Donna Tartt's, The Secret History, her first novel, was first published in1992. Since that time, it has been translated into several languages, and has sold millions of copies. The literary world, at that time, had never seen anything quite like it. The novel is not so much a crime novel, a thriller, but more so a character study about a group of students who, by their own devices, create a bizarre set of circumstances, set at Hampton College, where one mysterious murder follows another. These characters are special students all studying classical Greek under the tutelage of an erudite professor, a teacher of profound knowledge of the ancient world. The first murder is inadvertent, though the second one is the effort to cover the first one.
At The Secret History’s appearance in bookstores across the city, I was working at a newspaper in the city, and my co-workers could not stop talking about it. I bought the hard copy and began reading it on the train going home. Living in a small flat next to a university, this seemed to add to the atmosphere of the story. Once opening its first pages, putting the text down was impossible. I tuned in to the last page after dawn the next day, without a wink of sleep, jumped in the shower and returned to work by train late that morning. I mention this because a book had never done this to me before, that is capturing my attention and concentration to such a deep extent.
We are now living in 2024, and reading The Secret History again after 32 years, was no less the incredible experience I had in 1992. In a few instances, a better experience for a variety of reasons.
What are the features of this superb novel that continues to excite and disturb this reader after 32 years?
The main character, Richard Papen, is authoring this story six years after the events. In many ways I can relate to Richard as an outsider, a young man from a lower middle-class family from California. Attending a private ivy school with a group of wealthy friends with that eastern pedigree can be daunting, and his efforts to fit-in though subtle, were painful. Added to my interest in literature and philosophy, and the many references to the classics scattered throughout the tale, made the reading a personal event.
All the characters have that pedigree, and the intelligence and reading resume, that could cause a post graduate student to wince.
Henry really is the focus more than any of the other actors. He is erudite, speaks a variety of languages, including classic Greek, wealthy and the demeanor of a 19th century scholar. Henry is the leader of this group, and as we discover, many of this close group of friends are afraid of him.
What also brought me back to this novel is Tartt's ability as a storyteller. I have read all her novels, all unique, and display this same ability. The writer’s prose style is detailed and pulls the reader along without effort.
In way of the plot, the first murder is committed in a Bacchanal frenzy. Taken from the ancient Greeks, Baccha is the god of wine and abandon. It is known that those celebrating the god by way of wine, dance, and other unsavory means, can reach a certain purity of mind, that of pure animal, reaching a type of ecstasy, unveiling the illusions of this reality into the actual ‘reality’ of our existence. It is in these circumstances that the first murder occurs.
As the novel progresses, the characters personalities become much more complicated. Their various responses to the ‘inadvertent’ murder evolve or devolve as time progresses. This devolution of the event creates a scenario where, in the group's view, another murder must occur for the safety of the rest.
Donna Tartt has only written three novels in the last three decades. The writer has stated in interviews that a new novel will appear every ten years. Her last novel, The Goldfinch, was published in 2014.
For her many readers across the planet, and all agree, we are due for a fourth novel.
Let us hope this fourth novel arrives sooner than later.
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