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ameliedebeaumont 's review for:
The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s well known novel The Secret History was one I found through number of ways - both as a recommendation following the last dark academia murder mystery I finished (If We Were Villians) and by way of a list of most famous first lines found in literature.
And sure enough, the first line will grab you:
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
And so we are launched into a retelling of the narrator’s sentimental, beautiful and horrifying days seeking beauty and knowledge as a student in one of the most exclusive classes at the enclave of Hampden College. The small group, an aloof and secretive and enviably cool clique of snobs, gradually accept our narrator. He is entranced by the intelligence, the sophisticated clothes and nonchalant hedonism - the secluded private lectures on ancient Greeks and smug discussions on art …all ultimately empty.
This is an academic book - references to Dante, multiple Greek works and a library of other classical pantheon of literature. And it was familiar - the wistful longing for more out of life, for a feeling of belonging, for stopping to notice brief moments that will become forever memories. It is, indeed, a reminder of the secret histories we all carry, and also a reminder of what really matters, in the unavoidable end.
And sure enough, the first line will grab you:
“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”
And so we are launched into a retelling of the narrator’s sentimental, beautiful and horrifying days seeking beauty and knowledge as a student in one of the most exclusive classes at the enclave of Hampden College. The small group, an aloof and secretive and enviably cool clique of snobs, gradually accept our narrator. He is entranced by the intelligence, the sophisticated clothes and nonchalant hedonism - the secluded private lectures on ancient Greeks and smug discussions on art …all ultimately empty.
This is an academic book - references to Dante, multiple Greek works and a library of other classical pantheon of literature. And it was familiar - the wistful longing for more out of life, for a feeling of belonging, for stopping to notice brief moments that will become forever memories. It is, indeed, a reminder of the secret histories we all carry, and also a reminder of what really matters, in the unavoidable end.