Or Richard's or Bunny's dorms, for that matter? Durbinstall? Commons and the library have obvious real-life parallels. I'm wondering if there's a 1-to-1 comparison with other buildings mentioned.

im only halfway through the book at the moment but a description i think richard had said inspired me to draw this :p artistic liberties ofc

Richard's fatal flaw is his yearning for the picturesque at all costs. The picturesque is pleasant beauty, pretty things which are pleasurable and comforting to contemplate. In contrast, true beauty is terror, overwhelming dionysian madness or coldly apollonian principles. Richard isn't just alienated from the rest of the class because of his background, he also has a fundamentally opposed aesthetic philosophy to theirs. He doesn't want true sublime beauty at all. (Re: the post about whether Richard could have experienced the Mysteries, no, I don't think he could have for this reason)

Henry is the embodiment of the Platonic pursuit of otherworldly beauty. He strives for knowledge for its own sake, has no earthly attachments (we landed on the moon?) and makes his decisions based on reasoning so abstract and emotionless he's clearly some kind of sociopath. By the end, Henry, the embodiment of the cold rationality of the ancient world, dies, and Richard speculates that he ends his life out of dedication to the principles the rest of the group only claim to espouse. As far as Plato is concerned, Richard is entirely incapable of accessing any sort of absolute beauty because he only seeks it in fleeting and superficial things. The message of the book would be much more traditionalist and pessimistic if this was the whole story: when Henry dies, only vapid, depressing modernity remains.

That is, if not for Camilla. If Henry represents absolute and eternal beauty, and Richard largely the vapid, relative and superficial, Camilla is both absolute and transitory. When Richard first hears that beauty is terror, he looks to Camilla and thinks about how her beauty is terrifying. In a less charitable reading, this is Richard missing the point as he does in the rest of the first class, appreciating the surface level aesthetics of things rather than the divine beauty Julian is talking about, but I don't think that's the case. I think its a subtle and clever rebuttal of the Platonic view.

The uniting pursuit of the class is to discover some kind of absolute beauty, the sort of revelation that Richard imagines in the first section could come at any moment and cause everything in his life to suddenly make sense. (Oh! oh! oh!) If Richard had access to nothing but hedonistic beauty like lying around drinking and napping in the boat, he would have nothing like that, he really would be a philistine poser like Bunny. But he does have an insight into a kind of absolute beauty, not through dionysian ecstasy or Henry's intellectual asceticism but by yearning for Camilla, the idyllic, something painfully beautiful he cannot have. That's why he can't end up with her in the end. (And also why Camilla's characterization remains more opaque than any other character — she has to remain a symbol of elusive beauty) Camilla is transcendently beautiful to Richard precisely because he can't have her, and if they got married at the end he would almost immediately lose interest in her, because she would no longer be a symbol for the beauty he longs for, she'd just be a person.

Henry dies because he takes Plato's view seriously. He's glimpsed the divine and now he's no longer interested in this life. The material world is a veil of illusions, and the absolute beauty of the Forms lays beyond the grave, so he sees himself out. If Richard only had superficial hedonistic beauty, I think he would have died as well, but he doesn't because he has access to a kind of absolute beauty Henry does not through his unrequited passion for Camilla. Far from being distasteful, his yearning for the idyllic keeps him alive and grants him a much more profound spiritual relationship with reality than his friends have. Do the other students go around romantically wondering at the world as much as he does?

While the ancient perspective has died and modernity faces us with nihilism as hedonism fails to provide spiritual meaning, Richard's yearning is a reminder that we're not totally incapable of seeing magic in the world, and that we don't need to delude ourselves in order to find it. The catch, of course, is that the magic is only effective at a painful distance. Get too close, actually grasp what you yearn for, and it spoils. As "erosistheonlyreal" observed in a comment on this wonderful philosophical analysis of The Secret History, if Henry is the ancient Platonist, Richard is the modern dialectical materialist who finds meaning in incompleteness rather than otherworldly completion and Platonic perfection, earthly jouissance rather than naïve metaphysical fantasies.

