regshoe | The Secret History by Donna Tartt

I have been reading some books! Here is one of them:

So I thought I'd try finding out what this whole Dark Academia thing was about, and I'm not sure I really did that, but I enjoyed The Secret History (1992) all the same. It is about a group of six undergraduates studying Classics at a small college in Vermont. In the prologue, one of them is murdered by the other five; the first half of the book goes back to show the events leading up to the murder, then the second half follows the surviving students in the aftermath, until another climactic event happens.

I liked the setting. The main characters are from different parts of the US and aside from the narrator Richard, who comes from an average family in the unglamorous bit of California, are all various kinds of rich and privileged. I like a lot of British fiction that deals with the involved complexity and terrible importance of class and its subtle distinctions, and it was fun to read something similar from another country with a somewhat-different class system. I liked the sense of an inside-out mystery novel, following the story and logic of a murder from the point of view of the murderers. And I liked the prose, which is precise and thoughtful and kind of pretentious, suiting Richard's character, much better than I usually like the prose in modern novels (1992 is practically last year, OK). Despite all the murder and highly unwise sex and drugs and incest and so on, it didn't tip over my too-much-grimness threshold, and for the most part I found the characters the right balance of horrible and interesting to read about.

Most of all I think I liked how unexpectedly different the book is from its reputation. This is no glamorous Dark Academia ~aesthetic~; the world of the Greek clique is small and contingent and exists in the middle of a very unglamorous normal college, and the story is basically a psychological horror novel about deeply messed-up people who commit a murder for psychological-murder-mystery type reasons and then become increasingly messed-up about it. I've heard a fan theory that

spoilery details

actually the students didn't kill the farmer at all—he was attacked and killed by a mountain lion and they merely ran across the body afterwards (and also the mountain lion, hence that bite Charles got),

and while making the obscure possibly-fantastical aspects of a book less so would usually be the reverse of what I'd go for, I think it makes a lot of sense here—even that mysterious bacchanalian orgy was really something pretty mundane and explicable, and much of the tragedy that follows from it wasn't inevitable at all (except that it was given who the characters are, and really that's what makes for a good tragedy, isn't it).

I did agree with

phantomtomato's main criticisms, which were 1) the book was too long—it's just over 600 pages in the edition I read—and that's not something I usually think; there are plenty of things I like a book to do with extra hundreds of pages that aren't advancing the plot, but my feeling here is that I don't know what Tartt was doing with those pages but it wasn't any of those things. And 2) it should have been gayer. Of the main characters one, Francis, is textually gay; he has a complicated thing with one of the others and a brief interrupted attempt with our narrator; there are some textual het relationships of varying degrees of requitedness and messed-upness; but really I felt almost any combination of the main six could have made for an interesting ship, there was a lot of potential in exploring the gay stuff further, and I resented that Francis got a particularly nasty ending in a way that—unlike the other characters' gloomy endings—was not related to the murder and the main plot but was about homophobia, which seemed unnecessarily cruel.

So now I know all three famous literary Bunnies! I shall draw a Venn diagram: Raffles!Bunny and Charioteer!Bunny, gay; Raffles!Bunny and Secret History!Bunny, have studied and appreciate Classics; Charioteer!Bunny and Secret History!Bunny, a really obnoxious thorn in the side of our POV character and his friends. There you go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sanguinity

*is tempted fire up my charting software and draw the Venn diagram* And what would you put in the center (mutually overlapping) section of the diagram?

From:

regshoe

Ooh, I'm not sure! They all have crime/lawbreaking as a major thematically-important feature of their stories, in amusingly different ways...?

From:

sanguinity

Bah, I thought I had an easy way to do Venn diagrams, but it appears I hallucinated it! Ah, well, the diagram will live happily in our heads...

From:

regshoe

Ah, never mind!

Funnily enough, a little while ago I happened to visit the city where, as became apparent, John Venn was born, and saw this fitting memorial they've put up there.

From:

sanguinity

Aw! I like to think he'd be pleased. (She says, knowing nothing about the man himself beyond what it says in the sign.)

From:

sovay

2) it should have been gayer. Of the main characters one, Francis, is textually gay; he has a complicated thing with one of the others and a brief interrupted attempt with our narrator; there are some textual het relationships of varying degrees of requitedness and messed-upness; but really I felt almost any combination of the main six could have made for an interesting ship, there was a lot of potential in exploring the gay stuff further, and I resented that Francis got a particularly nasty ending in a way that—unlike the other characters' gloomy endings—was not related to the murder and the main plot but was about homophobia, which seemed unnecessarily cruel.

That detail had not osmosed to me and seems obnoxious. I had for some reason been under the impression the book was gayer, which must have just been my default expectations, especially for something classical.

From:

regshoe

It was annoying! It being gayer certainly would have fitted the subject matter.

From:

phantomtomato

the unglamorous bit of California

As though that’s not most of it, haha.

