The Secret History in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Dec 21, 2015 Sarah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, american-fiction, best-books-ever

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Aug 09, 2018 Ryan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, 2018

Amazing writing but LORDY did I hate these people!

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Oct 17, 2011 Erin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011, multiple-reads

This is my favorite book, full stop. I can't remember when I first read it - late high school or early college, I know. I won't say that it created my preference for this sort of aesthetic, but it certainly crystallized it. Moral decay, a tight-knit group drawing even further inward, affection and sympathy for characters doing Bad Things, incest! It's filled with so many of the things that I love in fiction, and everything is topped off with a healthy dose of atmosphere (or maybe an unhealthy do This is my favorite book, full stop. I can't remember when I first read it - late high school or early college, I know. I won't say that it created my preference for this sort of aesthetic, but it certainly crystallized it. Moral decay, a tight-knit group drawing even further inward, affection and sympathy for characters doing Bad Things, incest! It's filled with so many of the things that I love in fiction, and everything is topped off with a healthy dose of atmosphere (or maybe an unhealthy dose, maybe an overdose, maybe I'm an addict?). Tartt's Hampden is slow and thick with ambience; it feels like another world, and I suppose it is, because you're seeing it through Richard's eyes - it's the opposite of his hot, flat California home, it's never seen a tract house or a massive shopping mall. It's old and rich and highbrow, and it's oppressive and liberating all at once. I find the plot delightful, but honestly, it's secondary to the characters and setting (and the pacing is, frankly, bizarre). I can see how that might turn some people off, but characters and setting are always my favorite things, so I am, obviously, going to be trapped in a lifelong obsession with this damn book.

Look. This book means things to me. I see a lot of myself in Richard "A Morbid Longing for the Picturesque At All Costs" Papen - I'm not saying it's a good thing; he's foolish and lies to himself and is thoroughly unreliable (he has a moment of self-realization toward the end of the book that is beautiful to me because it's all things that were so, so, so obvious to the reader already) and so easily swayed by flattery and inclusion. He's not a great guy, but he feels very real to me. Francis feels very real to me, Charles feels very real to me. Even Henry, who is like no one I have ever met (and no one I ever hope to meet) feels real to me. Do they have weird quirks? Yeah, of course they do. But they're fully drawn, they have personalities and histories - and real people have quirks too. A character being strange and unfamiliar to you doesn't mean they're unrealistic or not worth your time. I mean, these guys are the worst, yeah. They're insufferable snobs, they're the kind of people who sniff at you and tell you they don't watch television, they don't even oooown a television, ugh. They talk to each other in Greek! They're permanently soused, drunk as fish, louche lazy and befuddled by your silly middle class troubles. And I love them all. Sue me.

I think Bennington College stayed on my radar for years after reading this, even after I went to a massive state school on the other end of the country - where, incidentally, I majored in Classics (I am a parody of myself, to be honest). ...more

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Dec 04, 2013 Ruth rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ebooks, academia

Meh. Maybe I'm just over the appeal of the classics (almost majored in Greek), the elitism/pastoralism of the Vermont liberal arts school (spent significant time at Bennington = the real-life Hampden), and the romanticization of being a professor (it's not very romantic).
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