Book Description
Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.

Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries.But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (528)

Excellent literary fiction, seriously flawed.
I come away from this book at a loss as to what to say about it:It deserves both high praise and heavy criticism.It is a rapturous, beautiful, intricate and balanced work of art; it is also oddly archaic, strangely disconnected from reality, and oftentimes more dissolute than well-worked.

In praise, its insight intothe kind of effete degeneracy that seems to well up when one isolates maturing intellectuals with one another is chillingly apt:It is apt, however, more in the sense of metaphor than in any naturalistic sense.The romance, luxuriousness, and cruel beauty of the cultivated degeneracy Tartt takes as her theme is evoked with brilliance and not inconsiderable talent.

In way of criticism, however, the novel is long and hangs loosely on its frame; its narrator, a character standing halfway between the position of a blank-slate observer and a character in his own right, vacillates between transparency and muddiness, his gestures toward the development of a personality alternatingly muddy and tragic, and this narratorial shapelessness contributes to the baggy-monsterness of the text as a whole.

Though it is easy to identify the themes of the work in broad strokes, I come away from an attentive reading of the text without being able to put my finger on its moral center, which is, I think, a flaw in Tartt's writing, not an element of her design; _The Secret History_ works very hard to achieve a sense of this moral center, and it is a very grave and wise one, at that; but it fails to alight on it definitively.The novel does not easily settle into the sum of its parts.

A very unsettling element of this book is the weird timelessness of its setting:I had to guess continuously when it might have been set, my first guess being the sixties, then gradually moving up through the decades as bits of background information trickled through the text.As nearly as I can tell, it takes place in the eighties--a time during which students use typewriters and rely on pay phones, but contextually after the sixties and seventies.Being the eighties, however, virtually every character speaks in his own bizarrely archaic voice:Bunny sounds like a hybrid of Teddy Roosevelt and Gatsby; Francis like a Victorian effeminate; and the unflattering peripheral characters like technicolor Californians or oddly outdated cokeheads.I can't determine whether this is an element of its structure or a flaw.

Finally, as a Classicist myself I came away with the uncertain suspicion that Tartt does not actually herself possess any classical languages.Virtually every instance of Greek in the text is orthographically wrong in some way; for instance I saw a lambda mysteriously mistyped as a gamma, that is, flipped upside down in the transcription process (it caused the word to read "pogyeides" not "polyeides"); and when the diacritical marks aren't wrong, they're lacking.These quibbles aside, it may well be that we ought to blame the typesetter, not the author, because Tartt's use of classical material in the text is unwaveringly appropriate and often quite erudite.

Despite its flaws, the book is intoxicating:I took a long shower the day I finished it, when I was about halfway through; I didn't realize until halfway through the thirty-minute soak that I was lingering because I actually felt _infected_ by the guilt of Tartt's characters, that my immersion in this book had made me uncleanly complicit to their crimes, their dread.This little work of sympathetic magic on her part is a testament to the intellectual and moral impact of her text, and, I think, excuses in itself the flaws one may point out in it; it is, moreover, beautifully written and unflaggingly rich.This book may never be a classic, but it is without a doubt fiction of literary merit.

The Secret History Needs to Be Passed on to Everyone!
The Secret History has the best written characters I have encountered in a long time. This is a book that will keep you up all night because you just CANNOT stop reading it. While reading The Secret History, I found myself almost (I said ALMOST - you'll see why once you've read the book) wishing that I was right there in the story with them, sitting in Professor Julian Morrow's classics class, having cocktails with Henry, smoking cigarettes with Camilla. The Secret History is a suspenseful mystery novel and an engrossing character study. It is intelligent and smacks of academia. Read this book if you love novels set in colleges, as I do, or if you simply love mysteries or gripping stories in general.

Occasionally pleasing, but essentially disappointing
Interminably bored in the insignificant town of Plano, Richard Papen applies to Hampden College in Vermont, an area of the country completely foreign to him, on a whim. Upon arrival, his involvement with an ominous group of variably erudite students irrevocably leads him down a road of deception and, eventually, great misfortune.

