"The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

I really didn't like it (and I have an MA in Classics!). The narrator's voice is inauthentic and bland and that's the kiss of death in a 1st person POV novel.

MA in English Literature, here. I enjoyed the book, but it's nothing too original and Tartt sounds endlessly impressed with her "cleverness."

It's one if my all-time favorites, and I re-read every few years. Her second book, The Little Friend, is good too. I read it for the second time last year and liked it even more.

I absolutely love her writing. I've preordered her 3rd, The Goldfinch--it comes out October 22nd.

Agree with R3. TSH has always been one of my favorites and the one book I recommend to friends that has been heartily appreciated by nearly all of them. I'm not an English major, but I read a lot.

I haven't reread in a long time, but I seem to remember the book as gripping from the start - not slow at all and engaging throughout.

Enjoy. I wish someone would recommend something this good to me right now - I'm in a reading rut.

I remember TSH and I liked it. Now you make me want to re-read it. It's been a while.

I really liked it, OP. But it made my teeth chatter.

I've just finished it last week. I did find it quite hard to get in to but I stuck with it and liked it in the end. Someone described it to me as an 'experience' rather than something to enjoy and I'd go along with that. I really found I had no empathy with any of the main characters - they were to a man deeply unlike able and I think that's why I found it a tough read.

I read this when it first came out, I was about 15 or so. I reread as an adult and it still holds up. Creepy, well written characters. I agree the narrator is a bit bland but he is supposed to be bland, his character is the ultimate bystander. This was supposed to have been made into a movie, and GOOP herself wanted to play Camilla, who is about 15 years younger.

I can't wait to read her new novel, "Gold finch"

I love that Brett eaton Ellis's "rules of attraction" is based on a similar premise, but has a very different take on these guys.

I have been hoping to get around to reading this since it first came out and haven't gotten around to it. Maybe this thread will send me to the bookstore.

It's dark, I liked how hopelessly bad all of the characters were

It's my absolute ultimate Comfort Book. Whenever I feel down/depressed/sick 'The Secret History' is the one book I curl up with, along with my trusty old blankie. It works like Miracle

Boy! You folks are giving good reviews. I think I will go pick it up at the library today.

I loved it. Was living in England at the time, and someone handed the book to me, and I was totally engrossed from that moment till the book was done. Definitely give it a look.

I loved it, it was long if I recall? Anyway definitely give it a go. A great fall read.

I remember enjoying TSH, but her second, 'The Little Friend', was terrible - so slow and dull - I couldn't finish it.

I read TSH after attending a college not unlike the one she describes, so I picked up the book expecting to love it -- but I didn't.

The beginning was gripping, where at one point the narrator says "I suppose at one point in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell." Great intro!

But then... not one of the characters was real or emotionally involving, IMO. I would happily have suspended my disbelief at the story if I had been able to connect with any of the characters, but it just didn't work. Maybe a pre-collegiate teenager would like the book better, I don't know.

I am still surprised that TSH wasn't filmed soon after publication. It was a bestseller, and it could have been made into a pretty good movie in the hands of a competent production team. Plus, it would have been easy to cast -- every hot up-and-coming actor would have wanted one of the parts. I don't know why that didn't happen. It still could, I suppose, but the publicity from the book's original popularity has certainly dissipated.

I liked it fine but didn't understand his dream at the end.

Loved TSH and will be picking up 'The Goldfinch' when it's released.

The Goldfinch is unbelievably long, but evidently worth it, to judge from early reviews.

As for the Secret History, I loved it as well, on first and second readings. Something quite similar (although not remotely as murderous)happened to me as a college classics major, so I guess I was attuned to the themes. It captures some truths about the modern world and its relationship to its historical roots. It was shocking, but well written and, on the whole, surprisingly plausible.

I read it soon after attending a high school of arts, and even though my school wasn't for rich kids there still was a certain element of being special for getting in. Partly because of that I totally got into the spirit of the book, and understood the thrill of belonging to a secret club. BTW, in my country the book's name was translated to 'Gods party at nights' which says a lot about the atmosphere of the book.

Guess I should read it again, since I've only read it once long time ago. It's certainly not a perfect novel, and the people in it weren't the most likable, but it was a fun read.

I read it years ago when I was stuck in my house because of heavy snow. (This was in Alabama!) Good book.

Same with me, r22. I totally relate

I thought The Little Friend was almost as good, especially reading it the second time. Maybe because it reminded me so much of To Kill a Mockingbird and the work of Flannery O'Connor.

Donna Tartt is just so freaking cool and mysterious. She has rarely given interviews and I read some rumor somewhere that she lives on a private island with her much younger lover.

I probably like her because she achieved the dream I had in high school--escaping Mississippi to go to Bennigton College. That was my obsession when I read The Rules of Attraction in high school--I thought that fucked up, omnisexual world sounded great!

