Amazon.com.au:Customer reviews: The Secret History

Top positive review

Touched a nerve with me - absolutely stunning

Reviewed in Australia on 9 July 2014

I read this book after already being familiar with The Goldfinch and The Little Friend.
I am a classic scholar myself (rather been one 25 years ago) and the book has special appeal for me.
Tartt's books are not an easy read but they are why literature is such a marvelous art.
Her books make me wish I could read them again as for the first time...

3 people found this helpful

Top critical review

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How can Penguin put their name to this

Reviewed in Australia on 17 April 2022

So the look and feel of the book is cheap and nasty. The text is aligned to the right, so you have to practically break the spine of the book to read the text. Absolute rubbish production. But for 8 bucks, you get what you pay for.

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From Australia

JDS

A well written book

Reviewed in Australia on 25 January 2014

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After reading The Goldfinch, I purchased this book. I was not disappointed - I really enjoyed it. Donna Tartt's writing style is different. Very thorough in creating a sense of the character, the place and a real feel for the situation. The topic is not one of which I would ordinarily have chosen to read, but I did and it kept me keen to pick up the book again. After enjoying two of her books, I went on to purchase a third. I am a fan - I love this author.

8 people found this helpful

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Angelface

Well written, erudite crime story

Reviewed in Australia on 5 October 2014

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Well written by an educated and erudite author. The story about a group of quite strange students studying classical Greek, feels like it should be set in England, but is actually in the USA. The story unfolds well, revealing some unusual personalities and behaviours, to a surprising denouement. Very enjoyable.

4 people found this helpful

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Glen

A good read

Reviewed in Australia on 19 December 2021

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Probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but it kept me hooked until the end. Privileged college kids that drink and smoke incessantly.

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Kate

I really loved every bit in it

Reviewed in Australia on 26 April 2017

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Very enthralling, I really loved every bit in it, couldn't put it down. The only thing didn't quite work for me was the voice narration. It just didnt quite grip my interest so much, she is pretty good narrator though, but I think this soft female voice doesn't really match male characters... Goldfinch narration was way better

One person found this helpful

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Marianne Hamilton

great read

Reviewed in Australia on 5 September 2014

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I liked it - interesting characters - wanted to keep reading - the usual elements of good storytelling - I wasn't much interested in the epilogue and didn't think it was necessary to know what happened to every single minor character - wondered if this was based on real events?

One person found this helpful

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Valerie

Intense and dark

Reviewed in Australia on 16 November 2018

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A well written story, but dark in its intention with intense characters.

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Great book but too long and ponderous

Reviewed in Australia on 3 May 2016

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Beautifully written, has amazing insight into personality. But too long, and too many asides. Hearing the main character talk about his dreams was as tedious as it is in life

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Sylvia

A modern tragedy at its very best

Reviewed in Australia on 5 July 2014

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I very much enjoyed this tale of a group of privileged students caught up in a terrible trouble of their own making. This group of 6 students are specially chosen to study ancient Greek with a professor who is absorbed with his own importance and singular place in the world. Because of the character of the students combined with the character of their mentor, they are caught up in the typical definition of Greek tragedy where character leads to inevitable tragic events. The mystery within the murder is how this could ever happen in modern society. The tension of the tale is to do with getting away with what has happened rather than the traditional 'who done it' genre. I give this 4 stars, rather than 5 because I feel some readers may find the tale too solid and perhaps tedious, mainly because the narrator is so interested in his own relationship to the other 5 students and his professor. Personally I found this essential in order to make it into a tragedy, rather than just a tragic tale. Well done Donna Tartt. Very impressive.

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I Know What You Did in College

Reviewed in Australia on 12 August 2014

Earlier this year I read The Goldfinch and was astounded. It was my first novel by the author and I was pleased it won the Pulitzer. So I decided to go back and give her first novel a try. The Secret History is dark and brooding in plot, dense and suffocating in atmosphere. The novel has been called a "whydoit" as it reveals the crime and criminals from the outset. That device and the characters representing modern archetypes makes the book highly engaging. I found the group of college students entirely menacing in their intellectual detachment and arrogant entitlement.

There is more than a bit of Leopold and Loeb throughout. Consider this exchange, “But how,” said Charles, who was close to tears, “how can you possibly justify cold-blooded murder?’ Henry lit a cigarette. “I prefer to think of it,” he had said, “as redistribution of matter.” Soon actions haunt all involved and their tell-tale hearts take many forms offering fascinating views of individual and group behaviour.

In 2013, John Mullan wrote "Ten reasons why we love Donna Tartt's The Secret History" in The Guardian. Mullan included in the list, "It starts with a murder", "It has all the best elements of the campus novel", and "It is obsessed with beauty." Indeed, there are many references to beauty, "Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” Tartt teaches us that beauty is most definitely in the eye of the beholder given what her characters find beautiful.

The book is thick with complex observations and challenging thoughts, "For if the modern mind is whimsical and discursive, the classical mind is narrow, unhesitating, relentless. It is not a quality of intelligence that one encounters frequently these days. But though I can digress with the best of them, I am nothing in my soul if not obsessive."

Yet, at its core this is a horror story. One that creatively expresses fear, “There was a horrible, erratic thumping in my chest, as if a large bird was trapped inside my ribcage and beating itself to death." And, more disturbingly, it shows a calm and calculating student growing increasingly comfortable with murder, “A month or two before, I would have been appalled at the idea of any murder at all. But that Sunday afternoon, as I actually stood watching one, it seemed the easiest thing in the world.”

One person found this helpful

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From other countries

Julie

A very unusual book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 October 2019

Verified Purchase

Wow. This is a heck of a book. Unlike any other I’ve ever read. It’s quite heavy going but I felt it was ultimately worth it although I felt it ran out of steam at the end (hence 4 stars not 5). I suppose it’s ultimately about peer pressure, about the masks we wear when young and about trying to impress. Mainly (simply put) it’s about an intellectual group of university students who feel that the normal rules of society don’t apply to them with horrendous consequences. Written from the point of view of Richard who is desperate to be included into their inner sanctum and has no idea about the darkness at its core. The book stayed with me for quite a while afterwards.

14 people found this helpful

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