The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt
I finished The Secret History about three weeks ago. I'd devoured the first two hundred pages, even though, by popular opinion, that was the slowest part of the book. I think the driving force behind my speed was that I absolutely had to know what happened during the night of the first murder. The suspense, as they say, was killing me (har har).
As the synopsis noted, the novel centers around a tight group of Classics majors at a Bennington-eque liberal arts college-- the fictitious Hampden College. There is Henry-- the solitary, inscrutable scholar; the mastermind. There is Francis, a dandy in the most Wildean sense of the word. Charles and Camilla are twins-- Charles is good-natured and affable, and Camilla might have been lifted right out of the pages of The Great Gatsby (and indeed, some of the plot closely mirrors Gatsby). Rounding out the group is Edmund Corcoran, or Bunny. We know from the very first page that Bunny has died, murdered by the rest of the group. Bunny is the practical joker, the odd duck, but wholly neurotic as well-- he has a malicious streak that runs so deeply in his psyche, rooted firmly in a constant self-centeredness, that proves to be his end. The narrator is Richard Papen, a mostly apathetic transfer student who somehow manages to become part of the group. All of the younger characters seem comically aged in a way-- removed from all semblance of reality and pretentiously quoting the greats, their dialogue mimics that of a British upper-crust, which makes it hard to accept that the characters are, in fact, in college. Rounding out the dramatis personae is Julian, their Greek professor, who remains a shadow in open spaces throughout the entire novel-- you think you know him, but how much of Richard's narration is infact reliable?
I think my disappointment sank in when it became clear to me that while some of the events of the Dionysian frenzy were explained, the reader never truly gets a sense of what those events meant to the characters. Tartt gives us some particularly salactious hints, but never delivers the goods. Which isn't to say that I'd hoped the novel would be reduced to tittilation (and indeed, even the starkest mentions of sexuality are covered in a patently Victorian veneer), it's that it's blatantly clear that events which transpired that night are wholly important to understanding the characters, and it creates a disconnect between the reader and the page. While Tartt is wonderful at fleshing out scenes-- imbuing even the smallest, most seemingly-ineffectual moments with a flush of meaning, we never plumb the characters' emotional depths. Part of this is in the fact that Richard is so removed from his own feelings that he comes across like an existentialist's protagonist-- straightforward, here-are-the-facts, this is the way it happened. Which is good from a storytelling perspective, but not particularly helpful for a reader searching for connection to the characters. (And considering your perspective, this may not be a bad thing, considering he's technically a murderer and all.) Or perhaps that it's because the characters are so ruthlessly intellectual that they fail to take their emotions into account when they commit their emotions when they commit their crimes, and we are expected to intuit their feelings based on their subsequent unravellings.
Where the novel succeeds, however, is in the fact that the reader, like Richard, is so easily drawn into the plot to murder Bunny. Henry makes his death sound so reasonable, so logical, that we go along with it, playing up Bunny's faults in order to justify his end. After his death, however, the novel does fall flat, and sadly, never regains its momentum-- it's as though the apex is reached halfway through and the rest is just aftermath, or cleaning up the mess. I won't spoil the ending, but even the purportedly 'shocking' finale seemed expected, and failed at creating any impact on me at all. Indeed, I felt worse for poor, neurotic Francis, doomed to a boring life of feigned heteronormalcy than I did for all of the rest of the characters combined, if only because we can blame society's failings for his miserable end, and not his own.
What I absolutely cannot complain about is the quality of Tartt's writing-- it is superb. Verbose and sublime, in the manner of the Greek Classicists that her characters are so in the habit of quoting. The prose is lush and clear, exacting and precise. The minor characters are well drawn, even plot-device characters like Judy Poovey (what an awesome name!) have strong, contrasting personalities. The themes are strong, and she merges an austere Catholic sentiment cleanly with an Apollonian Greek sensibility. Each section of writing reads as a piece of an ever-changing puzzle, which intellectually engaged me all the way through, allowing me to suspend my disbelief in parts where the the plot had developed holes of varying sizes. In a way, it had the feel of film noir-- meetings in the dark, hushed secrets heard from the next room, a golden facade on moral decay. On the strength of the writing alone, I give this one a thumbs-up, though at times, it did frustrate me, and I was somewhat unsatisfied with the pacing.
(On a personal note, as I was reading, I could picture no one but Robert Sean Leonard in Richard's role, so it amused me greatly when I learned that he infact read the audiobook! Also, I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't slashing Richard/Francis the entire time.)
