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A review by becandthebooks
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
"...one mustn't underestimate the primal appeal - to lose one's self, lose it utterly. And in losing it be born to the principle of continuous life, outside the prison of mortality and time."
Well Henry, you definitely achieved it!
The Secret History really needs no introduction. It is the book that birthed the aesthetic of Dark Academia and other novels, movies and TV series that follow the "rules": Dark and moody atmosphere, University or College setting, a group of troubled students, drinking, drugs, secrets, lies, sex, classic studies, libraries and books, a poor underdog, a rich kid or two and of course, murder. Some of my favourite examples that I believe were influenced by this book are, but not limited too: "If We Were Villains", "Bunny" & of course the now cult classic movie that only came out last year (2023), "Saltburn". I even made note of these in my edition whenever something really strongly reminded me of one of these stories.
The novel is written from our main protagonists, Richard's, perspective. Starting out being introduced to the college when he starts his degree, managing to talk his way into the class he actually wanted to do (Greek) and then watching the rest of the story unfold in a fast spiral of deceit, lies and addiction.
All of the characters are very dense. They all have good sides, but they all also have very dark sides. It really does keep the reader engaged because you just never know who is going to cause the next "...extremely rapid progression of events." I honestly didn't like any of them. It was like watching multiple trains coming at each other head on and none of them slowing down. Everyone, in one way or another, contributed to the ultimate messy ending.
The book really has a dark undertone of depression and death. Not just because of the events that occur throughout it, but just in the every day conversations between the characters. The amount of lines I highlighted that really resonated with the sad/depressed (and yes, even teenage 'ending it all') side of me provided a strange sense of clarity. Not in a bad way, but in a way that nothing has to be so dramatic: "Horrific as it was, the present dark, I was afraid to leave it for the other permanent dark..." and, weirdly enough "I suppose I was only a little depressed, now the novelty of it had worn off."
The writing itself is so lyrical and magical. The pictures that Tartt paints are so vivid and stunning. From inside the College, to the grounds surrounding it, the country estates and even the bland local town. I was not prepared to leave these pages. They are bright, beautiful and hopeful, but can also be claustrophobic, dark and dank. I could almost smell some of scenes straight off the pages.
Overall, The Secret History met, and even succeeded, my expectations. I knew about it, but I had always purposefully not gone into any deep dives because I didn't want to know too much the story before I got to read it myself. I will be reading Tartt's other novels very very soon!
I want to leave this review with an annotation I made near the beginning of the novel when Richard is describing looking at the brochure for Hampden College and studying a photo of the building called Commons that I had flagged as 'dark academia in description': "It was suffused with a weak academic light - different from Plano, different from anything I had ever known - a light that made me think of long hours in dusty libraries, and old books, and silence."
Well Henry, you definitely achieved it!
The Secret History really needs no introduction. It is the book that birthed the aesthetic of Dark Academia and other novels, movies and TV series that follow the "rules": Dark and moody atmosphere, University or College setting, a group of troubled students, drinking, drugs, secrets, lies, sex, classic studies, libraries and books, a poor underdog, a rich kid or two and of course, murder. Some of my favourite examples that I believe were influenced by this book are, but not limited too: "If We Were Villains", "Bunny" & of course the now cult classic movie that only came out last year (2023), "Saltburn". I even made note of these in my edition whenever something really strongly reminded me of one of these stories.
The novel is written from our main protagonists, Richard's, perspective. Starting out being introduced to the college when he starts his degree, managing to talk his way into the class he actually wanted to do (Greek) and then watching the rest of the story unfold in a fast spiral of deceit, lies and addiction.
All of the characters are very dense. They all have good sides, but they all also have very dark sides. It really does keep the reader engaged because you just never know who is going to cause the next "...extremely rapid progression of events." I honestly didn't like any of them. It was like watching multiple trains coming at each other head on and none of them slowing down. Everyone, in one way or another, contributed to the ultimate messy ending.
The book really has a dark undertone of depression and death. Not just because of the events that occur throughout it, but just in the every day conversations between the characters. The amount of lines I highlighted that really resonated with the sad/depressed (and yes, even teenage 'ending it all') side of me provided a strange sense of clarity. Not in a bad way, but in a way that nothing has to be so dramatic: "Horrific as it was, the present dark, I was afraid to leave it for the other permanent dark..." and, weirdly enough "I suppose I was only a little depressed, now the novelty of it had worn off."
The writing itself is so lyrical and magical. The pictures that Tartt paints are so vivid and stunning. From inside the College, to the grounds surrounding it, the country estates and even the bland local town. I was not prepared to leave these pages. They are bright, beautiful and hopeful, but can also be claustrophobic, dark and dank. I could almost smell some of scenes straight off the pages.
Overall, The Secret History met, and even succeeded, my expectations. I knew about it, but I had always purposefully not gone into any deep dives because I didn't want to know too much the story before I got to read it myself. I will be reading Tartt's other novels very very soon!
I want to leave this review with an annotation I made near the beginning of the novel when Richard is describing looking at the brochure for Hampden College and studying a photo of the building called Commons that I had flagged as 'dark academia in description': "It was suffused with a weak academic light - different from Plano, different from anything I had ever known - a light that made me think of long hours in dusty libraries, and old books, and silence."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, and Murder