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Summary: Don't believe what those Kirkus reviewers said about this!
Review: Just read this for the third time and the work absolutely stands up to frequent rereads. This is fascinating fiction, highly literate and a blueprint for what mainstream literary fiction can be. The plot, derived from the classic literature which is practically another character in the work, is expertly wrought with sufficient bends and curves like ironworks in New Orleans. In the finest Southern Gothic tradition, although primarily set at a small Vermont college, Tartt's characters are believeably real, reminding this writer of his own collegiate cliques and cadres. Few novels these days can sustain interest much beyond a first reading; this is one to reread and resavor each enigmatic and electric moment. Ms. Tartt needs to give us more; there are rumors of a new book in the fall of 2001.
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Summary: A spellbinding first novel
Review: This is my favorite book of all time. I first read it when I was in high school and I've read it at least five times since then. I get something new out of it each time I read it. It is impossible to put down once you've begun reading it. It's the kind of book you want all you friends to read. I haven't met anyone who didn't like this book!
Rating:
Summary: rewarding reading experience
Review: Donna Tartt's outstanding first novel, written while she was a student at Bennington, is a terrific mystery and, I think, an insidious look at the pathologies of the modern university. Richard Papen is a lower middle class Californian who has wended his way to Hampden College in Vermont, largely because he like the picture on the catalogue. Richard happens to be proficient in several languages, so he tries getting into one of Professor Julian Morrow's classical language classes. But he discovers that Morrow only teaches a select handful of students and teaches every class that they take. They form an elite clique within the elite campus. Eventually, Richard attaches himself to this group and is admitted to Morrow's disciple hood.Morrow remains a sort of opaque presence, but Richard's life is soon entwined with the other students, lead by the wealthy & arrogant Henry Winter and including Charles and Camilla MacCaulay, the overly close twins, Francis Abernathy, a flamboyant homosexual, and Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran, a rumpled preppy of dubious social grace. Richard longs to fit into this group and, ashamed of his rather plebeian origins, is soon inventing a fake background for himself and taking on pseudo sophisticated airs. However, there's more to this little clan than meets the eye, and as the story unfolds, he discovers that during an attempt to recreate a Dionysian frenzy, Henry, Francis and the twins have killed a local man. Now Bunny has found them out & is basically blackmailing them, exacting a cruel revenge for their many slights. Inevitably, they decide that Bunny must die and the rest of the book deals with the murder's aftermath. When this book was first published it was attended by tremendous hype, both because of the youth of the author and because of her mentors, Willie Morris & Brett Easton Ellis among them. But the hype, and the comparisons to Crime and Punishment, could not obscure the fact that Ms Tartt had penned an absorbing gothic mystery which quickly became a bestseller. I agree with many of the criticisms of the novel. Some of the characters are underwritten and we are not adequately exposed to the teaching of Julian Morrow that makes him so attractive to the students. However, these legitimate gripes are outweighed by the creepy mesmeric can't-put-it-down story that the author weaves. In addition, I think there's another reading that you can apply to the book with some profit. The effete, elitist, amoral, hothouse atmosphere fostered by Morrow and embraced by the clique is an apt metaphor for the modern university. Here are students who are absorbed by their studies, or at least by the aura of their studies, 24 hours a day, who cede complete control of their own minds to their instructor. Not content with the elitism of a University so expensive that there are few middle class students anyway, they've further segregated themselves into a small band of like minded students. If they get in trouble, it's in the pursuit of some romantic intellectual ideal and after all, who do they kill, just a townie and a slacker student. However you interpret the story, it's a rewarding reading experience. GRADE: A-
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Summary: Tartt is a genius
Review: I love The Secret History not only because I am from Mississippi (like Tartt) and not only because I am a student of classical Greek at a small private school (like the characters), but because I have always loved to read and have never found a book as intriguing as a pop-culture page-turner with all the elements of a true classic including truths of human nature incased into one volume like The Secret History. Donna Tartt, you have done a good job creating this tale, and I am anxiously awaiting another!!!
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Summary: Hampden is definitely Bennington, by the way...
Review: ...and this story probably could have happened there. Donna Tartt and Bret Easton Ellis (to whom the book is dedicated) both went to Bennington, which is hard to believe because while Secret History is amazing, I've never made it past the first five pages of any of Ellis's stuff for sheer disgust. That's Bennington for you--takes all kinds and, well, levels of sophistication in writing. But for those readers and reviewers who are wondering about the uniqueness or strangeness of "Hampden", it's all there: Bennington sits right in the southwestern corner of Vermont, a stone's throw from New York and a bike ride to Massachusetts, and for the most part pretty separated from the rest of Vermont--far from a college town, the college and its students have little to do with the locals, also true to the book. Tartt describes the school perfectly, of course: from the buildings to...well, some of the students and professors. In the 80's anyway. Except...Greek isn't offered in the Bennington curriculum....or even Classics, usually...
Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Review: So fun. Really great book and I just cannot believe that it's the author's first. Waiting (impatiently) for her next...
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Summary: Perfect Rainy Book
Review: It's amazing how Donna Tartt draws you into this the small circle of elite philosophy student, where you all of a sudden feel like you are one of them. The characters are all unique and so well developed...from curious Camilla, to aloof Francis, to obnoxious Bunny and of course, the narrator, tragic, heroic Richard. The Secret History is a incredibly satisfying book. Well done, Donna Tartt, on your first novel. I hope to read more of your novels in the future.
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Summary: Donna Tartt where art thou?
Review: Short and Sweet: This novel is an instant cult classic. Tartt comes from the ranks of Bret Easton Ellis and Jay McInnerny...and she betters them both in one shot. Wickedly funny and palpably teasing....The Secret History is one thoroughly enjoyable read. My only disappointment? That Tartt has written nothing since. Please come back.....we can't get McInnerny to stop writing the same story (get over the lost model girlfreind already please) but we cannot squeeze one more novel out of Ms. Tartt? Life is truly unfair,no?
Rating:
Summary: Haunting
Review: For a first-time writer Tartt has brillantly developed a cultish group of characters and has made Richard, the main character very believeable despite his unbelieveable moral mistakes. The whole East Coast small-college atmosphere she created was also very believeable and the writing was above the normal level of writing in most contemporary novels today (by far). I thought the ending tied everything together perfectly. Tartt could have delved into the Greek references a bit more. I did find it hard to believe that these students used the Greek history and language to form their personalities during their college years. If the author was going to base the novel on their studies, I would have liked to have seen a bit more in-depth knowlege of the classics, Greek history, etc. as opposed to a reference here and there. Also, Julian's character was underdeveloped in the beginning of the novel. Otherwise, I loved this novel. It is difficult for me to even finsish a lot of the stuff that sits on the bookstore shelves today, but this was engrossing.
Rating: 
Summary: Better with age
Review: Books, experience, love affairs... Like fine wine, the true value of a book is in the aftertaste, the impession it leaves for you to mull over, the sense of summers past and summers to come. This book does not dissapoint, it comes at you with a lot of action, interesting characters and a cunning plotline. I enjoyed it immensely, but two thirds of the way through I began to duck and cover waiting for the ending. A bit like Beethovens ninth, you wonder just how it can all be brought together at the end. I'm happy to say there's a nice concluding enigmatic note. Read with confidence dear reader! The aftertase of this book has lingered on my palate to the extent that I am considering going back for a second read.
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