Though gloriously detailed and occasionally oddly comical, the story is unwittingly exhausting in its attempts at suspense. I found nothing suspenseful or thrilling about this novel, and I became irked with my great distaste for each and every character. Teeming with immoral and idiotic characters and fundamentally just a ridiculously lengthy tale of depression, I found it hard to enjoy it as much as most reviewers apparently did. I preferred 'The Little Friend'.

Pretentious, but interesting
This is a chilling story about murder, supposed friendship and how small groups of people can become cultish under certain influences.

The story does drag at times as it follows some of the most pretentious college students ever created in fiction. The group is extremely bright, but not as bright as they think they are. The reader's awareness of the group's intellect and flaws follows the same arc as that of the narrator who realizes too late that maybe following the group wasn't such a good idea after all.

Despite being more than 500 pages, not a single one of those pages contains a character you'd want to know personally. I'm not a proponent of authors only writing about likable people by any means, but it can be a challenge to read 500 pages straight about people who vary from despicable to the bad side of neutral.

A Thriller that Ponders Moral Ambiguity from the Stage of the Upper Class Educated Elite
I've decided that my continued interest in reading deserves more attention in my blog, so I decided to post a short review of what I just read for anyone who is interested or perhaps I will post my reasons for stopping a book (such as Wicked, my most recent incomplete).

I just finished reading the Secret History by Donna Tart last night and it was a fabulous way to spend the last hours of 2007. I love Tart's writing style with palpable metaphors and familiar literary allusions throughout the book. The character development is outstanding as the plot is told from the main character's perspective, which the reader comes to realize is more jaded and limited as the plot proceeds. Rather than having the events retold by a main player, the narrator (Richard) is more of a follower and voyeur into the lives of five upper class youths with a passion for the Classics and a sense of superiority to the masses. It's Richard's self-aggrandizement and sense that he is above his own middle class roots that initially draws him to this enigmatic group. The story has many tightly interwoven twists and turns that call on the readers' imagination and anticipation, so 600 pages did not seem too long for the whole of it to unfold. The Secret History is a psychological thriller that wades into the moral ambiguity of accidental murder and the less ambiguous attempts of this elite group to cover it up through a subsequent murder. Being that I'm especially attracted to the topic of the human condition, the inevitable loss of innocence and our constant attempts to make peace with life's limitations and eventual death, the fact that the characters are dedicated to the study of classics, obsess about Tolstoy and eventually propel themselves into a reality of stark truths is both moving and disturbing. There are a few diversions into witty commentary on American politics, but on a whole the book stays true to its limited to the microcosm of the upper class educated youth. While not being particularly funny book, Tart's excellent characters are a continuous source of amusement and familiarity. The weakest aspect of the book is a plot that attempts to be more complicated than it can handle and leaves too many unanswered clues and threads by its end. The reader is left asking about events that were alluded to, but to which Richard was ultimately not fully aware. This is frustrating as it seems knowing more may have helped the reader better understand each characters motives. However, the uncertainty does allow for the reader's imagination to run free.

I highly recommend the Secret History! ... Read more

Book Description
The hugely anticipated new novel by the author of The Secret History—a best-seller nationwide and around the world, and one of the most astonishing debuts in recent times—The Little Friend is even more transfixing and resonant.

In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, who—when she was only a baby—was found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy.

For Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge. Harriet’s sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child’s play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing.

A revelation of familial longing and sorrow, The Little Friend explores crime and punishment, as well as the hidden complications and consequences that hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. A novel of breathtaking ambition and power, it is rich in moral paradox, insights into human frailty, and storytelling brilliance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (563)

