The time has come. After countless years seeing The Secret History floating around lists and online book communities like a prized possession or a rite of passage to get into a club (ironically fitting for the story), I am finally part of the group. I’ve read The Secret History by Donna Tartt. It took me 4 months to finish, but we got there eventually. And, if by any chance, you are not yet part of the club and don’t know if you even want to be, I’ve got you. Because while I picked up this book to see what all the fuss was about, I knew next to nothing about it. And now, being on the other side, I can fully grasp what this story is, and if it deserves all the hype and higher praise it receives constantly.
Title: The Secret History Author: Donna Tartt Publication year: 1992 Length: 22 hours 3 minutes Genre: Mystery, Dark Academia, Literary Fiction Pace: Slow Story focus: Character
The story is told by Richard, a lower-class student who moves to an elite New England university. Immediately, he shares that someone died, Bunny. He and his friends are behind it. And then he takes the reader back to how it all started. At first, Richard lives a very normal student life until he sees an elite group, closed off and very rich. He’s captivated by all the spectacle, the show of wealth, the secrecy, the superiority, the life he never had. And so he decides to join them. To fake it until he makes it, essentially. But this is just the start of the story. Discovering what happened to Bunny, how he died and why is just half of the book. The other half is a house of cards tumbling down.
The story progresses slowly, so the reader has time to really get to know all the characters. And if you need to like the characters to enjoy a book, then I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this book isn’t for you. Since the story deals with a knit-close group of people, it brings out some bad traits. It’s not about them being wealthy, but rather believing they are above everyone else. This is cultivated and encouraged inside the group. And since they know best, morals start to become more ambiguous.
Like Richard, the reader knows nothing. We have no idea who these characters actually are. What secrets they are hiding. And this slow approach, to get to know them bit by bit, to grab a hint here and a hint there, when anything happens, it becomes something big. There are only 4 or 5 dramatic moments in this book, but it’s the time when nothing happens that makes those moments even more dramatic. While Richard is part of the group, he’s still kept away from a lot of information, and discovering something often comes as a big surprise.
It took me 4 months to finish The Secret History, but it wasn’t because it was a hard book to get into. You have an adjustment period since Richard is just narrating his life, but after about 70 pages, the group starts to open up, and secrets start to spill. By that point, you get hooked! It simply took me so long to finish this book because of chance. I’m rarely reading only one book at a time, and with readathons and end-of-the-year reading challenges, this book kept taking a step back. It was never intentional. It simply happened. However, I don’t recommend it. The story is already slow enough. It doesn’t need more breaks.
If you are a plot-driven reader, then this is going to be the most boring book ever. For like 80% of the book, nothing happens. It’s just character building, following Richard, thinking back on this thing and that thing, and the problem with this and that. This is a character-driven story, and if you, at any point, don’t care for the characters, then it’s just a slog. I usually prefer plot, but since I like unlikable characters and liked these unlikable characters, I was enjoying it. The book didn’t feel long at any point, despite the 100-page chapters. Yes, you read that right. There are 8 chapters in more than 600 pages.
Despite having murder, it’s a calm book to read. Whenever there was something dramatic or scandalous being revealed, I would gasp and touch my purls, delighted with the gossip, and then things would go back to normal, to a steady, almost monotonous pace. Once I knew the story would have these small pops of drama, that Bunny’s murder wasn’t all there was to it, I started to enjoy the slowness of the story much more. And now, I see it as almost necessary for the book to work.
I see why this book is so highly regarded. The writing is good and clever. It’s an extension of Richard’s personality since he’s the narrator. Never forget that. The whole story is supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. But I also don’t feel it’s this grandiose piece of literature often portrayed to be. It’s so hyped up that you feel it will transform your life once you read it. But it’s not the case. It’s still rich people drama with dubious morals. Still, I loved it, and it was a great way to end the year.
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