The Secret History is narrated by a young college fellow named Richard who leaves his California roots and transfers to a small liberal arts college in Vermont called Hampden College. Richard has a fair knowledge of Greek and when he tries to get into the Greek class, he learns that it is full. He later learns that that class only offered to a selective group of students, five in particular. After one failed attempt to get accepted into the class, he later impresses the head professor, Julian, after carefully watching the five students. He gets a little more than he bargained for...
Julian's small group of students: Henry, Francis, Bunny and the twins, Camilla and Charles, take only classes offered by Julian or allowed by Julian in the classics. At first, Richard's acceptance by his classmates is awkward. However, he eventually gets to know them well. So well in fact that after 4 of them are involved in the mutilation of a local farmer during a bachannal, they confide in him. As time wears on, Bunny's acceptance of the murder, which he was not a part, becomes a heavy burden for him to bear. As a means to an end, the others decide the only choice they have in keeping the farmer's murder a secret is to kill Bunny.
Many moons ago, I was in a book club in memphis. We read The Little Friend as one of our monthly novels. Although Donna Tartt is an excellent writer, I was not a fan of that novel then, nor am I now. There was nothing enjoyable to me in The Secret History. I chuckled a few times here and there, but reading this novel was a chore. There's something so ridiculously fake about her characters and their actions that I just can't seem to ignore the fact that they are made up.
I enjoy reading fiction mainly because in most novels, I can become part of the main characters. Or at least I can relate to them and feel as though I am part of the story. Tartt's novels seem to alienate me. I feel like all of the characters are so far away from being able to be a real character that I can't grasp what they are even doing in a novel. I know it seems odd that I say then when talking about fiction...even science-fiction. However, most books I have read in my lifetime, even the ones that are so far out there in truth, have been easy to imagine because the characters are so intriguing and believable. Even the craziest ones. Not so in my eyes for Tartt's novels. Her characters are so well thought that they seem completely imagined.
That being said, I found it hard at all to relate to the story. Sure, I read it but there was never a point where I was on one side or another. Richard's character actually goes into a narration describing how awful Bunny was acting at one point. Then goes on to say that he still loved him and maybe he wasn't really that bad. Minus the whole killing Bunny part, an emotional decision was never made in the novel. No right or wrong. No hate or love. Nothing. And maybe that's the part that I dislike and the reason I can't relate to her characters: they have no soul.
Tartt writes beautifully. The novel is graceful and reads easily. She desribes things in detail and it's easy to imagine the things she writes about. But going back to those soulless characters. I just can't get past the fact that there is little emotion to them. They are stagnant to me.
Maybe it's Tartt's way of being politically correct by not really defining right or wrong, love or hate. I have no idea. I do know that this will be the last novel I will read by Tartt.
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