Interesting.

R19, the dream meant that basically everyone is still miserable- Henry, wherever he was, and Richard in life. The saddest end was Francis having to marry the annoying girl rather than be with a man.

it's good but highly overrated

I loved TSH, though the first half is better than the second. I read somewhere that Goop had bought the rights and wanted to play one of the twins.

I thought it was underwhelming and overly contrived - when she finally played her hand she wasn't really holding anything. Not a single image or event from it stays with me except a vague remembrance of literary overreach.

I'm so glad someone here mentioned her second novel, 'TheLittle Friend' as 'terrible'. I was DEVASTATED by what a Let-DOWN it was and felt bereft and unconsolable for days...

Perhaps I should add that I was, like the main protagonist Richard Papen in TSH, an impoverished full scholarship student at an Ivy League surrounded by rich and privileged kids, so I could definitely identify with the sense of inferiority and of being an outsider that Richard harbors throughout the novel. I thought she captured that sense of alienation and defensiveness really well.

And does anyone get the sense that Donna might be a lesbian? I don't know anything about her personal life, so my hunch is entirely based on reading TSH and sensing the vibes from the writing so to speak...

R32 - Richard was a stand-in for Donna, the outsider, herself.

Let the games begin. I am just back from the library with my copy of TSH. It appears to be a bit of a project.

Enjoy!

R35 - If you have a reasonably good vocabulary, it's a fairly fast read.

So have people started reading The Goldfinch yet? I'm about to pick up a copy and delve into it. The reviews so far seem pretty positive.

SPOILER

There is a gay scene in the book!

She sounds a bit insufferable. Wonder how much money she made from The Secret History and what she's lived on all these years.

iirc Winona Ryder was originally supposed to play Camilla in the movie version.

Winona would be wrong for Camille.

I taught to smart undergrads in a class on myth. their response was "Yeah, yeah, we get it. an we move on?"

You taught what?

After years of wanting to read this I finally finished it last night. It was so talked about when it was released I was expecting great things but I didn't find them in this book. It was just okay. I will start the Goldfinch today.

She attended Ole Miss before transferring to Bennington, and believe it or not, she was a sorority girl. The Kappa house had something called the "Sunshine Box," like a suggestion box in which you were supposed to deposit happy thoughts you had written on scraps of paper; she contributed Sartre's quote "Hell is other people."

I just deleted The Goldfinch from my phone. Taking up too much memory.

R45 - Then she met BEE.

It's a lot better than the wildly overpraised The Goldfinch.

Finally read it, I waited months for it at open library. It was good but I wasn't amazed by it. I did like it better than The Little Friend.

I'm not a Goop fan but I can see her as Camilla

I read it when it was new. I liked it well enough. I don't remember anything about it now. When I was moving in the late '90s, I took it and a bagful of books to Second Story Books in Dupont Circle, and the little twit behind the counter picked it up between index finger and thumb, and shrieked "You expect me to buy THIS back from you?" I took all my books and gave them to someone sitting in the Circle.

20 years ago, yeah, Goopy would have been a perfect Camilla, r50. But they didn't film it back then, and I don't think a film is on the cards today either.

Tiresome & trite. Olivia Goldsmith had a delightfully bitchy line about her in 'The Bestseller'.

"The Secret History" was okay, but, rather forgettable. I liked "The Little Friend" until the "fuck you" ending, it really put me off Tartt.

[quote]Olivia Goldsmith had a delightfully bitchy line about her in 'The Bestseller'.

Well? What was it?

Do NOT get the audiobook. Tartt narrated it and does an awful job. The story was pretty good. I would have appreciated the writing quality better without her awful reading.

nice, readable, but nowhere near the "masterpiece" hysteria it created when it came out. Would make a nice miniseries, but that niche is oversaturated. it's a classier version of I know what you did last summer.

TSH and Goldfinch are wonderful. I recently started The Little Friend, eager to tackle it regardless of the universally bad reviews. It started off amazing but I cut bait about halfway through. It became such a slog, which was unfortunate given how gripping it started off. I just didn’t have the last 300 pages in me. Sadly I am not a Donna Tartt completist. Oh well.

since she writes a book every 15 years being a Tartt completist is the easier thing in the world.

I liked it but i didn't love it. Maybe it was a question of expectations

NYT White Lifestyles Lit

All I remember is that the characters smoked so much I was waiting for them to die of lung cancer.

I loved it the first time and was unimpressed the second time. It seemed profound to me when I was younger.

It’s still worth reading.

Loved it, then reread it and wasn’t as impressed

Heard about this through word of mouth. Was an exchange student in Germany, dating a beautiful bodybuilder, the kind of man I usually couldn't pull. Anyway, he gave me his English-language copy when he was done.

Loved the beginning, but she didn't know how to end the book.