The Secret History

The Secret History by Donna Tartt (1992) I wanted to read this book for a long time—finally read it, and it was just as fun and maddening as I thought it would be. Maddening, in that, stories about people who are college-age are hard to stomach, for me—especially when they’re brilliant and rich, like these kids—as well as having committed crimes. Well, I don’t easily look at myself at that age, but it helps that I was somewhat average. The book is actually more fun than I anticipated—I figured it would be a “page turner,” from reading other Donna Tartt—but I loved the portrait of a New England college town and rarified academic program. Also interesting is that the narrator is such an outsider—from across the country, and an entirely different social class—which is perfect for identification with the reader. It’s no secret that one of the kids is killed (it’s in the first line of the book), but as you’re reading it, this character, Bunny, is so well-drawn—as maybe the most annoying person of all time—that I found myself saying, “Let me kill the guy myself!” To say the least, you’re implicated. The character of Henry, kind of the hero, in a way (and I’m sure beloved by a certain, naïve, young reader), was a lot harder for me to take—I mean, I really liked him, too, but I eventually mutinied. Another thing I thought was funny—it seemed like Donna Tartt didn’t want the book to end, or to say goodbye to her characters—maybe understandable since she was in her twenties when she wrote it. It occurred to me at one point that she may have been influenced by the “Mad Scientists’ Club” books, but I have not read this, among lists of her influences. I wonder what ever happened to the movie version? I could have cast it really well back in the Nineties, but now, I don’t know. It’ll probably be a “limited series” instead (which would be good and bad)—but if it happens, I would highly recommend reading the book first.