The Secret History: A Book Review

by Auburn Rutledge Fox

I can best describe Donna Tart’s The Secret History as a fragile but ultimately radiant marriage of the genre and literary novel.

The story begins with protagonist and narrator Richard Papen, a former student of Hampden College in Vermont, vaguely describing the murder of fellow student Edmund "Bunny" Corcoran. Thus we are immediately swept into a murder-mystery that plays out slowly in reverse: why did Richard and his fellow students—a small, eccentric group of Classics majors—kill one of their own?

The novel deftly explores the literary themes of Art and Beauty, though its study (inevitably, as Tartt would seem to suggest) leads to tragic consequences. The group of students with whom Richard becomes involved are odd, obsessive creatures: the twins Charles and Camilla, whose relationship with each other is much darker than it seems; the frenetic and homosexual Francis; the cheerful odd-man-out Bunny; and their leader, enigmatic Henry. They all become obsessed with the more mysterious aspects of Classics culture—the bacchanals, a madness that leaves men and women in a frenzied state of id. One might find these young students almost too eccentric to be real, as their study under the tutelage of Classics teacher Julian has left them unable to properly function in the modern world. I found myself more than once becoming skeptical at Henry’s ignorance of the modern day, including his apparent surprise that men had landed on the moon.

Throughout the students’ explorations of the odd and dangerous bacchanal rite, Richard watches almost entirely from the fringes. Though he, too, is under the tutelage of Julian, it is clear from the outset that he lacks a certain je ne sais quoi which would fully ingratiate him into his group of peers. But Richard is by no means normal; in many ways, I found him almost sadly pathetic, inclined to consider himself an intellectual but generally only putting on airs. That he falls so quickly in with the Classics group is understandable, but his blatant inability to understand what is going on around him becomes tiring as the novel at times drags on. This trait is reflected upon Bunny, the murder victim, as well. He seems so unlike his fellow students that we wonder why he is a part of the group at all. And throughout the story, Professor Julian—the epitome of a Romantic Classicist—encourages with an odd naivete his students’ obsessions.

I felt that, at 500 pages long, the novel could easily have lost 100 pages. While Tartt is deft at offering teasing hints as to the what and why of the murder and the psychological consequences that await its perpetrators, we are saddled with the ineptitudes of our protagonist Richard, who spends much of the novel drifting about from one situation to the next and generally being manipulated by Henry (a character written more like a fanciful idea than a realistic concept). But the intrigue of the murder itself, as well as the fraying relationships between the Classics students, is more than enough to counteract the effects of unnecessary prose (mostly Richard’s overly poetic descriptions of ordinary situations). Many scenes are breathtakingly beautiful, and a few of the passages either have a morbid humor that made me laugh out loud, or are written with such obvious passion and luster that you are forced to re-read them to further appreciate what Tartt is suggesting.

Perhaps the most brilliant—and frightening—of Tartt’s techniques is to involve us as readers so deeply in the motivations of Bunny’s murder that it begins to seem almost reasonable to us. Like Richard, we are sympathetic and in awe of Henry, Charles, Camilla and Francis, and want to see this group remain together despite the brutal circumstances surrounding them. Bunny’s martyrdom seems only logical. But after the murder happens, roughly in the middle of the book, we realize just how heinous the crime is. And this is where the literary and genre elements of the novel converge, such that we, too, are questioning Art and Beauty versus reality, which is the more preferable, and if they can ever truly coexist.

The novel is certainly a brilliant debut work, and though it suffers at times from trying to make its characters more poetic than necessary, Tartt nevertheless manages to create a beautiful literary work both diabolical and sensual, while simultaneously crafting a new and darker version of the coming-of-age story.

Comments (0) 07.06.2010. 10:21

American Psycho: A Book Review

American Psycho: A Book Review

I'll begin by saying that it took me no less than six weeks to finish reading American Psycho, by Bret Easton Ellis. This isn't because I was busy, couldn't find the time, was reading other things, etc. It's because it was, bar none, the most difficult-to-read book I've ever picked up.

Most of you have heard of this book and may even have seen the movie adaptation, starring Christian Bale. For the rest of you, American Psycho is the story of Patrick Bateman, a handsome, rich, successful 26-year-old working on Wall Street in the early 90s. By day, Patrick is completely interchangeable with all the other self-obsessed yuppies. By night, he is an increasingly ruthless killer, racking up a body count of beautiful women, homeless men, children (rarely), cabbies, co-workers, and cops.

The story is told in Patrick's point of view and is filled with deeply disturbing (and insightful) observations about humanity, written with dryness, wisdom, and beauty entirely uncommon to find in most 26-year-old authors (the age Ellis was at the time of the book's publication in 1991). Ellis also doesn't shy away from describing murders in stomach-turning detail. What makes these descriptions even more horrifying, however, is the lack of emotion/drama with which they're told. Actions are simply actions. And in large part, that's what the book is "about". Consider:

"The Halloween office party was at the Royalton last week and I went as a mass murderer, complete with a sign painted on my back that read MASS MURDERER (which was decidedly lighter than the sandwich board I had constructed earlier that day that read DRILLER KILLER), and beneath those two words I had written in blood Yep, that's me and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell's hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I'd boiled the flesh off of" (330).

More than Patrick Bateman's story, American Psycho is the story of American culture at a specific time in a specific city. The book is filled with tiring descriptions of characters' designer clothing and their absurd meals at the newest, most expensive New York restaurants. And throughout, Patrick occasionally tries to confide in his friends, lovers, and colleagues. He tells them he isn't human, that he just wants to be loved, that he is incapable of feeling, that he killed so-and-so, that he's killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. He is always either ignored completely (hilariously), or his confessions are taken as metaphor. So the book is largely a critique of a society in which people are incapable of seeing each other for who they really are--whether monsters or individuals with hearts, dreams, and hope.

A must-read, but be prepared to feel ill, cast suspicious looks around you, and ultimately both doubt and pray for humanity's goodness.

Comments (0) 16.12.2009. 22:29