The Secret History

This article is about the novel by Donna Tartt. For information on secret histories, see Secret history.

For Procopius's Secret History, see Procopius.

The Secret History
Author(s)	Donna Tartt
Original title	The God of Illusions [1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Novel
Publisher	Alfred A. Knopf
Publication date	September 1992
Media type	Print (hardcover and paperback)
Pages	544 pp (hardcover edition)
ISBN	ISBN 0-679-41032-5 (hardcover edition)
OCLC Number	26515217
Dewey Decimal	813/.54 20
LC Classification	PS3570.A657 S4 1992

The Secret History, the first novel by Mississippi-born writer Donna Tartt, was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1992. A 75,000 print order was made for the first edition (as opposed to the usual 10,000 order for a debut novel), and the book became a bestseller.

Set in New England, The Secret History tells the story of a closely knit group of six classics students at a small, elite Vermont college, similar in many respects to Bennington College (in Bennington, Vermont) where Tartt was a student from 1982 to 1986.

One of the six students is the story's narrator, Richard Papen, who reflects, years later, on the situation that led to a murder within the group, implying such at the outset but otherwise revealing events sequentially. In the opening chapter, as the reader is introduced to Papen, the death of student Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran is revealed, although few details are given initially. The novel undertakes to explore the circumstances and lasting effects of his murder on an academically and socially isolated group of students attending Hampden College in Vermont.

The impact on the students is ultimately destructive, and the potential promise of many young lives is lost to circumstance. It mirrors, in many ways, the notion of a Greek tragedy with fate playing a large part in dictating the very circumstances that lead to an escalation of already fermenting issues.

Synopsis

As the story opens, Richard leaves Plano, California, where he is generally unhappy, for Hampden College in Vermont. His approach to his background is in keeping with a theme of literary beauty, in comparison to harsh reality, that continues throughout the novel. He misleads others about his background as necessary, replacing his mediocre working-class childhood with a fabricated one of elite boarding schools and oil wealth.

After moving to Vermont, Richard requests to continue his study of Ancient Greek, only to be told that the class is full, as Classics professor Julian Morrow limits his enrollment to five students. Richard becomes obsessed with the small group of classics students who are studying Greek, often observing them around campus. This continues until he manages to ingratiate himself with the group, helping them solve a Greek grammar problem as they study in the college library. Soon after, armed with advice from the students on how to impress Julian, he meets with him once more and is finally admitted to the select Classics program.

The group includes fraternal twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay, who are charming but secretive, as well as Francis Abernathy, whose secluded country home becomes a sanctuary for the group. Two students become the central focus of the story: the "linguistic genius" Henry Winter, a studious intellectual with a passion for the classics and Plato, and the back-slapping Bunny Corcoran, a slightly bigoted jokester more comfortable reading Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu, particularly if someone else has bought him a copy.

Their relationship, already considered odd by Richard, becomes even more mystifying when Bunny announces that he and Henry will be spending the winter break together in Italy. This, despite the fact that Henry appears barely tolerant of Bunny and that Bunny is unable to afford such a lavish holiday himself. In fact, it is Henry who is footing the bill for the trip. To avoid unraveling his fabricated past, Richard spends the winter break in an unheated warehouse. He nearly dies from exposure and pneumonia but is rescued and taken to the hospital by Henry, who has returned early from the trip to Italy.

When the rest of the group returns from winter break, Richard notes that the relationships between them and Bunny have become even more strained. Ultimately, Richard learns the truth from Henry and Francis: during a Bacchanal that both Richard and Bunny were excluded from, Henry had inadvertently killed a local farmer. Bunny, having been suspicious for some time, uncovers the truth during the trip to Italy after reading some of Henry's private notes, and he has blackmailed the group ever since. The group, led by Henry, begin to view Bunny as the weak link who threatens to reveal their secret, and Bunny does not ingratiate himself to the others with his knack for playing on his friends' fears and insecurities.

No longer able to meet Bunny's demands and fearing that Bunny will report the matter to the police, the group resolves to kill Bunny. Henry forms several plots to accomplish such, and one of the plans is finally put into motion after Bunny tells Richard of the killing of the farmer in a drunken rant. The group confronts Bunny while he is hiking, with Henry pushing him into a ravine to his death.

