The Secret History: A Review

(Cover of The Secret History by Donna Tartt)

The Secret History is about a group of students at the elite college Hampden, who, under the influence of their Greek Classics professor, attempt to perform an ancient Greek ritual. This leads to them committing a murder and another murder. The story is told by Richard Papen, who joins the class and group late in the semester. This novel is a dark academia thriller that deals with topics like intellectual elitism, moral decay, betrayal, and obsession.

This book was really good. I understand why people still talk and recommend this book even though it was published in 1992. What makes this novel interesting is that it starts by describing the murder of Bunny Cocoran, and it's very clear who did it. The mystery is why he was killed. The book is split into two parts; the first part is everything that leads up to Bunny’s murder, and the second part is the aftermath of the murder. The book has 8 chapters total, which honestly made the book feel very long, and sometimes it felt like a chapter would just never end. However, even with that, I still felt completely captured, and it was hard to put the book down, especially near the end. 

There are five main characters: Richard Papen, Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran, Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, and twin siblings, Camilla and Charles Macauley. Richard is very self-conscious about his lower-middle-class status and tries to hide this by trying to appear more privileged than he is. He seems desperate to be accepted into the exclusive group in the Greek Classics class, and he is. Henry seems to be the leader of the group; he is extremely wealthy and intelligent, and he also seems quite odd to people who don’t know him. Bunny comes from a family with money who lost it all, but he still acts superior and like he is rich, but he relies on his friends to finance his lavish lifestyle. Like Henry, Francis is also wealthy, but he tends to downplay his privilege; he is loyal to the group and manages to keep some composure after the murder. Charles is often kind and caring, but after the murder, he becomes violent. It is also clear that he struggles with alcohol. Camilla has elegant beauty and quiet strength. After the murder, it seems like she keeps her composure, but it later becomes clear that she suffers in silence.

(Fanart by @betryl on Tumblr)

[SPOILERS]

Something that caught my attention is how Richard never seems to fully be a part of the group. During the hotel scene where Charles fires a gun and ends up shooting Richard, no one notices that he is shot. He is just standing there bleeding while the others are focused on getting the gun from Charles. It feels like he is on the sidelines, like he’s not important. He has to bring it to the group’s attention that he was shot. After reading this scene, I thought back to other times when Richard was left out. For example, when Henry reveals that the group has been trying to perform a bacchanal, Henry tells Richard that there were multiple times when he had almost caught the group. This tells us that instead of trying to include Richard in their attempts, they chose to leave him out and also sneak around him. Another example of him being left out is during the scene in the country home. Richard and Charles are talking about how nice it would be if everyone lived in the country home together. Richard then starts imagining living there with everyone in the future, no one married or with a job. Then Charles asks him about his plans, and we realized that when Charles was talking about his future, he wasn’t including Richard. There are many small moments like this, and it makes me wonder just how much Richard knows and if he is an unreliable narrator. There are many things that the group keeps from him. How can he accurately tell the story of the Greek Classics group if he is a bystander in the group?

Overall, I give this book a 4/5. I recommend this book for people who liked If We Were Villains and like books that have a more psychological focus. I’ll finish this blog by leaving my favorite quote from the book.

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

― Donna Tartt, The Secret History