The Secret History (Vintage Contemporaries)

Oh my gosh! This book! It's my first Donna Tartt and I loved it! It was a readalong with @readingenvy and I'm so glad I read it. If you liked The Likeness by Tana French, or any Tana French for that matter, you'll like this book. It's quite lengthy, but it pulls you in and has a twisty end.

This book is an experience on several levels, some of which occur outside of the book but undoubtedly affect one's reading. For instance, to me, part of the experience involves pausing to consider and awe at the fact that a twentysomething wrote words others might not even approach in a full lifetime. More than that, though, the uniqueness of reading The Secret History is both its content and delivery (duh). Who else would think to write such a modern book peppered with ancient references and archaic verbiage, let alone succeed at such an endeavor? One of Tartt's key skills, in this work and to a lesser extent the work that follows, is found in the reader's relation to her work, not exactly suspending disbelief but in that ballpark. There's a certain ease and naturalness with which you eventually accept the entirely pretentious and stilted way these characters talk and the erratic oscillations the writer and plot and characters take, swinging between topics or actions or moods of maximal intensity and passion on one end and maximal casualness and callousness on the other. The book is funny, the plot is electric, the tone is somewhat austere and sharp, the range of vocabulary used is unparalleled. What I find as equally impressive as any other praises one could heap onto this book and how impressive it is for a writer under thirty to have penned its pages, is the voice. Though obviously this book was written over a decade, the reader experiences it all at once, and thus can't help but notice and marvel at the clarity of style and the writer's grasp of what their style is and how they relate to it and how they can play to their talents. Simple things like liberally using em dashes or use of obscure words or allusions to esoteric items of a classics education, Tartt knows how to use her tools to their fullest extent. Most of all, as noted, the plot moves, the story itself is fascinating, and the first page, with its brilliant flipping of the murder-mystery genre, hooks you immediately. A must read, though perhaps one you may never read again. I say the latter because there are probably ways to read this book less charitably, which I think probably comes from second and third readings. I can see how someone might tire of the writing style or find it a little too consciously hewn or that Tartt sometimes seems more interested or equally interested in impressing the reader or justifying her place in the writing world or her status as a writer than she is interested in writing a good book, or that this book too desperately wants to be literary or a great work of literature or one deserving of more than just popular/commercial success and general acclaim. Reminds me of something an English professor once told me which was that my essay sounded too much like a writer who knew he was writing an essay, that he read it and thought I must've been thinking while writing "AH! I am writing an English essay! I must show you that I am writing an English essay!" But again, I don't read it that way and refuse to change my opinion or taint its positive tilt through further rereading.

Dark... atmospheric...sensuous - characters that are not quite likeable but captivating - It's odd, there were times when I did not feel pulled in by the story but the writing is so satiable and satisfying....Indeed, the story in its entirety could be summarized in a work by Caravaggio - haunting, disturbing, brush strokes of mystery, suspense, revenge, redemption, and what could be entirely grotesque and macabre is pierced by the most extraordinary filtration of light - at once absolutely pure and exquisite - for darkness after all is simply the absence of light... The epilogue was a bit piecemeal for my taste, but the final dreamlike/theatrical scene was perfect - leaving me with those feelings of sadness, emptiness and longing that you experience throughout this novel...

I’m scared to hate on this book bc it has such cultlike support but like…it’s not great! The story is captivating up until about page 350. The writing is fine, the references to other writers/thinkers/literature are painfully opaque. Like dialogue calling a messy house Dostoevskian ?? What does that mean Donna Tartt

I really enjoyed this book. I would describe the narrative as "meandering," and that may sound bad, but I found Tartt's writing captivating. Richard as a storyteller is someone you want to listen to. On the sentence level, I found myself focusing in on what she could do. Enjoyed it so much.