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Summary: Have you wanted to be part of the in-crowd?
Review: If so, then this book will speak to you. Donna Tartt creates a novel that at once seems so simple on the surface and yet is so steeped in psychology and Greek myth that you can read this novel on more than one level - it just depends on how involved the reader wants to get.Hopefully, no one has read the Kirkus review above as it give much of the plot away and the reviewer quite plainly missed the entire point of this book. While most reviewers here seem to focus on the psychological aspects of the book - I am hoping to give a simple summary and a reason to read it. To begin, this is a novel about Richard Papen, poor college student from California who is so desperate to get out that he applies to Hampden College in Vermont sight unseen - because the catalog looks inviting. It is with this first lack of forethought that the reader learns what drives Richard. Once accepted, Richard makes the trip to the East and begins his second life. Before the first semester begins Richard thinks about taking Greek as it was something he excelled at in California only to be told that the professor, Julian, that teaches Greek only accepts a small number of students and that his classes are full. Richard moves on only to become fascinated with Julian's class of five - the twins, Charles and Camilla, Bunny, Henry (the group's obvious leader) and Francis. What is it about this select group of students that makes them so mysterious and enthralling all at the same time? After offering some advice to the group they invite him to join them and get him a spot in the Greek classes - he is so enthralled with entering the inner circle that he does not think twice about his decisions. This leads him to close friendships and bitter discord within the group. As Richard (and the reader) learns their secrets he becomes enmeshed in their wild lives of booze, good food and close company. What makes this interesting is the way Richard is accepted so quickly and the fact that even tho he is part of the crowd - he is still an outsider, an exact opposite of everything the group is - he is from the West coast and the rest of the group has money whereas he does not. The reader watches relationships develop and then wax and wane throughout the book. Halfway through the reader thinks that nothing else can possibly happen when the book takes another turn and draws the reader in anew. With an unplanned death and the animosity it causes within the group - who will be left standing? Can this tight group of friends come out unharmed or is wealth, privilege and popularity not all it is cracked up to be? It is a shame that Donna Tartt has not written a follow up book as The Secret History, while seemingly simple, is one in a million. It is also a shame that reviewers such as Kirkus feel the need to put down a book and in the process give away half of it's mystery - lucky for us they did not give it all away. A truly enjoyable read - I highly recommend it.
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Summary: -Crime and Punishment- at a college in Vermont
Review: Oh, come on! you may say. Maybe this is a good read, a good psychological thriller, maybe even "top-flight entertainment", but are you seriously going to compare Tartt's novel to Dostoevsky's? Only time can tell whether this volume will ever get the recognition of Dosotevsky's novel or murder and the consciousness of sin. (As a practical matter, it will help if Tartt produces some more equally strong novels. Single novels get forgotten.) However, I feel compelled to say that this novel does indeed have some virtues which set it apart from, and above, other entertaining thrillers, and which make it deserving of closer attention. First, before we forget it, Tartt's description of the College setting is very good, very strong, and very evocative, in the same way, for example, that "The Magnificent Ambersons" provides a picture of small-town life in the Midwest. This is not a trivial thing. There are plenty of books describing war, for example, and yet most of us have not been to war; but most of us in the U.S. have been to college, recently or not. In my case it was not so recent - it has been 30 years since I lived in a dorm, but that was a crucial time in my life, my development. And as I read this book, those times came back to me. I was reminded of the realities of the meal plan, of libraries, of registration cards, of managing the money from home, of keeping secrets from your parents, of deciding what to do during break, of trying to have friends and having them and caring about them and having horrible fights with them, and of creating oneself as a person through one's handling of all these minutiae. Please don't suppose that I am just being nostalgic about my lovely college days. In fact they were largely disorganized and depressed in my case. But they were important. That period in one's life is sort of like the Cambrian explosion in the history of life on earth, in which new patterns of organization and behavior were tried, discarded, and replaced, in a dizzying whirl never to recur, whose residues and contingencies have irretrievably shaped all the plans and routines that have followed. It is no small thing to be writing about them with understanding and even with respect. On top of that, however, Tartt presents us characters who find themselves grappling with really important and enduring moral issues. These questions deserve discussion. In fact, this book would be excellent material for a book club, or for an 'ethics through literature' class in college or even for advanced high-schoolers. Or for that matter to recommend to your friends so you can argue with them about it after you read it. Ideally you will be lucky enough to read the book without too much information or preconceptions about the plot. I am not so much concerned with 'suspense' and 'surprise' as I am with the issue of the structure of the book and the measured way in which the moral questions are raised to the protagonist and to the reader by Tartt. Richard begins by wanting what we all want: recognition - affection - the pleasures of being accepted as part of an in-group. Friends. He appreciates his friends. He is loyal to them. And then he discovers that they have a terrible secret and are in desperate trouble. This is where the issue of timing comes in. If you read a two-paragraph plot summary, it is easy to talk about how terrible and selfish these characters are and how anyone but a moral imbecile would run immediately to the police. But when the issues are presented to you with deliberate torpor, blended with the details of life, when the crisis sneaks up on you, it is different. You wonder, or you ought to wonder, what the characters can possibly do other than what they actually do. You believe, or fear, that you might do the same things, that they are natural things to do. Isn't it right to survive? Isn't it right to help your friends survive? Are you prepared to give up your life, their lives, for the sake of law and morality? How much are your friends' lives worth compared to the life of a stranger with a different background? Isn't this an important and commonly raised question? Isn't this why cops kill unarmed civilians, why air forces bomb children - because the lives and interests of the in-group are normally and naturally valued above the life of some stranger, some preferably nameless person? But our protagonists are compelled - IF that is the word - to move on to more and more desperate measures. To protect themselves from destruction, they plunge ahead into the heart of moral darkness, into terror, into violence, into guilt and shame. Because it is painful to have to look to closely at the holes you have torn in the flesh of other people's lives. In this Tartt's characters are less fortunate than cops and bomber pilots. The fabric of their lives, their prized circle, their friendship, itself shreds and falls away. Yet even after you have seen the results, you still feel you might have done the same things. By 'you' I don't mean the protagonists, I mean YOU after you have read the book. More precisely, I mean I. This is a book which you will not forget having read. Its pace is a bit too deliberate in some places, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the denouement, but I still think it's a strong and important work.
