Title: The Secret History
Author: Donna Tartt
Genre: Fiction, dark academia
Publisher: Vintage Books, Random House
Publication Date: 1992
Format: Paperback
Length: 559 pages

Rating:

I picked up The Secret History because I’d seen a number of people describe it as a classic piece of dark academia. People who love it seem to REALLY love it, and whenever I see a fandom that’s devoted to a book in that way, it makes me curious.

I can absolutely see why many view this book as a classic. It’s a well-written exploration of intriguing characters who seem relatively bereft of morals and wholly dedicated to pursuing knowledge at all costs. The depth to which Tartt explores the characters and their dynamics felt, at times, a little dragged out, but the tension and eventual climaxes in action I found to be really worth the wait.

I really wish that Tartt had explored the supernatural aspects of the catalyst event more because to me, there was so much potential in that storyline and where it could have taken the characters, but aside from that, it was a generally enjoyable read. I do understand the hype and appreciate the strength of the writing. My rating is based strictly on my own personal enjoyment level of the reading experience, which was pretty good, but not my favourite read of the year.

Fair warning: spoilers ahead for anyone who hasn’t read this book.

The Book: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

The Secret History unfolds through the eyes of Richard Papen, a former classics student of Hampden College in New England. In the prologue, Tartt establishes that one of the students in Richard’s classics group, Bunny, was murdered by his peers, but why this occurred remains to be seen.

Richard begins the story with his personal history of how he, a California-born-and-raised working-class kid, ended up at an elite college on the east coast studying Greek. He’s a little directionless and despises his surroundings in California, including friends and family, so when he finds he has an aptitude for classics at his local community college, he uses this skill to apply to Hampden, a college on the other side of the country. He arrives to find that Classics in Hampden is a highly elite group of just five other students, selected personally by their professor Julian Morrow. Julian initially refuses to teach Richard, but with some perseverance, Richard manages to get him on board, allowing him to study with the other students.

From the outset, it’s clear that the students studying Classics are all eccentric and self-absorbed. They’re obsessed with their studies, consistently absorbed in their translations to the extent that they ignore the world almost entirely and have isolated themselves from anyone outside their small academic circle. Richard marvels at what he perceives to be their uniqueness and quickly contorts himself to fit within their group. While they eventually accept him, it’s clear that they do so with some trepidation. Richard has the clear sense that they’re hiding something ominous from him.

As the dynamics of the group begin to shift and Bunny, the character who was introduced as the peer who is murdered, begins to go off the rails, the group fails to continue hiding their secret from Richard. He discovers that they’ve engaged in something nefarious, and eventually comes to a confrontation with Henry, who admits that the group, in fact, killed a man relatively recently in cold blood. It turns out that the group was so obsessed with their studies that they attempted, and were successful at, completing a ritual Bakcheia, or a Dionystic frenzy. This ritual, while allowing them to transcend their minds and bodies and commute with the ethereal, also brought them so far out of their minds that it wasn’t until they’d awoken that they found in their high, they’d accidentally murdered someone. While Bunny wasn’t there, he knew they had done it, and the combination of their actions and his perceived slight at having been excluded begin to force him into more erratic behaviour as the weight of the crime weighs on his conscience.

Richard accepts Henry’s explanation with relative ease and from here, the plot then centres around Bunny’s continuous downward spiral and the group’s efforts to deal with him. The stress of the events that then unfold and all that it takes to cover them up weigh heavier and heavier on the group until finally, they reach a breaking point that will forever alter them all.

The Review

I have a lot of thoughts about The Secret History. There were a lot of aspects at play, some of which I really enjoyed, some of which I thought could have been explored better.

There is no question that Tartt’s exploration of the characters was masterful. I found each of them to be self-absorbed and narcissistic and I’m not sure I really liked any of them, but the dynamics between each character and the motivations behind their actions was really fascinating to see unfold. Tartt balances their intellectual and academic natures with really regular people’s problems that I felt made them a lot more accessible. While they are initially presented as this disconnected, ethereal group of hyper-wealthy academics, over time their personal issues and histories bring them down more to Richard’s level, who really represents a more average person who is playing at the disconnected ethereal type. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that most (or any) of them evolved greatly, but their actions seemed less callous as time went on and you were at least able to see what drove them.

Plot-wise, it did feel long at different stretches. The book opens with a real bang with the acknowledgement that Bunny has been murdered, but then the plot flashes backwards and actually getting to Bunny’s murder takes a very long time, and there’s still a great deal that unfolds after that as well. It did have some great moments of tension though, and a great build both to Bunny’s murder and to another pivotal moment towards the end.

The place I would have really liked to see more exploration in would have been the supernatural aspects of the first catalyst event that sends them onto such a tragic course. I felt like there was so much that could have unfolded there, so much possibility in the group’s ability to access this ancient Greek ritual, but after the initial event you really don’t return to the concept again. You do in explanations of how the first murder happens, but academia as a whole really takes a back seat to the larger tensions with Bunny and with each other. I would have liked to have seen what it could have been like for Richard to partake, or for the group to further access that power they’d initially tapped into.

All in all, I completely understand why many view The Secret History to be a classic. It was a combination of great writing, a juicy plot, and some exceptionally engaging characters. I’m glad I read it, but just based on my own personal experience reading it, it was just okay for me.