Weird mystery about book called "The Secret History"!

[badger2005]

Can anyone help me solve this mystery by checking their copy? It's so weird!

I read this cult-ish book by Donna Tartt as a 20-something year old and distinctly remember a line from it. But my son has just finished reading the book (new copy that I bought him - I've lost my old one), and when I quoted the line to him, he did not recognize it. We checked, and it's not in his book, nor in any version that we can find online! So you'd think that I dreamt this - except that it is also quoted in just one place - a single obscure essay on the book that I found online.

The line is in this part where the college students are assigned a new tutor, and when he tries to teach them something one of the students says (in perfect 'attic Greek'): "Without your patience my excellent friend, we should wallow in ignorance like pigs in a sty". Or something pretty much like that...

My son thinks that I'm misremembering - but how I can be when it also is in this obscure essay? His alternative theory is that this is Mandela syndrome and me and some random scholar are having a collective hallucination!

Also, It’s not in my audiobook version either. 2010

That's the same as mine, I've always loved it.
What a lovely keepsake of your friend 💐

Why on earth would they take that out?

This. It's not very controversial.

That is so wierd. What an odd quote to removem

In my penguin edition which is a recent reprint it isn't there. I am not a librarian but I work with a librarian. I am back in school tomorrow I am going to ask her to work on this.

Ooh this has made me want to read the book now- I thought I had read it but now I realise I’ve only read the Goldfinch and the Little Friend by Donna Tartt.

Ask her to 'work on this'? What do you mean?

It's clearly an updated edition; why exactly is unclear but no idea why you think your colleague will know.

A treat ahead of you @MoiraRoseVibes , it's her first and her best.

Agreed.

I’ve read it, wasn’t that keen. Might try again. Loved the goldfinch. One of my best books ever!

Am wondering if the OP is Jorge Luis Borges. This sounds like the premise for one of his stories.

I'm really glad they have taken it out,it will be because these days we know that pigs aren't ignorant so would be inaccurate and not make sense as everyone knows pigs aren't ignorant but extremely clever animals,so the reference would date the book.

Ask her to contact the publisher and ask
them I imagine. What else would the PP mean?

I'm not sure why that's an issue though? It's clearly set in the pre-digital era. If publishers took this approach everywhere (removing lines that would date a book) then pretty much everything ever written would need to be regularly overhauled!

Also, the metaphor still works because it's just that, it's not a factual statement about the intelligence or otherwise of pigs.

I googled and found someone else noticing a different missing sentence:

https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/16zsr41/missing_sentences_in_later_editions/

Looks like it was tweaked at some point.

I imagine Donna asked for it to be removed when she learnt that pigs arent ignorant.to leave it in is unjust to the pig species and just contributes to the lie that it's ok to eat them.perhaps she became a vegetarian at that point and wanted to rethink her writing.its inaccurate so i don't think its a mystery that it has been removed,just the same bringing a story into modern times like famous five etc etc gets upgraded to removed offence,inaccuracies etc,surely that is the norm.

I think I have the same edition as you - not there in mine either.

Ask her to contact the publisher and ask them* I imagine. What else would the PP mean?*

Why does she need to ask a librarian to do that? If the PP wants to know, she can contact the publisher herself, there's no special skills needed to do so & her librarian colleague will have better things to do.

Eek, not sure what happened with bolding there - it looked ok before I posted

Edits are made to later editions all the time. Sometimes they are corrections, sometimes anachronisms. Not sure what it is on this case - it's not as if this is a book that is avoiding strong & pejorative statements!

Mine was printed in 1993 I think, I don't have the line...

I was the opposite - I loved The Secret History and was so excited when The Goldfinch was published but I just couldn’t get into it!

OP this is so bizarre and random that the line was removed - maybe email Penguin for an explanation!

The year.

PP meant that she'd have to ask someone to work out when the book was published, and she thinks a librarian can do that.

Not the missing quote. That would be above the pay grade of a librarian.

Surely something else otherwise she could contact the publisher herself, or suggest OP does.