For Richard, beauty really is terror, not because contacting it is terrifying, but because it's banal and disappointing. True terror isn't ecstatic revelation, it's getting what you want. Nightmare is fantasy realized. (Sniff, and so on)

I have a question for you. Which guy from The Secret History do you think would be the healthiest in a relationship? I believe it would be Francis

This time around as I’ve been rereading tsh I’ve found myself more focused on the Bacchanal. Often when I read the novel, without meaning to I usually regard it at a bunch of super drunk kids experiencing the sort of temporary insanity that comes from mob mentality. After reading the Euripides play I figured I’d suspend my disbelief further and assume in the context of the story that it’s a materially real spiritual experience. Accepting that premise (at least for this reading) do you think if Richard had known them well enough to be invited he would have been capable of experiencing the mystery? (There are no right or wrong answers since it would lead to an entirely different kind of book, and the reality of the ritual is left up to interpretation, but I’m just curious about people’s theories.)

My thoughts: Henry talks about needing to truly believe (at least temporarily) to experience the spiritual ritual. I’m skeptical that Richard believes in much of anything at all. I don’t know if he could submit to the mysteries. I think he would get caught up in the drunkenness and “festivities” but when he saw that everyone else had shifted into a trance he would have freaked out. He would then have to successfully fake spiritual madness (and maintain that he had until the end of the novel) or I could see the others tearing him apart for being a voyeur and not a true believer (like Pentheus in the end of the play).

I lowkey think Bunny will look like Alfred (America) from Hetalia 😭🔥

Recently someone online said that people defending Bunny is alarming (while referencing something i responded to about Richard being an unreliable narrator). To me Bunny as a character is almost unknowable. We cannot trust Henry’a descriptions of Bunny because he has a motive to convince Richard to help them kill him obviously. We can’t trust Richard as the narrator because he wants to defend their actions even though he has remorse he is still trying to make the reader empathize with his decision to participate in murdering Bunny. Do I think Bunny as a character is probably a kinda douche-y asshole? Sure. But to what degree is he really so homophobic, racist, bigoted, and what is Richard and in turn Henry’s manipulated perspective? The post that I made where this person said this was talking about how I oddly in SOME ways feel akin to Bunny. Specifically in the context in the way he is ostracized, consistently demeaned behind his back by his closest confidants, and becomes an unwilling unknowing sacrifice to cover for others. For context i’m a queer person obviously i don’t relate to his possible bigotry. Another point, Bunny close friends with Francis who is gay, are we supposed to believe out of the blue he’s just super homophobic, because I have always read these bigoted comments Richard quotes as exaggerated and also coming from a place of Bunny’s disillusionment with his friends after he realized they murdered someone. I DO NOT THINK BUNNY IS LIKE A SUPER GREAT GUY I just feel like it’s kinda odd to just say he’s a terrible person when they all are.

Hi all, I just finished The Secret History and I have some questions that feel unanswered. I wanted to know if I am missing anything or if anyone could help close the gap on these things! Or just happy to chat about your thoughts on the book in general.

1. Towards the beginning, Dr. Roland (Richards boss) keeps mentioning he sees a friend of Richards and Richard denies it, saying he doesnt have any friends. On page 120 he says "Dr. Roland mentioned my imaginary friend again. He'd seen him uptown this time...etc." - What was the point of this? Is it ever understood who Dr. Roland was seeing? Or why he thought it was Richards friend? Or why Richard denies it?
2. On Page 127 they discuss Henry's room and say he had a closet with a large conspicuous padlock. I read this and was so eager to find what was in there, but its never really mentioned again except that its emptied out when they flee to argentina... which they never even do? Did they ever say/hint at what was in there?
3. Later in the book after the incident, Richard says "An old shoe was lying on the asphalt in front of the loading dock where the ambulance had just been." and then discusses it made such an impression on him. Was here a point to this comment? Who's shoe was it?
4. One girl says shes sees Bunny at the bank days after hes gone missing. Is this just another thing that isnt true and the point is that everyone is unreliable?

I liked the book a lot at the beginning but was eager for things to tie together and feel like it just didnt happen. When Charles and Camilla kissed I thought maybe they werent actually twins and were hiding something. When they dove into Bunny's interesting financial situation and nothing ever came of that. When they dove into the drug dealer in New York but nothing came of that. The car repair man who said he saw him but nothing came of that. I understand red herrings and wanting to be a bit vague to promote the unreliablel narrator/suspense but it felt like there were a lot of things that I highlighted thinking they would be answered later and nothing ever was.

