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| The Secret History | 
 enlarge | Author: Donna Tartt
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd., London
Category: Book
List Price: £8.99
Buy Used: £0.01
You Save: £8.98 (100%)
New (36) from £3.59
Avg. Customer Rating:  169 reviews
Sales Rank: 3745
Media: Paperback
Pages: 640
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0140167773
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780140167771
ASIN: 0140167773
Publication Date: October 3, 2002
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Penguin Books Ltd; 1993; 1.34 x 7.76 x 5.08 Inches; Paperback; 640 Pages
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| Customer Reviews: Read 164 more reviews...
A Nice Surprise October 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Given that this book was a gift from a relative whose tastes usually tend towards chick-lit and volumes produced by the crime-fiction clone machine, it was with some degree of cynicism that I approached The Secret History.
To my surprise, I very much enjoyed it. The characters are engaging and the concepts interesting. Unusually for an author critically labelled 'erudite', the prose is the vehicle of a very genuine intelligence; and is all the more commendable for it.
Negative points: Tartt's over-use of 'Deus Ex Machina' literary devices tend toward the excessive. Whilst I recognise that the author must sometimes play God to keep the plot flowing, there is only so many times that fate can intervene before the naturalism of the writing begins to suffer. Although, in this particular case, the godhand can be partialy excused by the Grecian mythological elements that are an underlying theme throughout the book, I personally feel that Tartt is often kicking The Secret History along against its will. The book does gain a momentum of sorts about half way through, however:
My other main gripe with the book is that the second half is noticeably weaker than the first. The plot reaches its climax 318 pages in, and then tails off quite dramatically. The next 382 pages kind off simmer along interminably, always promising to boil over with excitement, but never quite managing it. The result is that the conclusion is unsatisfying, and feels like Tartt is once more using her godhand to bring the story to a jarring emergency stop, lest it trundle through the wasteland of expired plots for all eternity.
Regardless of this, The Secret History is well worth reading. It has a high re-readability value: the product of strong prose and genuinely deep characters. At 700 pages, I wouldn't recommend it for anyone overly pressed for time, and its lofty intellectual aspersions might make it a little trying for the 'a-chapter-before-bed' sort of reader. However, anyone with a little time to spare should definately read The Secret History because, when all is said and done, it is a highly enjoyable book.
 One of the worst books I have ever read! October 19, 2008
I am a Historian and was curious about this book, especially since it contained many classical Greek references, but halfway through this book I kept wondering, when is it going to get good! It was had a lot of detail but no decent plot - there was nothing compelling about this book and I felt great relief once I finished it and immediately tossed to one side - I have no idea how I managed to actually finish it, given that it was so dreadful!
 Approaching the inevitable peripeteia October 4, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Why 'peripeteia'? It's appropriate to use this term here, Aristotle's word for the turning point that makes a drama a drama, a tragedy a tragedy. All the participants are scholars of the ancient classics - as I was myself - and all, like the characters of ancient tragedy, have their fatal flaw. It's when this fatal flaw does emerge that the action of the book and its eventual conclusion become clear. It's a slow, icy read, but all the better for that. The evil genius, the most flawed and the most capable, has his victim in his sights and calculates his next moves, one by one, openly in his diary - but written in Latin. These are privileged young men, but privilege, ability, is no protection from human flaw
my special book September 9, 2008
I can put it thus: The secret history manages to read like a book many years older than it is. i was lucky enough to have read it when it was first issued and it has stayed with me in so many ways. i, too, recommend it to many, am unable to do it justice with my description, and instead leave the potential reader with the thought that to read it would be to their advantage.
Donna Tartt has written one other book since, to my knowledge. it wasn't a patch on this too be honest. that doesn't really matter for the SH will stand alone as a book of magnitude...a murder, believable characters, a lesson in greek history and, not least a bloody good way to spend a few hours.
a modern day classic, and one dear to my heart.
Wonderful August 11, 2008
This book was recommended by the staff at my local Waterstones, and short on inspiration for something to read, I picked it up. My relatively low expectations had little to do with how much I loved this book.
It is at once, gripping, beautifully written, interesting, engaging while managing that most elusive of qualities.. It's a page turner. Try putting it down, I couldn't.
The perfect book? Maybe, I certainly can't fault it. It lacks nothing.
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