The Secret History
For this week’s Back to School post, I’m going to talk about one of my favorite novels that takes place in academia, Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. (Please note that while I’m not going to go out of my way to spoil anything in the book, I am going to talk about one of the main incidents in the plot in some detail. So if you haven’t read it yet, and think you want to read it unspoiled, this may not be the post for you.)
I am a sucker for a novel that takes place in school generally, and The Secret History is not only one of my favorite of these, but one of my favorite novels, period. I am caught by different things each time I read it. This time, even though I was reading it with a focus on something else, I was struck by how terrific Richard Papen is as a narrator. He is not only an outsider among outsiders – the California boy who transfers into the small, Vermont college, and then makes his way into the even smaller group of students taught by Julian Morrow (again, late, not even at the start of the semester) – but he is also pushed twice into hothouse settings – Hampden, and then Julian’s Greek classes. It is as if Tartt has taken the craft elements of the campus novel and then hyperfocused them in him.
But as interesting as Richard is, as compelling as his narrative voice is, he is not the thing that draws me back to this book time and time again, he is not what is for me the fascination at the core of the story.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Epigraph to Epilogue to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.