Reviews

Dio di illusioni by Donna Tartt

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katiesphone's review against another edition

1.0

I hate this book. Don’t read it.
I stopped reading halfway through and skimmed the rest.

key points:
1. pointless wasteful passages of writing
2. missed potential of ideas regarding Richard
3. Bunny and sympathy regarding to the plot
4. Other thoughts

1. In over 600 pages there are endless passages of writing with no purpose or direction. It doesn’t aid to atmosphere building nor does it provide dramatic relief. the book could be slimmed down to 300 pages. theres like, 200-250 pages of the group getting high or henry driving Richard around. There’s nothing to say about most of the book.Its excruciating pace is so frustrating, especially in the moments leading up to henry’s confession and bunny’s murder because we already know what happens because of the prologue which removes any tension and the pace drags it out longer than it should be. I found it insulting to the reader.

2. Another thing. Richard is poor and has no financial support from his father, contrasting the rest of the group who are all rich and spoilt. It would be logical for donna tart to deliver a judgement on rich, spoilt kids, like, ‘rich kids are privileged and are disconnected to the real world and have twisted ideas because of their sheltered life’ or ‘while these rich kids have been sheltered they can still form perceptions accordant with the rest of the world and aren’t inherently bad’ but neither route is explored. Since Richard is a compulsive liar he hides his working class childhood from them. Especially during the moment where he was homeless for a month because he’d rather suffer that expose his lie to his friends. He is then saved by Henry but feels insulted that he’d pity him. Theres no judgement about it so it just hangs as a fact that he’s poor while they’re rich. It could’ve been a theme. Richards compulsive lying is bothersome. I guess its rationalised because he’s led a dull life before and tried to spice it up, but it’s never said. He also looks down greatly on everyone else in the university outside of the greek class which is kind of problematic. Richard is so frustrating because of his lack a morals. It seems that even at he end of the book, he never really liked any of them and was just playing a role. He just seemed like he was just there with no purpose or opinion throughout the book.

3. There are so many problems with bunny. First of all, he’s supposed to be dislikable; he’s racist, sexist, rude, manipulative and greedy. No one likes him. Secondly, in the build up to his death and the groups descent into madness, he’s written into the plot in a way you’re supposed to sympathise with and want him to escape the chaos. As he’s being tracked down by Henry he shows signs of anxiety and desire to leave, he shows a sense of justice regarding the murder they committed. He shows guilt and regret, so we sympathise with him. But then we’re reminded why he’s such a disgusting person. In his scene of venerability with Richard where the audience is almost won over he then hits us with a vile antisemitic comment. It was so jarring

4. I felt so lost with who to side with because Richard was such an unreliable protagonist and I was defiantly not siding with Henry or the other members because they are murderers. Especially when Henry killed himself and shot Charles. I had no wish for any of them to survive BECAUSE THEY KILLED TWO PEOPLE. I know none of them are supposed to be nice people but the reader has to side with someone! And there was no one! Another thing that bothered me was how old fashioned this was. Why was there 1 female character? She was treated like trash, there is nothing noteworthy about camilla apart from the fact she’s blonde. Charles and Francis where indistinguishable, Francis served no purpose and couldve been cut.

The whole book was disgustingly pretentious and it felt like a chore to read. Don’t bother.