It’s so fun to see your full writeup of this! I think you should give yourself credit re: Dark Academia, with this being the ur-DA novel. The fact that the aesthetic and genre built form here is fascinating even if primarily in the contrasts between beginning and present. (And yes, the prose is very pretty in ways that most follow-ups simply would not try for!) What were your impressions of the genre going in?

Also, over 600 pages! That is a massively long way to typeset it and wow how much more frustrating it might have felt. My copy was ~550. As a book gets physically longer, even though it’s just down to things like font and text block size, it can feel discouraging to see the raw numbers of pages left, at least for me.

Your three famous literary Bunnies venn diagram is amazing. I love it. It’s amazing honestly that there are so many examples of men named Bunny in literary canons.

Re: Francis, I obviously agree with you, but when thinking about it I’m not sure I’d like the most obvious ways to extend the canon gay. Charles’ relationship with Francis is rich but fraught, and not really a happier or non-homophobic path; Richard’s not in a mental place to explore queer attraction that year (and who can blame him), nor would I want Richard’s particular lens of erotic elevation applied to Francis. I think that what I would want the book to explore, as an actual canon extension of portraying gay characters, is something with Henry and either Bunny or Julian, which would both contribute to the narrative themes already present. I don’t ship it, but those feel like avenues with either no homophobia baggage (Julian) or where the homophobia would not need to be a device to punish the queer character (Bunny).

From:

ethelmay

There are also sundry real Bunnys (or Bunnies), I think, but the only one coming immediately to mind is David Garnett.

From:

regshoe

As though that’s not most of it, haha.

Ha, I suppose the parts we hear most about from overseas are not a representative proportion of the state's total area.

What were your impressions of the genre going in?

I thought there would be more Romanticism, I suppose—and terrible people doing terrible things, but in an artistically beautiful way, maybe a bit Dorian Gray in an updated university setting. And I expected the setting itself to be aestheticised more, maybe.

Oh, I feel the opposite way about physical book length! Reading shorter pages faster feels like speeding through a long book more quickly, and makes up for there being more pages.

Your three famous literary Bunnies venn diagram is amazing. I love it.

:D Thank you! It is an oddly popular nickname, and I don't think we know where any of them actually get it from.

Your thoughts on how to extend the canon gay make a lot of sense. I agree, and yes, Henry/Julian and Henry/Bunny would be good/fitting/plot-relevant ways to go. Hmm.

From:

littlerhymes

it should have been gayer
So true.

I love the venn diagram. Perfect really.

From:

regshoe

:D Thank you!

From:

garonne

I love the Venn diagram. And very much enjoyed reading your writeup of a book which I have so often heard mentioned, but have never read.

1992 is practically last year, OK

Agreed! :D

From:

regshoe

Thank you! :D It was interesting reading a book that I had heard so much about. Do you think you'll ever read it?

From:

garonne

Do you think you'll ever read it?

Probably not. My limit is generally around 400 pages. (Fortunately I did not realize how long Armadale was until I started it, or I would've missed out on one of my favorite books of recent years!)

From:

regshoe

Aww, I'm glad that Armadale managed to trick you there, then—it is great :D

From:

lirazel

Gosh, it's been a long time since I read this, so I don't remember much beyond liking it and agreeing that it should have been more gay (a la A Separate Peace). I think the book has been retroactively turned into ~dark academia~ when that was never what was going on with it. Like, if I remember correctly, Tartt does romanticize some things, but not the things that the dark academia kiddies do.

From:

regshoe

Funnily enough, A Separate Peace is also on my list of things to read soon! I'll have to compare them. Yeah, it was definitely not romanticised in the way I might have expected.

From:

lirazel

I loved it when I read it in high school even though the gay stuff went over my head at the time. I hope it holds up!

From:

dolorosa_12

My theory is that you can tell with most current dark academia whether the author found Byatt's Possession formative or The Secret History (or whether they read neither and are simply hopping on the latest trend).

It's interesting to read your impressions of the book so many years after its publication.

From:

regshoe

I have not read Possession, though I've heard about it—perhaps I'll try it too and see what I make of comparing them.

From:

osprey_archer

IMO The Secret History is to Dark Academia as The Lord of the Rings is to later quest fantasy: they're both foundational texts in the genre, but if you go back from the later books to the earlier ones you tend to find that the authors have glommed onto and greatly expanded certain elements and completely ignored others, like Tolkien's copious inclusions of poetry.

But I wouldn't say Hampton College is a normal college. It's a weird little college in a bucolic rural setting for weird artsy students who show no interest in furthering their career goals, very unlike the big state university with career-driven students that I think most Americans would see as "normal" college. Although that's not glamorous in the same way a ballroom is glamorous, its got a kind of grungy bohemian starving-artist-in-a-garret glamor.

Although the Greek coterie is also glamorous in a more classical sense, with their tiny tutorials in a fancy room with tea, and Francis's country house on the lake, and Bunny cheerfully dropping hundreds of dollars of someone else's money on a lunch.