2006 Book Log:: http://sihaya09.livejournal.com/439937.html.
Synopsis:: Tartt's much bruited first novel is a huge (592 pages) rambling story that is sometimes ponderous, sometimes highly entertaining. Part psychological thriller, part chronicle of debauched, wasted youth, it suffers from a basically improbable plot, a fault Tartt often redeems through the bravado of her execution. Narrator Richard Papen comes from a lower-class family and a loveless California home to the "hermetic, overheated atmosphere" of Vermont's Hampden College. Almost too easily, he is accepted into a clique of five socially sophisticated students who study Classics with an idiosyncratic, morally fraudulent professor. Despite their demanding curriculum (they quote Greek classics to each other at every opportunity) the friends spend most of their time drinking and taking pills. Finally they reveal to Richard that they accidentally killed a man during a Bacchanalian frenzy; when one of their number seems ready to spill the secret, the group-- now including Richard-- must kill him, too. --Excised from the Publishers Weekly Review
I finished The Secret History about three weeks ago. I'd devoured the first two hundred pages, even though, by popular opinion, that was the slowest part of the book. I think the driving force behind my speed was that I absolutely had to know what happened during the night of the first murder. The suspense, as they say, was killing me (har har).
As the synopsis noted, the novel centers around a tight group of Classics majors at a Bennington-eque liberal arts college-- the fictitious Hampden College. There is Henry-- the solitary, inscrutable scholar; the mastermind. There is Francis, a dandy in the most Wildean sense of the word. Charles and Camilla are twins-- Charles is good-natured and affable, and Camilla might have been lifted right out of the pages of The Great Gatsby (and indeed, some of the plot closely mirrors Gatsby). Rounding out the group is Edmund Corcoran, or Bunny. We know from the very first page that Bunny has died, murdered by the rest of the group. Bunny is the practical joker, the odd duck, but wholly neurotic as well-- he has a malicious streak that runs so deeply in his psyche, rooted firmly in a constant self-centeredness, that proves to be his end. The narrator is Richard Papen, a mostly apathetic transfer student who somehow manages to become part of the group. All of the younger characters seem comically aged in a way-- removed from all semblance of reality and pretentiously quoting the greats, their dialogue mimics that of a British upper-crust, which makes it hard to accept that the characters are, in fact, in college. Rounding out the dramatis personae is Julian, their Greek professor, who remains a shadow in open spaces throughout the entire novel-- you think you know him, but how much of Richard's narration is infact reliable?
I think my disappointment sank in when it became clear to me that while some of the events of the Dionysian frenzy were explained, the reader never truly gets a sense of what those events meant to the characters. Tartt gives us some particularly salactious hints, but never delivers the goods. Which isn't to say that I'd hoped the novel would be reduced to tittilation (and indeed, even the starkest mentions of sexuality are covered in a patently Victorian veneer), it's that it's blatantly clear that events which transpired that night are wholly important to understanding the characters, and it creates a disconnect between the reader and the page. While Tartt is wonderful at fleshing out scenes-- imbuing even the smallest, most seemingly-ineffectual moments with a flush of meaning, we never plumb the characters' emotional depths. Part of this is in the fact that Richard is so removed from his own feelings that he comes across like an existentialist's protagonist-- straightforward, here-are-the-facts, this is the way it happened. Which is good from a storytelling perspective, but not particularly helpful for a reader searching for connection to the characters. (And considering your perspective, this may not be a bad thing, considering he's technically a murderer and all.) Or perhaps that it's because the characters are so ruthlessly intellectual that they fail to take their emotions into account when they commit their emotions when they commit their crimes, and we are expected to intuit their feelings based on their subsequent unravellings.
Where the novel succeeds, however, is in the fact that the reader, like Richard, is so easily drawn into the plot to murder Bunny. Henry makes his death sound so reasonable, so logical, that we go along with it, playing up Bunny's faults in order to justify his end. After his death, however, the novel does fall flat, and sadly, never regains its momentum-- it's as though the apex is reached halfway through and the rest is just aftermath, or cleaning up the mess. I won't spoil the ending, but even the purportedly 'shocking' finale seemed expected, and failed at creating any impact on me at all. Indeed, I felt worse for poor, neurotic Francis, doomed to a boring life of feigned heteronormalcy than I did for all of the rest of the characters combined, if only because we can blame society's failings for his miserable end, and not his own.
What I absolutely cannot complain about is the quality of Tartt's writing-- it is superb. Verbose and sublime, in the manner of the Greek Classicists that her characters are so in the habit of quoting. The prose is lush and clear, exacting and precise. The minor characters are well drawn, even plot-device characters like Judy Poovey (what an awesome name!) have strong, contrasting personalities. The themes are strong, and she merges an austere Catholic sentiment cleanly with an Apollonian Greek sensibility. Each section of writing reads as a piece of an ever-changing puzzle, which intellectually engaged me all the way through, allowing me to suspend my disbelief in parts where the the plot had developed holes of varying sizes. In a way, it had the feel of film noir-- meetings in the dark, hushed secrets heard from the next room, a golden facade on moral decay. On the strength of the writing alone, I give this one a thumbs-up, though at times, it did frustrate me, and I was somewhat unsatisfied with the pacing.
(On a personal note, as I was reading, I could picture no one but Robert Sean Leonard in Richard's role, so it amused me greatly when I learned that he infact read the audiobook! Also, I'm not going to pretend that I wasn't slashing Richard/Francis the entire time.)
2006 Book Log:: http://sihaya09.livejournal.com/439937.html.