"It's really a fantasia about university" (The Secret History by Donna Tartt)

The above quote, and title for this post, is a direct quote from Donna Tartt, lifted from The Borris House Festival of Writing & Idea's podcast episode "Donna Tartt and Rick Stroud." The episode was posted on April 3, 2020 but I just listened to it today. Upon finally finishing The Secret History last night, I spent the entire day seeking out and listening to every podcast episode I could find devoted to the book.

The second I heard Donna Tartt describe The Secret History as being "...really a fantasia about university," I thought it the most succinct and perfect description of the book. I've heard reviewers and commentators describe the book as either magical realism, a figment of the narrator's imagination, the product of an unreliable narrator (but mostly true), or on the rare occasion a story to be taken at face value. One definition of the word "fantasia" is "a work of art or literature that expresses the author's imagination freely and creatively." That is what The Secret History seems to be, a free and imaginative work of art that can be whatever the reader wants it to be. So maybe however one interprets the book, that interpretation is valid.

Allow me to backtrack a bit. Here is my history with The Secret History:

When The Secret History was published in 1992, I was working at Schuler Books. I remember what a literary sensation it was, which I'm sure is why I resisted it then. I wasn't much interested in contemporary fiction in 1992 and even less interested in a book that was receiving loads of media attention. Chalk it up to being a contrarian twenty-something. (Not to compare myself to Donna Tartt, but it turns out that she was also not particularly interested in contemporary fiction during the time she was writing The Secret History).

Fast forward to 2008, when I read with delight to book The Fortress of Solitude by former Bennington student Jonathan Lethem. Then I became a fan of the podcast of another former Bennington student, Bret Easton Ellis. Inspired by the podcast, I finally read Ellis' book Less Than Zero. (My Facebook memories tell me I finished reading the book on February 7, 2015. My impression was that I should have read the book when I was younger because I found the characters to be self-centered and obnoxious--which was probably the point). So those books were my first dips into the world of the illustrious Bennington College literary alumni.

Six years later I was directed to the podcast Once Upon a Time...at Bennington College. I only listened to about half the series because it just became too dishy amd soapy (but not soap dishy). (My podcast listening also coincided with my first trip to Germany. When I returned from Germany, I became completely obsessed with German history for several months and Bennington was jettisoned. It's probably quite clear that I am one prone to obsessions).

Donna Tartt and The Secret History were the most fascinating subjects of the Bennington podcast, and that book remained on my mental front burner until finally, while on vacation in Ithaca, New York in September 2022, I saw The Secret History at Barnes & Noble and bought it. (I still bristle a little bit at paying $19 for a paperback and hoped to find it used, but it was there, so what the hell? Why not!).

I don't think I finally got around to starting The Secret History until about December 2022, and though I made it to about page 100 by early 2023, it was a struggle and I lost interest. The pace seemed glacier-like and the story didn't seem to be going anywhere. I almost tossed the book permanently into the "I give up" pile. Instead, it was relegated to the "try again later' pile.

I didn't remove the book from the "try again later" pile until June, and this time it clicked. At about page 150-ish, when main characters Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, and twins Camilla and Charles Macauley have their classic Greek-inspired bacchanal and [spoiler alert] kill the Vermont farmer (or did they kill him?), I was hooked from that point on. A bit later [not a spoiler alert], when the "Hampden Five" (I made up that term) kill fellow student Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran, I was fully in.

Once again, allow me to backtrack. My initial negative reaction to the book also had to do with this question in my mind: "Why do I give a fuck about these narcissistic, materialistic, pretentious East Coast elite college students?" If I had stuck with the book on my first attempt, I would have learned that their narcissism, materialism, and pretentions were largely what led them to make the questionable decisions they make. Their intellectual pretentions were the whole point of the book.

Now I will move on to my instant reactions to the book. I am writing this now so I don't forget but will try to write this in a manner that will make it at least somewhat interesting to my dear readers--all three or four of you. 

First, a brief plot synopsis: The Secret History takes place at the fictional Hampden College in Vermont--inspired by Bennington College--and follows a close-knit group of Classical Greek majors who study under the tutelage of the charismatic and mysterious professor Julian Morrow. One of these six students, Richard Papen, is the book's narrator. Richard is the outsider among the group. He's a transfer student originally from California, from modest means, and joins the course a few weeks(?), several weeks(?) after Henry, Francis, Camilla, Charles, and Bunny. Anyway, these six young people become a little too emotionally and intellectually wrapped up in their Classical Greek studies, and it leads them to do some terrible things that have dire consequences.

