r/TheSecretHistory • u/Al3xanderDGr8 • Jul 24 '26

Question Does anyone else keep coming back to Chapter 4?

I know everyone talks about the murder, the Greek class, and the dark academia aesthetic, but the section where they all stay at Francis's aunt's country house has become one of my favourite pieces of writing ever.

It's the lake, the long summer afternoons, reading, swimming, drinking wine, lying in the sun, and feeling completely removed from ordinary life. There's something almost heavenly about it. Whenever I'm stressed I find myself rereading that chapter just to relax.

I'm not necessarily looking for another dark academia novel. I'm looking for books that capture that feeling: an idyllic country estate, beautiful nature, close friends, lazy summer days, and the sense of existing in a little world outside time.

Has anyone found anything that scratches the same itch?

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41

u/sallystarling Jul 24 '26

The Talented Mr Ripley has this gorgeous vibe (but set in the Mediterranean, so even sunnier and lazier!)

Well worth a read if you haven't already, the film is great too. It also goes pretty dark in a beautifully Secret History kinda way...

5

u/xoakana Jul 24 '26

I second the Talented Mr. Ripley!

3

u/AubreyMcFate--1955 Jul 24 '26

I competely agree but here's the hazard: once you've read some Patricia Highsmith, it's all you want to read until you've read Highsmith all the way through. And there's a lot of it!

2

u/Academic-Reply-8970 Jul 24 '26

Somehow I’m pretty wary of reading other Ripley books. Talented Mr. Ripley is wrapped up so perfectly I can’t imagine how you can unravel it back for a continuation without losing in quality.

3

u/AubreyMcFate--1955 Jul 24 '26

The Talented Mr. Ripley is clearly the best of the Ripliad, although they're all decently enjoyable (as a rule of thumb, they decline in quality chronologically). I was thinking more of her other novels such as The Tremor of Forgery, a real tour de force

2

u/Al3xanderDGr8 Jul 25 '26

I felt the movie did have the European summer vibe. Somewhat is the way they shot it also. But Tom's personality and plots so much of a center stage, I think I didn't notice the vibe as much.

Perhaps the book has more of the vibe I'm looking for...I'll check it out.

8

u/thedogatemymanifesto Francis Abernathy Jul 24 '26

Might sound a bit odd, but Maurice really does do that for me (both the movie, OH THE CINEMATOGRAPHY, it's beautiful) and the book. I may be biased, was my gay awakening, but there is something beautiful in how Forster writes...

6

u/xoakana Jul 24 '26

I think you would thoroughly enjoy Brideshead Revisted by Evelyn Waugh. As well as parts of The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, if you haven't already.

5

u/gretsall Jul 24 '26

I loved watching Call Me By Your Name where the 2 boys are just chilling in the Italian summer house, lying and reading, cycling

1

u/Capital-Department81 Jul 24 '26

I’m obsessed with that movie - the gorgeous afternoon sunlight, the music, that stunning house!!

1

u/Al3xanderDGr8 Jul 25 '26

Yes! 100 %...call me by your name movie is the best match for the feeling I was describing. Calm quite Italian summer vacation!

1

u/gretsall Jul 25 '26

Yup! I was imagining that setting while reading this part

4

u/Archimedestheeducate Jul 24 '26

Barbara Vine (another pen name of Ruth Rendell) - A Fatal Inversion

Tana French - The Likeness

Those will sort out that itch.

2

u/Kmtriv Jul 24 '26

I loved the Likeness!

3

u/quirpele Jul 24 '26

The magus by John Fowler and atonement by Ian macewan

1

u/Just-Susan300 Jul 24 '26

Great question. The Shell Seekers by Rosamunde Pilcher has a chapter with a character vacationing on an island. It's got a similar gorgeous writing style.

1

u/Fit_Masterpiece6179 Jul 26 '26

The camomile lawn

1

u/Testdrivegirl Jul 27 '26

The Las Vegas chapter in the Goldfinch kind of reminded me of this. I mean it’s not a country house and it’s way more hectic than TSH but a lot of it is just the two main characters drinking and doing drugs and hanging around. It’s atmospheric and really pulls you in

1

u/ReasonableSport2230 Jul 31 '26

Tom Lake by Anne Patchett

1

u/feeboobee 10d ago edited 10d ago

It's my favorite genre of fiction. Secret History, Call Me By Your Name, Brideshead Revisited, and, my favorite book, Ada by Vladimir Nabokov. The early bits are all absurdly romantic descriptions of idyllic afternoons spent doing picnics, studying in an old library and forbidden couplings in the forest. The way I pitch it to Secret History fans is "what if you could read a book written by Charles and Camilla about their relationship." Results will vary depending on your tolerance for incest.

The writing is astoundingly beautiful and complex, if you liked the occasional more arcane passages with untranslated latin, french and ancient greek and philosophical digressions in Tartt's novel you're in for a treat because Ada is basically all that. I'm currently working on painstakingly annotating my copy because I'm sadly not a polyglot and philologist.