The Secret History

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Summary: One of the most stunning novels ever
Review: The Secret History is superb: it shifts almost imperceptibly from being a novel about American campus life, to a look at the study of Ancient Greek and to a murder and its consequences without seeming to change pace or style. As the plot moves on, everything seeming inevitable, things change unexpectedly until you just let the story happen around you, not even trying to second guess the author. Read it,read it now and read it again. Nick Laury 25/2/97

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Summary: A collegiate mystery on the scale of a grecian tragedy!
Review: A fantastic mystery filled with plot twists and turns and veiled references to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. The setting: an enormously expensive and exclusive Vermont college, replete with ivy-covered halls. The characters: Five wealthy, intellectual college kids who try to practice secret Dionysian rites in the Vermont countryside one night, and end up killing a local farmer. They try to avoid blame in any way possible, including duping their new friend Richard, a lower-middle class Californian trying desperately to fit into this snob-society. You'll won't be able to guess the ending of this novel and you'll be wondering for weeks what happened afterward???!!

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Summary: My favorite book ever
Review: This book was recommended to me by many friends before I actually got around to reading it, but no amout of raving by other people can prepare you for the intensity of the web of intrigue that one is drawn itno whilst reading it. I hate to coin a cliche but for the benefit of this book I will say 'impossible to put down". IF YOU READ ONE BOOK BEFORE YOU DIE MAKE SURE IT IS THIS ONE.. *Thanks a lot Donna Tartt for writing such a captivating and all consuming novel

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Summary: A chilling take on post-adolescent loyalty and trust.
Review: Darkly beautiful, compelling tale of a group of students at a Vermont university and their subsequent efforts at balancing loyalties, disclosure and self-preservation in the wake of a bloody accident which ultimately spirals out of their control. The profoundly evocative Tartt draws her ensemble of characters with an array of techniques and stylistic flourishes that allow them to stand out all the more vividly through their juxtaposition against one another. A captivating, unputdownable epic, which is all the richer for its romantic indulgence of twenty-something myopia and exaggerated passions misapplied to fatal ends. Picaresque, poignant and sharp - some scenes possess a "cinematic" quality, leaping off the page in intoxicating Sensurround. The Secret History is pure magic. This is why we bother..

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Summary: This is the best novel I've read published in recent years.
Review: It is hard to believe that this is Donna Tartt's first novel, but not difficult to believe she spent eight years writing it. It is an extraordinary acheievement, which revitalizes my belief in the quality of contemporary writing. She has succeeded in something much more challenging than many have realized. In my mind, _The Secret History_ is a modern interpretation of a classical Greek tragedy. She has succeded in writing a Greek tragedy in novel form, and making it seem natural and at the same time both modern and ancient. The themes of hubris, of divine justice, and of the irrational in man are blended marvelously. She, like Sophocles, succeeds in convincing the reader of the inevitability of the plot. Once things are set in motion they cannot be stopped and the murder of Bunny becomes as inevitable as the killing of Oedipus's father and his ultimate destruction. The one aspect of the book which I do not yet fully understand, despite multiple readings, is the dream sequence at the end. Anyone who would like to discuss this book or especially the final dream sequence is welcome to email me.

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Summary: The book that changed how I look at the world.
Review: I have read "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt more times than I can remember; but one thing I do remember is that no matter how many times I have read it, I still can never put it down! Reading this book makes one look differently at the world around them; casting a irresistable spell that lures the reader into Tartt's complex world of intelligence, betrayal, and the strength of the human spirit. This book is first rate genious that deserves to be read by everyone

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Summary: Nearly interactively captivating
Review: A Secret History ( I think this is the correct title...)is a book I stumbled across and am very pleased that I did. I became immersed in the clarity of Tartt's prose almost immediately. The scene is winter at a New England university, and it was winter three years ago that I read it. Winter in New Orleans, which is not known for being cold, but the weekend of my read, it was. I suggest you reserve some home time on a very cold day, stoke a fire, pour some sherry, and grab your blanket and cat, because you will become entrapped. Read the book. Be transportted to a place, befriend a group of diverse people. Amazing story.

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Summary: simply amazing
Review: I have not stopped recommending this book to all my friends and family. I simply thought it was one of the most amazing books ever written and it was all the more amazing because it was her first novel. I can not wait until she writes another book. Ms. Tartt has been able to establish a mood in the same manner as several well known established writers such as Bram Stroker and Peter Akroyd. The novel has rich characterizations and one immediately connects with all of the protaganists. I don't know of another book that I would so freely and without reservation recommend to others.

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Summary: I never thought a book could be like that!
Review: Within six or seven pages I got involved into thisstrange story. It makes me nervous, laughing, thinking, wondering. Isimply couldn`t leave it until I read the end. Tartt is a perfect narrator - she knows how to tell a story, how to get fear an anger into the reader`s mind. No author managed what Donna Tartt did: making me think of love an death, of sin and purgatory, of life and it`s end. I`d like to meet the protagonists Richard and Henry, Camilla and Charles, Francis or Bunny...

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Summary: Best book published in the nineties.
Review: Excellent. Read it