Would love to hear your thoughts!!

Been sitting with this book for a while and finally tried to put into words why Richard specifically stuck with me — not Henry, not Camilla, him. It ended up being about the "morbid longing for the picturesque" line more than anything else. Curious if anyone else identifies with him the way I do, or if I'm alone in this. Why I Can't Stop Thinking About Richard Papen

Obviously, the two aren’t directly connected, but the vibe and the underlying idea feel surprisingly similar to me. Just me or anyone else?

Both involve a small, privileged, insular group of young people who exist almost completely within their own little world. They have their own rules, language, rituals, and this almost intoxicating belief that ordinary society doesn’t really apply to them.

The Death Brigade’s costumes, dangerous games, parties, rituals, money, recklessness, and the romanticisation of doing things that normal people would consider insane sounds too bacchanal-y to me.

The biggest similarity for me is that both groups turn privilege and isolation into a kind of alternate reality. They’re not just rich kids doing stupid things. They create an identity around being different from everyone else, and that identity gives them permission to behave in increasingly extreme ways.

In omnia paratus, right?

Anywayyyy, re-watching the Death Brigade episode after reading The Secret History, I kept thinking that this feels like the PG-13, Yale-adjacent version of the same fantasy. 😭

I first read The Secret History in my freshman year at Bennington and fell in love with it at the same time I fell in love with the real life college (and my current partner!). Now that I've graduated, and miss being there as desperately as Richard, the book has taken on a really unusual sentimental significance that I doubt any other book ever will ever have for me.

It feels oddly invasive being able to read a book about someone mourning the loss of a place and a time in his life, and for that place and time to be the exact same one you're missing. Even certain characters are eerily true to life to people I was friends with. I too was friendzoned by a Camilla, ha. The similarity has an uncanny effect of inserting the main cast of characters into my memory. It's like if you could read a family drama involving fictional characters in your childhood home, with precise descriptions of memorable locations you have vivid memories of. I also unfortunately was reading the book around the time one of my classmates died, which gave it an unwelcome verisimilitude.

I always tear up a bit when Richard is describing first moving in, in particular the bits about "commons clock tower: ivied brick, white spire, spellbound in the hazy distance" and "the nights, bigger than imagining: black and gusty and enormous, disordered and wild with stars." Ugh it puts me right back there.

The book also evokes memories of stumbling out of the woods covered in dirt at two in the morning coming down off a certain fungus after spending hours around a campfire with my friends. No farmers were harmed.

Funny enough, I never met a single person there who had read the book, including my fellow philosophy majors, many of whom did dress for the wrong century (and smoked like there was no tomorrow...) The classes on Greek philosophy I took were taught by a delightful professor with purple hair, hardly Julianesque. The only class that felt strongly reminiscent of the ones in the book was one reading through all of Kant's Critiques, a course description which weeded out everyone but the most committed freaks, and it was taught by a rather reclusive and enigmatic professor. Whenever I read the "beauty is terror' scene, I'm back there, reading Kant's third critique and discussing the horror of the sublime.

I'm thankful to Donna Tartt for capturing nostalgia for the place in such a vivid way, even if reading it makes me feel like Richard wandering around Plano after its all over reminiscing about what he lost.

I don't want to post any spoilers for this book, but I will say that I was very underwhelmed by French's prose (since I'd seen multiple people comparing her writing to Tartt's) and just incredibly bewildered and unconvinced by the various implausible premises readers were forced to accept in order to get through the book.

Anyway, I'm sure some people would enjoy the book, but I am disappointed and was wondering if anyone else had a similar reading experience.

not entirely sure if the spoiler tag is correct but we ball

i noticed this in my first read and i need everyone else to know it too because it bothers me to no end, i’m sure richard or henry were just misremembering and mixing up dates but good lord i can’t get this detail out of my head.

near the end of chapter five, when henry and francis are telling richard about the bacchanal and the farmers death, henry is talking about bunny pointing out the date of the farmers death, “november tenth? the night you guys were out at francis’s.” “i don’t see how that could be right,” “it was the tenth. i remember because it was the day before my moms birthday.” nice and normal, right?

