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The Secret History: 30th anniversary edition

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beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. quite the contrary. genuine beauty is always quite alarming.’ A truly modern classic masterpiece - Tartt's first offering as a writer is this juggernaut - a descent into evil, unreliably narrated by the newest addition to a group of highly eccentric elitist misfits, who form a group around a just as eccentric classics professor at a small liberal arts college in Vermont. Within this microcosm, they are creating their own norms and in time, their own morality, which leads to a descent to evil. A lot of parts (especially in the beginning now that I think on it) were not relevant or necessary to the story but I think I loved it more because of the attention to detail and the way Richard talks about comepletey normal, every day things he did.

When I hear this, I don't believe that the point of the story, or what Tartt is trying to tell us, is that a love of beauty is equivalent to an amoral life. I don't think she condemns an appreciation for the aesthetic, or even a classical scholarship. I read this book in autumn, sometimes under a tree with a gentle breeze in the fall sunlight and sometimes snuggled in bed with copious cups of coffee to keep me reading through the night. I fell in love with Henry when he was asked how he could so casually justify premeditated murder. “But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?” and oh, how alarmingly beautiful this story is, as all the best greek tragedies tend to be; full of sorrow and struggle, but often accompanied by pure loyalty and divine inspiration.

All the characters are morally grey to just generally horrible people, but you completely ignore it because Donna Tartt weaves this hypnotic spell with her writing, that you feel like you are reading this book in a dream like lull. The Secret History is unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and I’m not sure I’ll ever read anything quite like it again. For some reason, her characters are bland, have no personality and are really annoying. Yes, even more than that bitch of Bunny. He arrives at his preppy and prestigious(ish) New England college to slowly become obsessed and then part of the mysterious and selective classics program, a cultlike group of trust fund babies led by an often-overstepping and charismatic professor.

I have never read anything like this book in my entire life. I laid in bed for over an hour last night upon finishing this book, just tossing and turning and thinking about everything I just consumed. I still don’t think I can put my feelings into words, but I can honestly say this book was a cathartic experience for me, and the irony of the word “catharsis” being a Greek rooted word is not lost on me, because if this book is anything it’s a modern day Greek tragedy. I can definitely see why people have a love/hate relationship this book. It was really distinct outlook on character relationships- driven and heavy. Pretentious and tedious. Reminded me of A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and a little of Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo. That should have been the title of this book, how each of the titular character views beauty.....and the unholy terror that comes from it. i was never a classics student but, as someone who has taken an interest in the subject over the years, i cant even express my geeky joy for how multifaceted and layered this story is. However, there are things that I believe no one should say emerging in real time, and so contributing my likely already-expressed thoughts might counterbalance them, to some degree.

First edition identification

This book is well-written, at least in a certain contextless sense. There are many sentences in it (occasionally, even paragraphs) that, if taken by themselves, look like they might have been from a book worth reading. To quote the article that inspired the fit of rage that has me typing away, I don't think this is "about all the things [its writer] loved," while "miss[ing] the point of them entirely." At the age of seventeen, they continue, they "wanted (I thought) exactly what its youthful characters wanted: a poetic life, a mythic life, a life shot through with meaning. I loved (I thought) exactly what its characters loved: nostalgic emblems of an era imagined as significant." Right now I have this problem. Because I have used the word “immersive” before, and immediately upon my completion of this book it became clear that I should have saved it for right now. Finally, I thought there was too much flat, useless dialogue. I wish I had an example to show but I always forget to take notes, sorry.

There's a division between the first half of this book and the second half. I was really drawn in to the first half but as soon as the second half begins, it all goes downhill right until the ending which is the worst part of the whole stupid thing. I hate it when books do that. I know this review is probably inadequate and does not fully capture my thoughts, but it is the best I can do right now.people never seemed to notice at first how big Henry was. Maybe it was because of his clothes, which were like one of those lame but curiously impenetrable disguises from a comic book (why does no one ever see that 'bookish' Clark Kent, without his glasses, is Superman?). Or maybe it was a question of his making people see. He had the far more remarkable talent of making himself invisible – in a room, in a car, a virtual ability to dematerialise at will – and perhaps this gift was only the converse of that one: the sudden concentration of his wandering molecules rendering his shadowy form solid, all at once, a metamorphosis startling the viewer." I don't think you're supposed to like these characters, or even think they're very realistic - they are, after all, portraits in hindsight written by someone in the throes of unrequited obsession. by exemplifying fatal flaws, dissecting the apollonian vs. dionysian philosophical theory, personalising the mask of death, understanding the action and stagnation of life, and realising the lifelong quest for the picturesque, this story is a modern greek tragedy and a classic in its own right. I can think of many reasons why The Secret History strikes such a chord with me. For one thing, I have a thing for timeless and ethereal stories, and this is one of those. Somehow the book has a dreamlike, almost hypnotic quality, despite it being very firmly set in the rather unromantic 1980s. I love that. For another thing, I have always been drawn to the unabashedly intellectual, and this book has that in spades. It makes geekdom alluring, and I just love Tartt for that. I wish I were as geeky as Henry!

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