The remainder of the novel focuses on the aftermath of Bunny's death, especially the collapse of the group, the psychological strains of remorse borne by the individual members and their efforts to maintain secrecy as investigators and other students develop theories about Bunny's disappearance. The supporting cast of other students includes loquacious drug user Judy Poovey, a reader of "those paranoia books by Philip K. Dick."

Charles develops a drinking problem and becomes increasingly abusive towards his sister. Francis begins to suffer panic attacks. Julian discovers the evidence in the form of a pleading letter sent to him by Bunny, imploring him to help him: "You're the only one who can." Julian never reports the crime but instead leaves the college.

With the group splintered, the members deal with their crime, to a large extent, in isolation. Henry begins living and sleeping with Camilla, which drives Charles further into the grip of his barely-controlled alcoholism. Henry is deeply upset by Julian's departure, seeing it as an act of cowardice and hypocrisy. The plot reaches a final climax when Charles, jealous of Henry and now a full-blown alcoholic, barges into Camilla and Henry's hotel room and tries to kill Henry with Francis' Beretta. In the struggle that follows, Henry gets a hold of the gun as the inn-keeper pounds on the door. Aghast, the others are not sure whom he intends to kill. Instead, Henry kisses Camilla for a final time, and shoots himself. It seems that Henry wants to uphold the noble principles that he feels Julian has betrayed. With Henry's suicide, the group disintegrates: Francis, a homosexual, is forced by his rich grandfather to marry a woman; Camilla takes care of her grandmother and ends up isolated; Charles runs from rehab with a married woman; Richard, the narrator, becomes a lonely academic whose love for Camilla is unrequited. Henry's death is described as having cut the cord between them and set them all adrift. The book ends with Richard recounting a strange dream where he meets Henry in a tall atrium, and doesn't know how to voice everything he feels about what has happened. Finally, he settles on asking him "Are you happy?" Henry frowns at him, then shrugs and says "Not particularly. But then, neither are you", and walks away, leaving Richard as aimless as ever.

Themes

Michiko Kakutani (New York Times) commented, "In The Secret History, Ms. Tartt managed to make... melodramatic and bizarre events (involving Dionysian rites and intimations of satanic power) seem entirely plausible." Because the author introduces the murder and those responsible at the outset, critic A.O. Scott labeled it "a murder mystery in reverse." ^[2]

On a deeper level, highlighted by many literary references and allusions, the novel undertakes a complex analysis of literary beauty versus reality, social constraints compared to our desire for liberation, and the relationships and truths that exist behind social structures. The novel displays the following early on: "Does such a thing as 'the fatal flaw,' that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn't. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs." This theme continues throughout the novel as Richard is repeatedly confronted with the separation of literary beauty as he would capture and report it, compared to the reality as it occurs.

Cross-references

Bret Easton Ellis's novel The Rules of Attraction is set at Camden College, a fictional liberal arts college in northeastern New Hampshire. In many ways, Camden mirrors Ellis' alma mater, Bennington College, and Hampden College, the setting of Tartt's The Secret History. Both books contain cross-references to each other's storylines and characters. Tartt mentions the suicide of a freshman girl in passing, while Ellis repeatedly mentions a group of classics majors who "dress like undertakers" and are suspected of staging pagan rituals and slaying farmers in the countryside. There is also mention of a "nice girl from Rockaway" in one of Lauren's narrations. This is possibly Alex from Jill Eisenstadt's novel From Rockaway, who attended Camden College in the novel.

References

1. ^ "The Marketing of a Cause Celebre" - The New York Times
2. ^ Scott, A.O. "Harriet the Spy," New York Times, November 3, 2002.

Listen to

• NPR: Talk of the Nation: Donna Tartt interviewed by Lynn Neary (November 5, 2002)
• NPR: Talk of the Nation: Donna Tartt and Anne Rice interviewed by Ray Suarez (October 30, 1997)

External links

• "Students Indulging in Course of Destruction": The New York Times review
• John Mullan in Guardian (January 11, 2003)
• Review by Ted Gioia
• "Book cover: The Secret History"