Thus, the logical course of action is to highlight the elements which stood out in my eyes, and the very first would be Donna Tartt‘s profound dissection on the subject of self-deception. ― Donna Tartt, The Secret History A Treatise on Self-Deception in The Secret HistoryĪs you might have gathered by the nature of the story we’re diving into, The Secret History is a fairly long book with plenty of themes and ideas to explore, more than I could ever hope to fit into a review of this size. Even though the little club is intent on treating the murder as more of an annoyance than anything else, none of them will be left unchanged by the macabre depths of the human soul they’ve plunged into.īeauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Under the guide of their rather charismatic classics professor, these eccentric students are discovering a new way of living and thinking, one which puts them dangerously at odds with conventional ideas of morality.Įventually, the murder we are given the glimpse of in the prologue does occur, and Richard is left to struggle over the incongruity between his own world-views and everything he has been taught up until this point.

They run an invitation-only class, but with time Richard manages to earn their trust, becoming one of the fold, and learning in the process their interests go far deeper than Greek literature. The students there are of a different intellectual calibre than what he has grown accustomed to, and he can’t help himself but be drawn to a small and exclusive group of elite students focused on Greek translation. We are then introduced to the afore-mentioned Richard, dreadfully keen on getting out of his small town to put as much distance between himself and his working-class background as possible.Įventually, his efforts bear fruit, and he ends up at a small liberal arts college in Vermont, where life is unlike anything he has ever known before. The novel begins with a prologue giving us a glimpse of future events, detailing the search for the body of a missing student, murdered by his classmates. Some are seeking to elevate their so-called position in society by ingratiating themselves with its self-appointed intellectual elite, while others, like Richard Papen in The Secret History by Donna Tartt, end up diving into the rotten core of Man. Acceptance is something anyone living in any sort of society will struggle with at one point or another, and many are those who long to become part of circles which seem inaccessible to them.

The secret story donna tartt