Donna Tartt's The Secret History: A Reader's Guide

Continuum Contemporaries

by Tracy Hargreaves

Continuum Contemporaries will be a wonderful source of ideas and inspiration for members of book clubs and readings groups, as well as for literature students.The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to 30 of the most popular, most acclaimed, and most influential novels of recent years. A team of contemporary fiction scholars from both sides of the Atlantic has been assembled to provide a thorough and readable analysis of each of the novels in question. The books in the series will all follow the same structure:a biography of the novelist, including other works, influences, and, in some cases, an interview; a full-length study of the novel, drawing out the most important themes and ideas; a summary of how the novel was received upon publication; a summary of how the novel has performed since publication, including film or TV adaptations, literary prizes, etc.; a wide range of suggestions for further reading, including websites and discussion forums; and a list of questions for reading groups to discuss.

Genres: Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, Dark Academia, Books About Books

96 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2001

Reviews

[Kristen Fowler]

Solid overview of the Secret History, and would be good if you've read the book and wanted to solidify some of your understanding of the narrative, but I'd have personally liked to see some more in-depth analysis.

[palina]

2.5/5

The reason i ordered this book in the first place was because I was tired of only having the couple of pages that google books had available but honestly, those were only the pages REALLY worth reading.
The Secret History is one of my absolute favourites and I will pick up any analysis of it but I thought this would provide me with so much more.

That's not to say that this book didn't have a lot of interesting points, it's just that the section would end before it delved into anything substantial. Most of the analysis was relatively surface level, or at least surface level enough that I had drawn the comparisons myself when I was reading The Secret History. What kept me reading the book though was the explanations of references of books that I haven't read myself, or read a while ago like The Great Gatsby and T.S. Eliot's poems, and of course the included list of other books/articles you should read after The Secret History to increase your understanding of it. I'm kind of biased towards being interested in it because I love the original book and Donna Tartt so much, but I think you can get along just fine with the google books preview.

[lucy thorpe]

I'm so obsessed that I read the reader's guide for book clubs. It was very interesting and insightful, none the less.

[Ruan]

Ela meio que divou

[Julie Brice]

I CANNOT get into this book :/

[Nick Sweeney]

A short summary of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, picking out some of its aspects. The focus often follows the trail of how critics have seen the book, which is a good enough starting point. There is a therefore a chapter on reviews and subsequent criticism. Many reviewers harped on the way DT's publisher hyped her before the book's publication. Some didn't feel comfortable with the book's dualities - crime story or literary fiction? Old-fashioned campus tale or MTV Bratpack generation? Geeky or hip? It is partly all of these. They often decried the 'classical' soundbites with which she strewed the book, but probably would have been equally damning if the classical references were too erudite, and, I think, would never have been reviewing the book, as it probably wouldn't have found a publisher. I liked this run-down of the book's major themes, and its bibliography and suggestions for further reading. It was very readable - it is a study guide, after all - and made me want to read TSH again (admittedly something not to hard to do).

[Diana180]

#studentpaper

[Leann]

loved it, but I figured out the ending too soon, so there was no surprise for me.

[Tsunamipie]

Interesting