I don't have a ton of experience with more recent Dark Academia, but in my limited experience, it seems to lean harder on the glamor aspect (particular the glamor of wealth) and away from the psychological horror of deeply messed up people aspect. Like, the book may tell us that these characters are messed up, but their actual actions don't evoke the same level of "what is WRONG with you" as the characters here.

On the one hand my heart agrees that the book should be more gay, but on the other hand I think that total failure of most of the characters to cope with queer desire is part of the reason they are just so so SO messed up. A Charles or a Richard who could actually honestly look at the fact that maybe they're attracted to Francis would perhaps also be a character who could really honestly grasp just how bad it would be to murder Bunny, which could short-circuit the entire tragedy.

From:

regshoe

Yes, that is usually the way of it with genre-founding texts. (Except Tom Brown's School Days and boarding school fiction, for some reason)

But I wouldn't say Hampton College is a normal college.

Fair point! I suppose what I was reacting to was that the college/the people there didn't seem particularly dedicated to academics as such, in the way I might have expected. And the elements of the Greek clique's life that could have been glamorous are not glamorised as they could have been.

their actual actions don't evoke the same level of "what is WRONG with you" as the characters here.

Ha, that is a good description of what this book does well!

A Charles or a Richard who could actually honestly look at the fact that maybe they're attracted to Francis would perhaps also be a character who could really honestly grasp just how bad it would be to murder Bunny

Good point.

phantomtomato suggested that actually, thinking about it, exploring Henry/Bunny or Henry/Julian would be more character/thematically appropriate than trying to do anything more in canon with the Charles-Francis-Richard situations, and I think I agree.

From:

osprey_archer

Yeah, Tom Brown's School Days is already a complete and classical boarding school story! It has a few elements that didn't catch on as part of the wider genre (most other boarding school stories aren't hagiographies of the headmasters), but the main elements are already in place.

Yeah, I could definitely see how Henry/Julian would fit into the book! It's hinted at (that scene where Henry kisses Julian's cheek) but there could be more... The Charles-Francis-Richard situation I think just has to remain unresolved, because it can't be resolved without changing who they are as people. (Although I think Richard and Francis could actually have sex at some point and it could STILL remain unresolved, because Richard would be all "well it was the stress of the murder that made me do it.")

From:

pretty_plant

I think Tartt personally said herself that Richard's sexuality was complex and ambiguous. And I have seen some Tumblr people pointing out that whenever Richard described Camilla as hot, he always described her as boyish and looking like her brother and was super detailed in his descriptions of Henry.
Have you read the podcast and article about the university Tartt went to? There is a podcast about it(https://www.lilianolik.com/once-upon-a-time-at-bennington-college) and an article which I read (https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a27434009/bennington-college-oral-history-bret-easton-ellis/). I haven't listened to the podcast yet but it appears that Bennington College was a pretty interesting place when Tartt was at university and many alumni turned out to be artists or writers. The article also says that many characters in the book were based on irl people (who were much less sinister and definitely did not murder anybody) and hinted that Tartt's book was written out of spite for not being included in the Greek class lol.

From:

pretty_plant

A review dealing with the fact TSH is a revenge fantasy: https://lareviewofbooks.org/short-takes/donna-tartts-the-secret-history-as-revenge-fantasy/.

From:

regshoe

I admit I was thinking at points, hmm, Richard, for a supposedly totally-straight man you really do go on a lot about how boyish your crush is and how much she resembles her brother...

Thank you for the links! That certainly sounds like the book has an interesting background.

From:

starshipfox

I love this book, but you're right about its flaws. Donna Tartt seems to be FASCINATED by gay characters, and by homoerotic friendships between men, but she never makes them textual. 'The Goldfinch' is like an 800-page queerbait. But she creates tension impeccably, and I love the atmosphere of 'The Secret History' particularly. I think 'The Secret History' is more of a campus novel than Dark Academia, or that's what Tartt was going for, because she didn't know she was inventing dark academia, and she doesn't cleave to all the tropes by any means.

From:

regshoe

Yes, the first author founding a genre never knows they're inventing a new genre, and so the foundational works often end up being very different from what the genre later becomes! I did like the atmosphere and tension in this one, yes.

From:

tgarnsl

I read TSH about two years ago and went into it with very low expectations, as I have a fairly derisive view of Dark Academia(TM) largely as a result of studying at Oxford (and knowing what goes on behind the curtain in ancient universities like that) and disliking the aesthetic for what it represents (wealth and privilege with very little appreciation for anything more than surface-level approaches to The Classics). I really enjoyed as that whole aesthetic was brutally unpacked right before my eyes. The main group is elitist, they think themselves above others, they're obsessed with their studies but in a profoundly superficial way, and it's all encouraged by a professor who is actually quite awful. They're all horrible people in their own way. It's a great book.