An ode to Mockingbird
I'm amazed by how many people didn't like this book. This is one of my favorite novels, I've read it about three times. This book has so much emotion and pathos. I love how mysterious it is. I also love the class distinction, I wouldn't call Tart a racist, it's an honest depiction of the south in the time period the book is set in. The Cleves and the Ratliffs are written both incredibly. From descriptions of Tribulation with gilded mantle pieces and stuffed black bears to the contrast of the Ratliffs' dump of a houshold with connecting mobile homes, and thin curtains with a meth lab in back. For those who said this book is too descriptive are insane, what's the point in reading if the author doesn't put you in the moment and create a character that you can actually imamgine. These aren't wasted pages of description of every character and their homes. What kind of attention span do you have if you say this book is to long-winded, it's not like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, it's not like American Psycho where entire chapters are dedicated to a musicians career, like I really cared about where Heuy Lewis' "Sports" landed on the charts, or What how successful Phil Collins was after he left Genesis. The similarities of To Kill a Mockingbird are prevelant but this novel takes it to the dark gloomy side, as dark as the filthy water Harriet drowns Danny Ratliff in. The relationship between her and Ida Rhew is so bittersweet, she was the only parental figure in her life not even her grandmother had the firm kindness she did, and it's so touching and sad when Ida leaves and Harriet is the one to blame, and when she realizes her selfishness, she has no way to contact Ida. My only criticism would be the ending, it does kind of leave you hanging, and when I first read it I was a little annoyed by it. But as I read again I liked how it was left open where you can imagine your own conclusion.

Dull and tedious
This book suffers from a writer enamored with her own writing ability. Donna Tartt puts together some lovely turns of phrase, but lacks the ability to come up with a plot.

I kept reading diligently waiting for everything to come together, and that just never seemed to happen.

This book is not boring- it's infuriating!
I do not believe that this is a racist book at all- there are racist attitudes held by some characters, but as others have pointed out, it's set in the south in the 1970s. I didn't find this book at all boring either. In fact, I loved the entire thing until I got to the ending. At that point, this book made me furious. Hopefully this is not a spoiler; if so, I am sorry, but this book didn't really have an ending. It just came to a stop, all of the threads of the mystery still dangling in the air. That is why I'm giving it one star.

Southern Discomfort
When THE LITTLE FRIEND opens, Harriet Dufresnes, the heroine of this large novel, is only six months old.It is then that her nine year old brother Robin is found murdered in the family yard.After this disturbing introduction, we flash forward twelve years.Robin's murder has never been solved.Harriet's family is fractured beyond repair, with a mother almost constantly tranquilized and an older sister who does her best to make herself invisible.Although Harriet may not have known her older brother and may not even realize what a normally functioning family would be like, she recognizes that her family is not it.

And so, at the age of twelve, Harriet decides to track down Robin's killer.Her suspicion falls upon one Danny Ratliff, even though there is no real reason to suspect him other than the fact that he is generally not the nicest person around and comes from a family even more rotten.Of course it is unrealistic to expect Harriet to be successful in her endeavor.She is, after all, a kid on a murder trail long since gone cold and looking for the killer that trained lawmen could not find.Rather, Harriet's hunt is the plot device by which the author Donna Tarrt explores Southern life circa the 1970s in an extremely well written and wonderfully drawn narrative.THE LITTLE FRIEND can be construed as being what Tom Wolfe refers to as the realistic novel, in which a fictitious tale is used to illuminate an accurate slice of American life.

That Americana covers some interesting ground.A grossly fractured and dysfunctional family, race relations between white employers and their black employees, poor white Southern culture, the unique religiosity of the South, all provide fertile ground for Tarrt's wonderful writing.

The best aspect of the book, however, is Tarrt's portrait of Harriet herself, who is one of the best drawn and most interesting characters in fiction one is likely to come across.Tartt captures a twelve year old's thoughts and emotions as her view of the world becomes less naïve to certain realities with near perfect pitch.And Harriet has just the right amount of precociousness to make her ideal.As one example, Harriet is mischievous enough to forge the hand writing of her goody-two-shoes classmate into a love letter to the Sunday school teacher, but mature enough not to actually send it.Such a proper balancing of characters' personalities is evident throughout the novel.

Some may complain that the ending of THE LITTLE FRIEND is not only unresolved but too empty to be satisfying.I think, though, that such an interpretation misses the point.This is Harriet's journey through a certain point in her life.Not all of life's adventures end with a proper and clear resolution and the book's ending reflects this.Readers had to wait ten years after publication of Donna Tartt's first novel for this follow up.In my opinion, it was worth the wait.

This is not an adult version of Nancy Drew
But if you were too smart for your own good as a child, then you'll likely fall in love with Harriett.The plot is not always terribly realistic, but the characters definitely are, and I think that's what makes the book so fascinating.I was particularly drawn to the way Harriett displays mature thinking muddled by a severe lack of life experience, how she is constantly frustrated and bored with the limited world available to her, and how she sometimes behaves childishly but is simultaneously self-aware enough to feel guilty about it.

