Book Review: The Secret History

5/5

TRIGGER WARNINGS:

Graphic violence

Abusive language

SA References

Ritual violence

Substance abuse

Review:

Oh my lord. Words can't quite describe the experience of reading this book in a weekend. I've always had TSH on my list, but been intimidated by what I heard of it. Needless to say, it is one of my all-time favourite novels that I have ever read, which sounds rather basic, in that many will love this book, but my word did it enrapture me.

Finishing the epilogue left me dizzy and nauseous, purely because I had been totally transported into the world of New Hampden and having to leave it was rather cathartic, and as the Greeks would say, catharsis was never a particularly enjoyable experience.

TSH follows Richard Papen, an unreliable narrator who attends the prestigious New Hampden college and joins the Greek class taught by the eccentric Julian Morrow. As Richard becomes entangled with the other five students, it is clear quite quickly that they are truly something of a bacchic cult. Richard begins taking trips with the group to a country house, and discovers that something is very odd. The group have killed someone during a bacchanal. When one of the characters, Bunny, is unable to keep this a secret, the group agree to murder him too. It spirals after this, the fragmentation of friendship and the essence of what it means to be, and before we know it everyone is in some form or another dead. Whether literally or spiritually, the final pages leave us with hollow shells of human beings that will forever be warped by their Dionysian experience.

Tartt's eloquence is mesmerising, the novel is obsessed with beauty, 'Beauty is Terror', but so many descriptions were unbelievably stunning. It was like reading several artworks all threaded together in the most magnificent literary tapestry. Tartt's satire dehumanises these characters very quickly, they are all loathsome in their own various ways, and this is what makes the character study of each of them so truly fascinating. In the end, I felt pity for them all, that they were disillusioned college students who really believed they walked amongst the ancient Greeks, that they themselves were Gods of a sort.

My review will not be able to do this story justice, but trust me when I say this is a book everyone who loves literature should read. It will enthrall you, disgust you, anger you and make you want to cry all at once. Tartt's classic is a true masterpiece, and a story I shall carry with me for a very long time.