Book report 15 By A. Bae Hel
The Secret History
Donna Tratt
A delicious dark academia novel, and certainly not a decent into evil. A group of students at a small Vermont college studying the classics, primarily it seems, ancient Greek language and culture.
And in that ancient culture the allure of the Dionysian mysteries dances them to bell that cannot be unrung.
The narrator, Richard, one of the students, a self admitted liar, tells us of his time at this college and his friendship with a group of other students studying classics. Taking place at some vague point in-between cell phones and disco with cultural references suggesting 1980s or 1990s the modern-day Greek tragedy leads us through the decent into madness and destruction.
This is an intellectual book with references to ancient Greek philosophies, culture and mythologies. It IS academia, after all. It is long and at times perhaps wordy, but then the theme of the book is academia fervor, so perhaps that was intentional. The author paints the picture of love of the mentor and love of the fellow students, a deep mostly platonic love that blinded each to the hidden face of each. To me I could not see why anyone loved Bunny, he was a vile misogynistic racist with no redeeming qualities, yet the narrator keeps viewing him as something more than he was. The mentor Julian, likewise is very briefly described with no reason to love him or adore him given other than a manipulative approach to ensuring student devotion. The other students are all equally horrid to varying degrees throughout. And yet…
I loved this book – a decent with Dante, a Bacchae most certainly, and like the play, a presentation of the duality of human nature with reason over passion, yet passion erupts as it will bringing forth havoc and destruction.
