Ram Murali Finds Literary Perfection: Review of 'The Secret History'

By Ram Murali | Monday, August 31, 1998

I first read The Secret History by Donna Tartt when it came out,in 1992. I have reread it probably a hundred times since then, flipping it open to a random page and memorizing the nuances of the author's style. My hardcover copy is almost in tatters. Since I first read it, I have aged six years, gone through high school and most of college, and have not found another book that I think is better written, more interesting, or in any way superior to it. I have only found a couple of other books that I like as much. As far as I am concerned, Donna Tartt has written the perfect book. It is the only book she has ever published. It's enough to make me give up writing.

Before I sink into the depths of hyperbole (too late), maybe I should say what the book is about. The narrator of the book, Richard Papen, is a student at Hampden College in Vermont, a small, progressive liberal arts school. Hampden bears a distinct resemblance to Bennington, where the author was educated.

Richard transfers to Hampden in his third year from a community college in the Silicon Valley, where he was brought up in a lower-middle-class family. Once at the school, he becomes a Classics major and a part of the Classics clique - a group of five other students who have devoted their scholastic careers to the study of Greek with the only Classics professor at the college.

These five are radically different from most college students, but then again, so is Richard.

Henry Winter, the leader of the group, is a brilliant linguist who seems to operate on another level. Bunny (short for Edmund) Corcoran, his best friend, is an ex-football player from Connecticut. Francis Abernathy is a wealthy, Swiss-educated semi-aristocrat from Boston. Charles and Camilla Macaulay are twins who spend an awful lot of time together. In fact, the whole group spends an awful lot of time together — apart from Bunny, none of them have very much contact with anyone besides each other. They appear to have no other friends and no other interests.

The group accepts Richard implicitly. 'I was surprised by how easily they
managed to incorporate me into their cyclical, Byzantine existence.

'They were all so used to one another that I think they found me refreshing, and they were intrigued by even the most mundane of my habits: by my fondness for mystery novels and my chronic movie-going; by the fact that I used disposable razors from the supermarket and cut my own hair instead of going to the barber; even by the fact that I read papers and watched news on television from time to time (a habit which seemed to them an outrageous eccentricity, peculiar to me alone. Once, over dinner, Henry was quite startled to learn from me that men had walked on the moon.)'

In the first sentence of the book, the reader learns that Bunny dies. On the second page, the reader learns that the rest of the clique killed him.

The circumstances leading up to his death and, in particular, what transpires afterwards, are the story of the book.

The book is very similar to a Greek tragedy - the writing masks a fatalism in the story; a sense that the story was predetermined. Rather than leave Bunny's death a mystery, Tartt gives it away in the first sentence of the book.

The book is about the characters, not about his death. And make no mistake: the writing is phenomenal. Tartt has an unbelievable grasp of the English language, and of literature. Occasionally, when taking a French class or even a government class, I will read something and realize that Tartt alluded to it in her book. She is equally well versed in Baudelaire, Dante, and Plato.

Richard's voice sometimes romanticizes the situation while in others she veers toward comedy.

In the middle of the most tragic sections of the book, there will be a sentence so bizarrely funny that you just have to laugh out loud. For example, at the reception following Bunny's funeral: 'The little Corcorans - who seemed oddly elated by the mornings sad events — skidded around in hilarious spirits: throwing croissants, shrieking with laughter, chasing through the crowd wiith a horrible toy that made an explosive noise like a fart. The caterers had screwed up as well — too much liquor, not enough food, a recipe for certain trouble.' The reader sees Richard grow through the course of the book — at the beginning, he has a naive, almost Midwestern mentality, thinking he has found paradise on earth at Hampden College, but by the end he is as sarcastic and jaded as the rest of the students.

Tartt has also created a supporting cast that would make anyone laugh. The pretensions and seriousness of the Classics group are neutralized by the equally extreme party contingent at the college, who drink like fish and do drugs constantly. These characters are the focus of some of the most humorous passages in the book.

Reading over this review, I don't feel like I have done the book justice.

As Richard says at one point, 'It is impossible for a mediocre intellect to render the speech of a superior one without losing a good deal in the translation.' I can't say enough about this book. Its funny, tragic, and incredibly well-written. It really is the perfect book. Read it. Please.

Ram Murali Finds Literary Perfection: Review of 'The Secret History'

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