When I was little I read about precocious children who would cheerfully run around solving mysteries and saving the day, and I was frustrated I couldn't accomplish anything like that, since everyone was always telling me how I was supposedly so smart.This is the first thing I've ever read that truly reminded me of my own childhood experience, even though the setting is totally foreign to me and the plot, as I mentioned, can get pretty wild.But these elements are what make it an interesting novel and not a simple character study.I just graduated college, and reading this book made me so very relieved and grateful to finally be out on my own! ... Read more

Book Description
This is part of a new series of guides to contemporary novels. The aim of the series is to give readers accessible and informative introductions to some of the most popular, most acclaimed and most influential novels of recent years - from 'The Remains of the Day' to 'White Teeth'. 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. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Anyone who reads and thinks deserves better literary criticism
This "readers guide" for Donna Tarrtt's "The Secret History" is thin on insight and value. While it is one step above "Cliffs Notes" in being both a summary and a "critical" work, it smacks of a first approximation of a better treatment that was then cut and slapped together on a thin budget and tight deadline. Literary criticism is a notoriously underpaid field (heck, folks posting here at AMAZON are giving it away for free), but still, readers are underserved by Hargreaves. Sad, for many of her observations and detail work teased out here have merit for discussion, and just as the reader is getting interested Hargreaves cuts off and moves on.

Hargreaves first chapter "The Novelist" is perhaps most useful for the curious Tartt stalker (yikes!), for it is an adequate thumbnail biography and summary of author details appearing in print elsewhere but in previously uncollected form. This chapter has no original content. Chapter two is the largest section and covers "The Novel" with a topical breakdown of characters, plot summary, setting, and main themes. Hargreaves correctly identifies many of Tartt's structures and literary techniques and devices, but in her "Conclusions" section on page 62 misses the point of the work entirely when she bald facedly states "There are no moral absolutes in the world that Tartt creates in her novel..." demonstrating that Hargreaves has completely missed a recurring leitmotif in the novel: Catholicism. Two chapters follow to pad out the work: "The Novel's Reception" and "The Novel's Performance" the last of which smacks of sour grapes and left me curious why they were not simply combined into a single chapter. The "Further Reading" section is perhaps the best, for it is nearly an annotated bibliography, and includes very nice summaries of obscure Tartt short pieces. The useless "Discussion Questions" left me fearful of the level of teaching of literature that goes on in Hargreaves's world, for not a single selected question raises the issue of religion in the work. Considering the central event of the novel, this is preposterous and misleading. Anyone who reads and thinks deserves better.

outstanding
an intelligent thriller, but also a serious literary work. i recommend it to anyone who enjoys good writing

Different, interesting, enjoyable
Strangely enough I didn't like the Secret History when it was first released, and I only picked up this book because of all the advance press surrounding Ms Tartt's new novel. And now I'm a fan. Which is not, as far as I know, the job of literary criticism - but then this book is not quite lit crit, it's an odd combination of scholarship and enthusiasm that works surprisingly well. It's persuaded me that the Secret History is a much cleverer book than I gave it credit for, and it's made me marvel at Ms Tartt's erudition.

(On the strength of this volume, I picked up the same publisher's guide to American Psycho, and that one is even better.)

Right, I'm off to read the Little Friend.

Pricey.
This is an extremely slight little handbook--too limited to be of much use to the experienced reader, yet too expensive to justify its inclusion as a complement to Tartt's modern cult classic.Students who are at all motivated can easily get as much information through a few quick internet searches.I'm giving my copy to a student TA as a handy accessory for help in grading papers.

A good book for Donna Tartt fans
Wasn't sure what to expect from this - a reader's guide makes it sound like it could be some patronising crap. But it's actually very smart, and even though I thought I knew it all about TSH, it turns out I didn't. Having said that, the author, Ms Hargreaves, missed out a few things, but maybe she didn't have room? Anyhow, she is very good on all the literary references in TSH, especially the Classical stuff. She regurgitates the most interesting parts of DT's printed interviews (shame she couldn't get a new one for this book, but not surprising I guess!), and I came away even more convinced of what a weird, wonderful one-off novel TSH is. Which makes me terrified that DT's new one will suck, but we'll have to see...

