The Secret History
I love these stories about insular groups of young adults that lead to murder. It makes me grateful that my own time in an insular, dysfunctional group didn't result in anyone's death. The Secret History follows a group of six college students, studying Greek and the classics at a small Vermont college. At the very beginning, the narrator, Richard, reveals that five of them murdered the sixth. Then the story backs up a few months to tell the story of how this murder came about, and what happened afterwards.
In a lot of ways, this felt like a book I might read for school. Not that I didn't like it. But it's rich and dense, and I almost feel like I'm supposed to be writing an essay about the imagery or the use of Greek or something. It's reminiscent of a lot of books I did read for school. Like A Separate Peace, we have a group of rich kids at an elite school who seem to be making all their own problems. Plus an undercurrent of repressed homosexuality. And like The Great Gatsby, we have a narrator who isn't actually privy to the whole story. There are tensions between new and old money, and all the while no one really suspects that one of their member is flat broke. Plus the undercurrents of repressed homosexuality. And like Looking for Alaska (which I didn't have to read for school, but I wouldn't be surprised if it usurps A Separate Peace on the required reading list), the book is divide into before and after the death of a classmate.
There's a lot in this book that's obscured, hidden in the shadows. Richard is an outsider, in more ways than one. He comes to information late, and he never really gets all of it. Which could be why he manages to survive the hellish year that results in the death or destruction of the other members of the group.
The characters in this book are real and complicated and ultimately hard to sympathize with. They're spoiled rich kids who make their own problems. They drink too much, do drugs, party hard, spend entirely too much money, and never stop to think about the consequences of their actions. Until those consequences catch up to them. At which point they do pretty much everything in their power to make it worse. They're more protected than they realize, thanks to their money and family reputations, which allows for everything to spiral entirely out of control.
I liked this book. Not as much as I lied Tana French's novels on similar themes. But it was enjoyable and consuming and haunting. It made me cringe to remember my own college days, which is what a book like this ought to do to a person like me.
In a lot of ways, this felt like a book I might read for school. Not that I didn't like it. But it's rich and dense, and I almost feel like I'm supposed to be writing an essay about the imagery or the use of Greek or something. It's reminiscent of a lot of books I did read for school. Like A Separate Peace, we have a group of rich kids at an elite school who seem to be making all their own problems. Plus an undercurrent of repressed homosexuality. And like The Great Gatsby, we have a narrator who isn't actually privy to the whole story. There are tensions between new and old money, and all the while no one really suspects that one of their member is flat broke. Plus the undercurrents of repressed homosexuality. And like Looking for Alaska (which I didn't have to read for school, but I wouldn't be surprised if it usurps A Separate Peace on the required reading list), the book is divide into before and after the death of a classmate.
There's a lot in this book that's obscured, hidden in the shadows. Richard is an outsider, in more ways than one. He comes to information late, and he never really gets all of it. Which could be why he manages to survive the hellish year that results in the death or destruction of the other members of the group.
The characters in this book are real and complicated and ultimately hard to sympathize with. They're spoiled rich kids who make their own problems. They drink too much, do drugs, party hard, spend entirely too much money, and never stop to think about the consequences of their actions. Until those consequences catch up to them. At which point they do pretty much everything in their power to make it worse. They're more protected than they realize, thanks to their money and family reputations, which allows for everything to spiral entirely out of control.
I liked this book. Not as much as I lied Tana French's novels on similar themes. But it was enjoyable and consuming and haunting. It made me cringe to remember my own college days, which is what a book like this ought to do to a person like me.
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