-delirious, still seeing the overturned wine glass rolling on the carpet and the oak-sprigged wallpaper at the Albemarle. By the end, Richard has told the reader all of his secrets and the secrets of all those around him—yet the reader remains hopelessly adrift and blind. Who is Richard? Who is Camilla, who also ends where she begins? Who is Francis, who also ends where he begins? This forceful regression into their past lives seems, in Tartt's estimation, like an inevitable consequence of life—one that the reader can only swallow and close the book accepting.
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