The Secret History in Overdue Podcast

Feb 11, 2019 Beth rated it it was ok

Shelves: waste-of-time, mystery

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Jul 28, 2014 Zach Gray rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction

Hats off to Donna Tartt. She wrote a fascinating book full of totally unrelatable characters. Loads of suspense and intrigue without being cheap.

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Oct 06, 2017 Kaylie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: set-america, dark-coming-of-age

I picked up The Secret History mostly because I'd heard of it. I had some idea that Rebecca had enjoyed it, though I don't recall us every talking about it beyond that. I wanted to reread it because I didn't really remember what I made of it. Which hasn't worked out so well, because having finished it for a second time, I'm still not sure what I make of it.

Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw', that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

It's got a great 'f I picked up The Secret History mostly because I'd heard of it. I had some idea that Rebecca had enjoyed it, though I don't recall us every talking about it beyond that. I wanted to reread it because I didn't really remember what I made of it. Which hasn't worked out so well, because having finished it for a second time, I'm still not sure what I make of it.

Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw', that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature?

It's got a great 'first' line, especially for someone like me who reads entirely too much writing about writing and values character development over just about everything else. (It's actually the first line past the prologue, but we'll count it!) Overall, Donna Tartt's writing is compelling. I always wanted to read more, and only very briefly found my interest waning (around the funeral) before it picked up again.

As often happens, I found myself wondering what genre to put The Secret History in. It's about a crime, certainly, but it's not a 'whodunnit'. The first half of the story is, I suppose, a 'whydunnit', but even that doesn't accurately capture the second half of the novel. I described it to Caroline as either a 'dark spin on a coming of age story', which feels more or less right to me. The characters certainly leave behind the innocence of childhood in a pretty significant way. They're coming to cynicism, and responsibility. From what I know of Atonement, I'd describe that in a similar way.

So there is character development, even if it's mostly that the cast go from people I don't much care for to people I definitely dislike. That's fine, I don't need to Richard and Henry and the rest of the students in this kind of story. I find them interesting, I want Donna Tartt to tell me more and more about them, even if I wouldn't want to break bread with any of them!

There isn't much else for me to say about The Secret History. It's a well-written book. It's even a good book, one that I enjoyed reading more than once. But perhaps it's not my kind of book in the way that some others are. ...more

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