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The Secret History – Donna Tartt (SPOILER FREE)

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For fans of the aesthetic of upper-class academic settings or those drawn to the darker, more morose themes of literature (or both), Donna Tartt’s The Secret History offers a captivating and chilling experience.

Set at Hampden College in Vermont, the novel follows 20-year-old Richard Papen, who joins an elite, selective Ancient Greek class taught by a brilliant but detached professor. Richard finds himself having to assimilate with the foreign ways of his intellectually and socially superior classmates, who harbor secrets that lead to a series of tragic, life-altering events.

What I found to be most interesting in The Secret History was its exploration of themes like the corrupting impact of economic privilege, the conflict between morality and loyalty, and the weight that guilt carries on one’s consciousness. The novel is full of introspective, philosophical reflections and literary references, which may appeal to readers who enjoy deep character studies, thoughtful commentary on day-to-day life, and stories that stick with you long after the final page.

If you are unsure whether or not you’d enjoy the book, here are a few similar ones that you could compare it to:

–Dead Poets Society, N.H. Kleinbaum: Academic settings that are a breeding ground for free intellectual thought that take a turn towards darker themes

–The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde: Captures the psychological and moral downfall of a member of the intellectually and economically privileged class

–Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh: Shows the nostalgia, beauty, and eventual downward spiral of a set of elites through the eyes of an outsider.

Happy reading!

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.

The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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With a plan to hide, paranoia to battle, and friendships to question, a group of five college students deal with the psychological punishment of murdering their sixth member: Bunny Corcoran.

The Secret History, by Pulitzer Prize winner Donna Tartt, is deep, fascinating, and full of aesthetic-driven description. Richard Papen, a poor college student from California, transfers to Hampden College in Vermont in order to escape his old life. There, he can’t help but be entranced by a group of mysterious young adults that saunter around the campus disconnected from the rest of the student body. Belonging to the highly exclusive Classics major taught by Julian Morrow, those five students have a divine air about them that Richard can’t resist. Securing his spot in their class, Richard is dragged into much more than a new group of friends: relationships full of hidden truths, a wild secret to keep that he never saw coming, and brewing plot of even more horrible proportion. Join Richard as he learns what friendship with Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, Bunny Corcoran, and the Macaulay twins really means.

From the overlying theme to direct references, Donna Tartt draws heavily from Fyodor Dostoyesky’s Crime and Punishment. Both stories deal with how a seemingly justified murder affects the murderer’s mental state, driving them to extreme paranoia and desperation for relief. Both books open with a murder, Crime and Punishment’s happening about 20% of the way in while The Secret History‘s is described in the prologue. While Crime and Punishment reads chronologically, The Secret History tells the reader about the murder first, then flashes back months before, carrying through the murder and on to what happens after. Having just read Crime and Punishment, the parallels stand out. Reading about a variety of characters’ reactions in The Secret History is far more interesting than that of the sole guilty soul in Crime and Punishment.

Donna Tartt’s writing style is beautiful, oftentimes bringing me to pause and reflect. I grew to care so much about her tragic characters, and her writing brought me to be truly shocked or pitiful or furious right when she wanted me to be. I couldn’t predict any of the twists this book offered, which is a sign of a well-written story. This new adult/murder mystery novel was thrilling to read, and it’s a story that will last with me for a long time. Thought-provoking, genius, and beautiful, The Secret History is well worth the read.

-Abby F., 12th Grade

The Secret History by Donna Tartt is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It can also be downloaded for free from Overdrive and Hoopla.