A bonus Sunday Salon!  Fortunately, we had beautiful weather at the cabin and I was able to finish reading Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. 

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Published: 1992 / 524 pages

First line: The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.

Synopsis:  (from Melanie Jones)

Richard Papen escapes to Hampden from the concrete wastelands of Plano, California and is soon handpicked by a charismatic professor to join his group of eccentric, brilliant misfits, all of whom seek to use classical works to delve into new worlds and transcend the dull lives of their peers. As he is drawn further into his new friends’ lives, Richard finds himself slipping further and further away from conventional morality, and on one fatal night he is plunged into an atmosphere of betrayal, corruption, and murder.

Review:  I really wanted to like this novel and certainly enjoyed the first 50 - 100 pages — Tartt immediately creates a sense of place and atmosphere, and the mood is wonderfully creepy.  In the prologue we are informed that one of the characters has died and the narrator is at least partially responsible.  The first half of the novel is then a flashback of events leading to the murder.  My initial issue was that the narrator really seemed to have a woman’s voice and sensibility, but eventually I became accustomed to the idea that Richard was a man and was able to move on from my misperception.

My next issue with the novel was that the murdered character (Bunny) was — predictably — unsympathetic and thoroughly unlikeable.  I couldn’t help but think of a movie my husband and I watched last weekend — 3:10 to Yuma (which I recommend, by the way, especially if you like Westerns).  As the movie began, we could tell almost instantly who would eventually die — the least interesting, 2-D characters (played by unfamiliar actors).  And we were right most of the time.  This is expected in Westerns, obviously, and one of the strengths of 3:10 is that the bad guy (Crowe) is actually very likeable and complex.

So, just for the sake of originality, I wish Bunny, the character who dies at the beginning of The Secret History, had then been revealed to be complex and interesting.  But, alas, no such luck.  However, my bigger issue with the novel was than NONE of the characters were likeable — or complex, for that matter.  So, the moral issues of murder — pretty clear cut normally — did not become ambivalent or thought-provoking due to complex characterization.  Instead, the characters were pretty 2-D:  stereotypical “rich kids” seen through the eyes of the stereotypical “lower-middle-class embarrassed by his roots” narrator.  What could have been an interesting indictment of class in our country never dipped below the surface enough to become that thought-provoking. 

The novel had many possiblities — at times I thought it might resonate with Hitchcock or a Greek tragedy — but ultimately it felt like the author had not enjoyed Bennington as much as she had hoped and decided to get back at her classmates by making them look superficial and uninteresting.

In retrospect, I wish Melanie Jones hadn’t chosen it to represent the state of Vermont because it is riddled with petty, snarky comments about how backward native Vermonters are — obviously, we are not supposed to agree with the snobbish characters’ opinions, but I wish there had been another perspective of this beautiful state beyond the belittling, superficial opinions of the unlikeable characters and even the narrator (who also hated California, his home state). 

If the novel had been half as long, Tartt’s ability to create atmosphere and mood may have been enough.  Unfortunately, at 524 pages, I do not recommend The Secret History.  I would instead recommend Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale — similar atmosphere, but much more depth and complexity.  In fact, if you enjoyed The Secret History, try The Thirteenth Tale  and then let me know what you think!

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