#also the secret history is dedicated to bret easton ellis

[bandoftheives]

crazy how donna tartt (author of the secret history) and bret easton ellis (author of american psycho) went to the same college (bennington) AND were good friends and then went on to write two of the most misinterpreted satire novels by the media

[literature-islit]

Donna Tartt - The Secret History (1992)

Sometimes, I think the happiest times of my life were the two months I spent living without a TV or wifi in a small country town. 

gather round children... 

My housemate had just moved out, and I was going to move out two months later, and the internet was in his name, and I couldn't really be bothered going through the hassle of making my own internet account, etc, so I just figured I’d make do. And it’s funny, like, at first it was at times a little boring and a little scary. Sometimes, I just wanted a comforting noise to have on in the evenings when the sun was down and things were quiet. 

So, I lived old school.

fun for the whole family

I listened to the radio... I read magazines... I played mp3s from my iTunes... and sometimes I just stared at the ceiling in silence. And, you know what? It actually was incredibly peaceful. I did all the stuff I had to use wifi for at work, and once I got home I dedicated myself to just... emptying my mind and chilling out. 

GPOY

I was obviously frothing to get back to 21st century life but even still now, the world of instantaneous communication at my fingertips, and zoom chats to attend and so on - I think back about my life without these technologies and I feel a little nostalgic. Because, don’t you think, sometimes the pressure of always being on and available gets a little much?

You know. Zoom chats are awkward, because u can’t read body language so you’re either talking over each other or trying to judge if the gap is long enough to speak. And, with the option of sending an interstate friend a text or FB message, it feels like there’s too much pressure to... I don't know. Stay engaged in a conversation. Whereas, sometimes I just wonder if I’d have a better quality of discussion if I reverted to writing letters?

I am, once again, in danger of going full Luddite.

There’s something I like to do, when I want to delve deeper into my nostalgia for the past and step deeply inside an all-encompassing retro reverie. When I want to feel the textures of telephone conversations and notes hastily scrawled and dropped in pigeon holes. A time when study meant libraries, and old books and handwriting (not jstor), when you had to walk hungover to get food (no UberEats), when you could go to your college dining hall and enjoy a cigarette with your black coffee (ok, just joking about that one)...

In other words, I step into the world in between the covers of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History.

Donna Tartt is so cool. She went to Bennington College with my (extremely problematic) fav writer Bret Easton Ellis, and while he scrawled his Valium-drenched numbed-out hip-lit Less Than Zero, she was passing him chapter after chapter of the novel that would eventually (she takes her time writing - as you should - can’t rush perfection) become her first bestseller. 

the epitome of cool

Anyway, the story goes something like this: Californian outsider from blue collar family attends arts school in wintry Vermont and becomes intrigued by a group of outsiders who spend their school days studying Ancient Greek with an impressive, passionate teacher with sparkling blue eyes. Eventually, they invite him to the periphery of their clique. As he slowly gets to know them, he becomes aware of a secret - they spend odd hours of the night whispering in secret, there are unexplained tensions and injuries and stains on the sheets...

Also, from the novel’s opening, you are aware that one member of the group will soon die. 

anyone who’s read the book - would this celeb couple not be perfect to play the role of the twins if they were (which they should) to make some kind of netflix miniseries of the novel?

Suspense and intrigue ensues. There is the most vivid depiction of a cold winter I’ve ever read in a book, which had me shivering and clutching at my doona even at the peak of summer. As someone who has lived at a college, the richly textured depiction of college life sent me immediately back to the oak fittings and heavy, stuck windows of my first year dorm room. THIS IS A BOOK TO SAVOUR. 

you also might learn a little something about the ancient greeks. 

Anyway i read this Good Reads review of it where the reader was criticising the story because the characters were “pretentious” and it felt all like some kind of humble-brag about how “alternative” a group of friends might be and etc, and while I respect the review author’s POV i have to say I disagree totally. You know, most American novels about college-aged students tend to focus around the high-jinks and shenanigans they get up to, that is to say - they focus around the popular groups

ok, not quite college, but you know what I mean

And so i found it really refreshing that the main characters in The Secret History were certainly not cool (not cool in the sense of going to college parties to drink and hook up kind of cool) (not cool in the Bret Easton Ellis Less Than Zero way, which reads as if it were set in the same universe as this novel (probably kind of is) but about the ‘cool’ kids and makes for interesting parallel comparison); Tartt’s characters are extremely eccentric and, like, flawed in their own personal ways - but somehow painted with such a vivid brush that you could really imagine their appearances, idiosyncrasies, and etc...

Okay, okay, maybe it is slightly elitist. But a guilty pleasure kind of elitist for me! Step back into the roaring late 80s to 90s era, when college kids got the traditional liberal education for free - and totally took it for granted! Without their phones tracking their every move, the crushing pressure to learn the latest tik tok dances and the distracting void of scrolling through memes - it was a recent history but one that has irrevocably past. Read this book to savour it! 

you don't know what you got til its gone...