Definitely recommended, unless you really do know everything about the book already! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Terrific reading of a modern classic
I read a lot of books (164 in 2007), and it's rare that I actually have an emotional response. Not to the story -- that has to happen or reading would be no fun at all. I mean feeling genuine affection for the characters, so that I'm actually sorry the story is over.

True Grit is the first book in a long time to elicit that response from me, and I'm not exactly sure why it did. It was certainly not the plot, which is simplicity itself: fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross hires an unconventional U.S. marshal, Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, to hunt down Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. That's all, but it takes the whole book for that storyline to complete itself, and what a glorious ride it is.

What makes the read memorable is how Portis draws his two lead characters. The title attribute is at first meant to apply to Cogburn, of course, but we soon discover that Mattie herself has just as much "grit" (the word "sand" is also used in this way) when she asks the local sheriff for his opinion on who the best marshal is:

He said, "...I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking.... Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive.... He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say that Quinn is about the best they have."

I said, "Where can I find this Rooster?"

Mattie is full of surprises, but we soon find that Rooster is, too. Introduced as a hard-drinking, unreliable man who is the epitome of the loner, Rooster begins to grudgingly admire the "sand" (a.k.a. "grit") of this "child" and a kind of respect (and later, affection) grows between them. It is this unexpected turn of character (along with other surprising touches that kept me on my toes) that display Portis's skill to such great effect.

Donna Tartt (an author in her own right) gives a fine reading on the audiobook of True Grit. Her Mississippi accent substitutes for the Arkansas twang of the characters well enough for most listeners, and her vocal characterizations are utterly perfect. Not only are they distinct and unmistakable, but they also express a deep knowledge of these people as individuals, allowing the listener to completely get lost in the story.

Tartt's afterword adds little except to express her entire family's love for the book (it is, I understand, an introduction to the print edition, and is probably better served in that capacity), but acts as a good celebration of a book that is likely to become one of my favorites, as well.

Like I stated at the beginning, very few books speak to my emotions the way that True Grit did, and I look forward to reexperiencing its wonders in the near future because this is one book that will require multiple readings to really understand its subtleties. This is not just a terrific Western; it's a terrific novel, and one that deserves a wider audience. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from World Literature Today, published by University of Oklahoma on July 1, 2003. The length of the article is 568 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Donna Tartt. The Little Friend.(Book Review)
Author: Marvin J. LaHood
Publication: World Literature Today (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2003
Publisher: University of Oklahoma
Volume: 77Issue: 2Page: 100(1)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Book Description
Word count: 1264. ... Read more

Book Description
Charles Portis has long been acclaimed as one of America'sforemost comic writers. True Grit is his most famous novel--firstpublished in 1968, and the basis for the movie of the same name starringJohn Wayne. It tells the story of Mattie Ross, who is just fourteen yearsof age when a coward going by the name of Tom Chaney shoots her father downin Fort Smith, Arkansas, and robs him of his life, his horse, and $150 incash money. Mattie leaves home to avenge her father's blood. With theone-eyed Rooster Cogburn, the meanest available U.S. Marshal, by her side,Mattie pursues the homicide into Indian Territory.

True Grit is eccentric, cool, straight, and unflinching, likeMattie herself. From a writer of true cult status, this is an Americanclassic through and through. This new edition, with a smart new package andan afterword by acclaimed author Donna Tartt, will bring this masterpieceto an even broader audience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Gothic horrors in Magnolia-land.
Weird happenings within an even weirder family combine with the "fusty, drunken perfume of Magnolia" to fill this southern Gothic novel with bizarre behavior and pervasive threats of death and revenge. Forces of evil are at work, according to Charlotte Cleve, a mother of three, who believes the mysterious hanging death of her nine-year-old son Robin resulted because she changed her traditional Mother's Day celebration from noon to six o'clock on the day he died.