So here are my notes:

Far be it for me to criticize Donna Tartt, who at a young age was already an accomplished writer, but the book could have used some pruning. There were a few cul-de-sacs that lasted a bit too long. I am thinking specifically of Richard's winter break freezing his ass off and starving in Hampden, as well as the 70+ pages at the Corcoran home during Bunny's wake and funeral. 

While I am dishing out nitpicky criticisms, I didn't buy that there was any romantic connection between Richard and Camille, nor Henry and Camille for that matter. Then again, we are dealing with an unreliable narrator in Richard. When Richard declares his love for Camilla and asks her to marry him, I expected her reaction to be, "What? Are you nuts? Of course I don't want to marry you. There is nothing between us!" Instead, her reaction was much calmer and more measured than I expected or seemed appropriate.

Though I have seen the horrible acts in the book compared to Crime and Punishment, which makes sense, I have not seen the murder of Bunny compared to Leopold and Loeb. (Leopold and Loeb, the two highly educated young men who attempted to use their "superior intellect" to commit a "perfect murder" in 1920s Chicago). The Hampden Five share a foppish arrogance with Leopold and Loeb. The book does an exemplary job in showing how lives can unravel after horrible decision(s) have been made.

At this point, I should avoid too many spoilers, so let me just say that Henry's, er. rash decision near the end of the book took me by surprise. I did not see that coming.

Before I make the book sound overly serious, I should point out that there is plenty of humor sprinkled within. I enjoyed the description of the Hampden students flushing all their drugs down the toilet when the FBI arrived on campus to investigate Bunny's murder. There is another scene in which the group is outside the Corcoran's house getting high before Bunny's funeral. Bunny's bizarre low rent Kennedy-like family is also amusing.

And then there is Judy Poovey. Richard's hard-partying, aerobics-obsessed dorm neighbor Judy has to be the best minor character in the book. Judy provides some comic relief with her exuberant personality, but she is also caring and generous. Once again, Richard is an unreliable narrator and allows his obsession with Camilla to color his perception of the other female characters, most notably Judy. Richard could have and probably should have been kinder to Judy. Judy will be fine, though. She doesn't need Richard or anybody else, for that matter.

On the subject of partying, there is so much drinking, drug consumption, and smoking that I practically got a hangover myself. I could almost feel my own liver and lungs turning diseased, misshapen, and blackened. The sheer amount of substance abuse definitely pinpointed the 1980s as The Secret History's setting.

The book made me ponder my own college experiences in the 1980s. I didn't go to a small elite private liberal arts college on the East Coast, but an enormous middle-class public university in the Midwest. I definitely knew way more Judy Poovey's and Cloke Rayburn's (Hampden student and small-time drug dealer) than Camilla Macauley's and Henry Winter's. That said, I can relate to Richard and his desire to fit in with the cool crowd, or should I say the arty and literary crowd, which did exist to a certain extent at my alma mater, Enormous State University, though I'm not sure any of them dressed as extravagantly or anachronistically as Henry, Bunny, Charles, Camilla, Frances, and to a certain degree, Richard, who spends most of the book playing catch-up. Our [anti-] heroes wear suits, ties, and pince nez glasses as if they'd stepped out of one of Jay Gatsby's parties in West Egg.

This leads me to the "Dark Academia" subgenre, which I did not even knew existed until less than a week ago. Apparently, Dark Academia has plenty of fans--many of whom are Gen Z--and there are several bookshelves worth of books classified as Dark Academia. Dark Academia has also spawned a fashion style that seems at least partly inspired by the Hampden Five. I have worked in libraries for almost 21 years and was completely unaware of this. Of course, I'm also a 50-something Gen Xer, so of course I'm not up to speed with what's trending among Gen Z or TikTokers.

I have also learned that there is fan art inspired by The Secret History. A keyword search of "Secret History fan art" reveals a plethora of drawings and paintings, many of which are quite creative and stunning. I will include some here...okay, I tried to include some here, but my computer is not cooperating. Just type in the keywords I mentioned into Google Images to see this fan art.

Reddit has an extremely active Secret History group, and I have hovered over it recently and made a few comments. Two nights ago, I had a vivid dream that I created a t-shirt with the caption, "I PARTIED WITH JUDY POOVEY." This dream seamed too good to waste, so I posted on the Reddit page and the positive response I received was stunning.

After all this verbal vomit about The Secret History, I can probably put it to bed now. If I can get either this laptop or another computer to cooperate, I'll post some of the best Secret History fan art. If you've made it this far, you're either a big Donna Tartt/Secret History fan or a glutton for punishment.