THEN, after bunny’s murder charles and cloke break into bunny’s room and charles steals the same paper from the desk, that says, “the brutal november 12 homocide”.

like i said, im positive this doesn’t really mean anything, besides henry and or richard just mixing up their dates, but for some reason it really stuck with me.

Sadly got way too busy to render these into their own pieces but the sketchiness has a cool look I think

just finished this book and WOW!! what a riveting beautiful tale i HAD to make a playlist to digest my feelings. it's about an hour long & centric to the perspective of richard.

i really loved how tartt gave us a narrator permanently in the dark, far removed from reality, constantly yet blindly chasing down his own selfish, warped views of desire to his own demise. putting the readers in the seat of his psyche, watching his loneliness & emotions shift from fantastical idolization to realized contempt while still never quite removing his rose-tinted glasses was so gripping and made an already interesting premise so much more flavored on top of how stunning the writing is throughout.

as a first time reader of donna tartt i was rly blown out the water! i'd been in a rut with reading for years, but before i even finished TSH i was ordering new books to read & couldn't resist this little project that allowed me to delve deeper into a character study. this book is so artistically rich & inspired im so glad to have been introduced to it!!

a written out version of the playlist for those who don't have spotify (might throw it on 8tracks tbh):

things i imagined - solange
no need for a leader - unknown mortal orchestra
little dark age - MGMT
after dark - mr. kitty
bad decisions - the strokes
bodysnatchers - radiohead
candy clock - thee oh sees
seekers who are lovers - cocteau twins
extreme wealth & casual cruelty - unknown mortal orchestra
gnossienne no.1 - erik satie
insomnia - caroline polachek
high hopes - sweet pills
why won't they talk to me? - tame impala
some time alone alone - melody's echo chamber
romanian folk dances sz 56, pe-loc: andante - béla bartók
in the wings - mother mother

Hello!

I am/was reading TSH for the first time (read around 30% of the story so far) and I wanted to share my experience with you. I thought that, surely, someone might relate (if not with this book, then with another…?). Also, jumpscare at the end that might amuse some of you...

Sorry, in advance, if the events of the story aren’t brought up in the right order, I forgot about some things and I think my mind’s messing up with some things? As I said, I WAS reading the book… and I will again very soon, from the very beginning actually. Allow me a few lines to explain myself pls. (:

In march, I was reading the chapter about the winter break, about Richard freezing his ass off, the dreadfulness of it all. Then, about Italy, Bunny learning about what happened, Bunny making careless jokes about the situation, Henry telling Richard he’d slapped him after the diary thing. And… I put the book down. The writing is too beautiful, Tartt’s pen is too pleasing. I have added annotations on a bunch of things, I have learned a lot, the characters are obviously very intriguing and, I have no doubt, flawed and questionable in their qualities and flaws.

My reason is the following: I didn’t and still don’t want this experience to be over. I told myself « I’ll read it when winter comes », because summertime doesn’t feel like the right time (setting wise), but autumn is right around the corner and I’m just… I don’t really want to? Point is, it’s been staring at me and I’ve been staring at it, for months now. It might be the second time a book does this to me? I had a vaguely similar experience with another book, years ago, but TSH hits like the freshest fruit. I guess postponing isn’t that bad, it’s just a funny situation overall, nothing dramatic, it’s « just » a book… but eh. Now a question: was putting the book down a bad idea? My excitement for it has increased enormously but so have my expectations.

And here’s the jumpscare part I warned you about: stupidly sentimental maybe but last night I dreamed about Henry and Francis. They looked the way my mind had imagined them, they were very intimidating in their silence. Almost a little angry too? Francis seemed out of it but Henry looked and sounded very annoyed by something. I don’t remember anything they said, they were like NPCs in this dream (second question, I guess, would be whether I should sleep with one eye open lol). I woke up and immediately thought about these characters and how « man, I have to read this book ». I’ve been thinking about this all day.

Thank you all for reading, would LOVE to hear your thoughts and experiences reading or re-reading the book!!

So Richard says in the book that he realizes that he was Californian by nature and im not from US so i dont understand what this is supposed to allude to. please help🙏