Twelve years after Robin's death, his fiercely independent sister Harriet, now twelve herself, investigates the circumstances of Robin's death, bent on identifying and punishing his murderer. Bearing little resemblance to Scout, the endearing heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird, single-minded Harriet recognizes no limits and is willing to do anything, including using a gun, to accomplish her goals. Confronting ex-cons who run a crystal meth lab, ditsy great-aunts who know what's "right," redneck children who lurk in the bushes, two snake-handling preachers, a mother who turns her house into a maze filled with piles of rotting, old newspapers, and a sister who sleeps seventeen hours a day ("I only get bored when I'm awake," she says), Harriet takes more comfort from her plans for revenge than from traditional southern values.

Tartt's themes of death and punishment achieve some sense of universality through her use of numerous symbols and parallels, often with animals, but these are frequently sentimental. The euthanasia of a beloved pet cat; Harriet's accidental killing of a blackbird stuck in tar, snakes handled by hillbilly preachers; and the vicious dogs of the Ratliff family haunt the narrative. The old family home is called Tribulation; Harriet's heroes are Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, and Captain Scott, the explorer; and she spends much of the novel looking for a pair of red gloves given to her by her black housekeeper, whom she loves but treats with casual cruelty.

The plot strains credulity, even for southern Gothic, and Harriet, as a twelve-year-old protagonist, is too wild and out-of-control to inspire much empathy as a character. The narrative focus of the novel gets lost, and many episodes, only peripherally related to the original search for justice, seem to become narrative ends in themselves. Filled with dense imagery and melodrama, this novel will appeal to those looking for fast escape reading. Mary Whipple
... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Boooooring
After reading the delightful "The Little Friend," I couldn't wait to start this one.The book is a mish mash of drunken party scenes and hangovers.The characters are stiff and speak in ways peculiar for college students---how many times have you heard someone say, "goodness?"The descriptive scenes are full on dishes crashing in the cafeteria, which tires after a while.There's a lot of talking and very little action, with people reacting strangely to situations.When have you ever heard of someone being "stunned" when hearing that a friend was seen standing in front of a bank?Save your money!!!!

I loved this book...and I think it offers a little social commentary too
I would not be as critical as the other reviewer.I think this is an excellent book, and I tend to be biased against best-sellers.Hidden in its over-the-top humor is a scathing critique of academia, particularly, academia as it plays out within the confines of a small liberal arts college.

The book is not really realistic; the characters are greatly exaggerated, extreme charicatures of a sort.The author creates a transparent sort of dystopia that could only offend people because it has a little too much truth in it.

Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down.This book is engaging, and although it is not one of the deepest books I've read, it does raise a few interesting questions to think about.There is something unique about the author's style, and her choice of setting and subjects, that I think makes this book worth reading.Plus, it's fun!

"History" stays secretive
Donna Tartt's intellectual thriller "The Secret History" was a rarity among the bestsellers of a decade ago: It was written with plenty of literate references, brimming over with the remnants of Greece. It's a flawed dark gem; there's a work of genius buried somewhere in the clumsiness.

Richard Papen somehow manages to get transferred from a culturally dead backwater in California, to the elite liberal arts college of Hampden in Vermont. Once there, he manages to get accepted into the tiny class of elite students who are studying Greek -- the charming gay Francis, obnoxious sponger Bunny, frightening super-intellect Henry and the beautiful, too-close twins Charles and Camilla.

At first, he tries to hide his impoverished origins and fit in with the beautiful, wealthy students who happily bounce off to Italy for vacation. But he soon learns that there is a dark edge to their love of ancient Greece -- the bacchanal, a barbaric ritual that ended in a man's death. And to keep the secret of that death, Richard will help his new friends kill again -- only this time, it's one of them who will die.

"The Secret History" is definitely a first novel. Donna Tartt writes with a sure hand and confidence, name-dropping just about every Greek and Roman scholar you can think of (also Milton and Donne for good measure). She has a way of writing that sweeps along in a tangle of beautiful words, glossing over the flaws those words have created, without losing the aura of Greek tragedy. It's less about the death of Bunny than it is about what his death does to the others. In short, this book is gorgeous. But it's far from perfect.