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Summary: My Favorite...
Review: Donna Tartt is unquestionably the best writer of my generation even though she came up with only one novel. After reading the book when it first came out in my early 20s, I often come back to the book every winter and cuddle up in my favorite quilt and read it by the fire. She writes so beautifully and I never fail to recommend her book to anyone who asks for my suggestion.
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Summary: Too long waiting for a second
Review: Definitely one of the best book I have ever read. Why have we not had a second title from this wonderful author. A must read again and again and again......
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Summary: don't waste your time going through the critics like I did
Review: I've red this book a long time ago, and just out of curiosity I looked for the reader's critics. I shouldn't have. Some people hate this book for the only reason it's a popular success. This is not something new, and it does exist in any area: music (bands said to have "sold themselves" when they have success, underrated movies because too popular, etc.) When are we gonna get rid of people like that. Make yourself a favor, read this book, like it or dislike it, but don't make your mind out of pretentious books critics from people who don't read them.
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Summary: I was entranced
Review: I cannot believe there is nothing else out there that she has written...it makes me sad. I loved this book almost to much- I lost friends over it and I hardly got any sleep for 2 days. I actually felt the coldness of the warehouse room- after that you feel drowzy and hurried through the rest of the book. The Secret History reminds me of myself, it reminds me of college and the selfish years- I love it because it's not sappy-I say this after evrey good book I read that has a nutty protagonist- "I'm so richard"- I'm baffled by the distinct foreigness of everywhere that is not middle income, small town, no taste California. This book is also a huge lingustics lesson- from the dialects of english -to romantic languages, greek and even a bit of arabic.
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Summary: Makes you want to study the classics
Review: I loved the book. I loved the characters. I understood why things had to happen the way they happen. Tragic in a classic sorta of way. Why don't you give us more Donna?
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Summary: Hooray for The Secret History!
Review: I was thrilled to find The Secret History well-written, engaging, and thought provoking, as well as thrilling, suspensful and amusing. I could not put it down!
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Summary: Well crafted, engrossing prose
Review: After participating in discussion of the Secret History with my book club last night, I have quite a bit of respect for the author. There was enough in the book and the characters it holds to keep us mulling over it for 2 hours, which is uncommon. Most of us found that we were unable to put the book down once we began reading it, and unlike a lot of page-turners, it also contains arresting sentences and evocative descriptions. It was interesting to think of the influence of Greek thought on the actions of these kids and their abiilty to commit the crime. I found the set-up of the first half of the book much more interesting than what came after, though. Although I was driven to finish it, I don't believe that Tartt succeeded in keeping the tension up through the final pages.
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Summary: Surprised and pleased...
Review: A friend recommended this book to me when I was in a reading slump. She said that despite its cheesy cover, it was really quite compelling. I bought it, put it on the shelf and never read it...until now, that is. Recently, I was looking for a distraction from my graduate theory readings - something fun and easy. Then I came across this book on my shelf. "What the hell?" I thought. I began to read and realized I was wrong. It wasn't fun. It was involving, compelling, obsessive. I couldn't put it down. I wanted to read it all the time, so much so that I had to leave it at a friend's house so that I could get work done for school. I loved it! I too, like the first reviewer, hope that they don't ruin it by making a movie out of it (though I admit, I would definitely go to see it anyway). Well, maybe they could do a better job if they don't put any big Hollywood egos in it--that's how they ruined Interview with a Vampire for me. An independent film would be better if they made a film at all. ANYWAY, great read. Suspenseful and thrilling.
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