Her descriptions are almost peerless, very beautiful and haunted (mostly in keeping with the idea that "beauty is terror"). There are plenty of natural descriptions, from the snow in Richard's apartment to the stream Camilla plays in. Tartt certainly has the "you are there" factor in her ornate, detailed writing. The story is also impeccably paced, starting off slow and building up to the inevitable event.

Unfortunately, Tartt's details leave something to be desired. Her descriptions of the group are almost like a parody of elite college students. Why is Bunny talking about "old top," "old man," "chum" and so forth? Why does Californian Richard suddenly turn into a 19th-century preppie? Why is Francis wearing a pince-nez in the 1980s? And she goes way over the top in making Bunny "dislikable" -- he's a moocher, obnoxious, has a grating voice and is prejudiced against Catholics, Italians, gays, et cetera. It's as if his death has to be justified in Tartt's eyes by making him a huge pain in the butt.

Another flaw crops up in characterization. The little circle of students is shown as being coolly intelligent, cultured, and charming despite their fatal flaws. All other students -- all the "ordinary" people -- are coke-snorting, gauche, loud and stupid. Couldn't be some elitism there, could there? Richard is, unfortunately, a terrible lead character; he's not too bright, clueless, dull and self-pitying. His adoration of the rich, pretty and hedonistic never wears off. With the exception of the unfortunate Bunny, the others are intriguing rather than well-rounded, with their wildly varying personalities and hidden secrets.

Despite the elite literary edge, the core of "Secret History" is unsound. It's beautiful and has the touch of a classic, but sags under the author's first-timer clumsiness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Has flaws, but still exceeds the average novel by far
I loved Donna Tartt's first novel, The Secret History, immmensely and waiting for her second novel for years.I really wish I could say that this book exceeded the achievement of that book, but I can't.Nonetheless, I still think this far exceeds most of what is out there.

Tartt is a master of rendering the settings of her stories.This one really embraces childhood in the deep south.The characters, if not quite real, are certainly undertandable and detailed.Her theme here is dark.This novel is about bad deeds and punishment and the mood in the aftermath of death.The research is very good here and it feels very true.It is effective and well written, but a little heavier on symbolism than I prefer.

Nonetheless, as I said earlier, I very much liked this book and highly recommend it.

Gothic horrors in Magnolia-land.
Weird happenings within an even weirder family combine with the "fusty, drunken perfume of Magnolia" to fill this southern Gothic novel with bizarre behavior and pervasive threats of death and revenge. Forces of evil are at work, according to Charlotte Cleve, a mother of three, who believes the mysterious hanging death of her nine-year-old son Robin resulted because she changed her traditional Mother's Day celebration from noon to six o'clock on the day he died.

Twelve years after Robin's death, his fiercely independent sister Harriet, now twelve herself, investigates the circumstances of Robin's death, bent on identifying and punishing his murderer. Bearing little resemblance to Scout, the endearing heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird, single-minded Harriet recognizes no limits and is willing to do anything, including using a gun, to accomplish her goals. Confronting ex-cons who run a crystal meth lab, ditsy great-aunts who know what's "right," redneck children who lurk in the bushes, two snake-handling preachers, a mother who turns her house into a maze filled with piles of rotting, old newspapers, and a sister who sleeps seventeen hours a day ("I only get bored when I'm awake," she says), Harriet takes more comfort from her plans for revenge than from traditional southern values.

Tartt's themes of death and punishment achieve some sense of universality through her use of numerous symbols and parallels, often with animals, but these are frequently sentimental. The euthanasia of a beloved pet cat; Harriet's accidental killing of a blackbird stuck in tar, snakes handled by hillbilly preachers; and the vicious dogs of the Ratliff family haunt the narrative. The old family home is called Tribulation; Harriet's heroes are Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, and Captain Scott, the explorer; and she spends much of the novel looking for a pair of red gloves given to her by her black housekeeper, whom she loves but treats with casual cruelty.

The plot strains credulity, even for southern Gothic, and Harriet, as a twelve-year-old protagonist, is too wild and out-of-control to inspire much empathy as a character. The narrative focus of the novel gets lost, and many episodes, only peripherally related to the original search for justice, seem to become narrative ends in themselves. Filled with dense imagery and melodrama, this novel will appeal to those looking for fast escape reading. Mary Whipple
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