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The Secret History, Donna Tartt... I thought it was about time travel

60 replies

HarperFrannie · 29/01/2018 14:19

Blush I suspect it's not though...

Richard has just joined Julian's classes and they're having terribly clever discussions about Greeks and Romans, but no time travel has occurred - I thought he'd join this secretive group only to discover they go time travelling. It's starting to dawn on me that this book isn't going to involve any time travel is it?

What an idiot. I think I've got confused with the Jodi Taylor books Grin

Anyway, I hate it so far, but everyone raves about it. Stick it out?

OP posts:
ShimmeringIce · 30/01/2018 20:10

Think I must be due another read, I can't place that quote!

Toomuchsplother · 30/01/2018 20:35

I have failed to get more that 25% of this read at least 3 times. Might give it one more go...

Room101isWhereIUsedtoLive · 30/01/2018 20:39

lastqueen that quote is one of the quotes that ended up in my book of quotes that I had when I was young and had far more free time than I do now.

EachandEveryone · 30/01/2018 20:41

Oh I hated it I only read it to impress a bloke.

Riverside2 · 30/01/2018 20:42

OP sorry this really made me lol.

I loved the book though.

catlover1987 · 30/01/2018 20:45

This book is one of my faves. I'd stick with it. Weirdly, I have tried to read another one of her books 'the little friend' about 3 times and keep giving up. Just couldn't get in to that one.

mynameisnotmichaelcaine · 31/01/2018 12:50

I love The Secret History. I've never got past the first few pages of any of her other books though.

mamamalt · 31/01/2018 12:58

Ohhhh one of my favourite books since I was much younger!! Grin definitely a bit darker than time travel though! In the words of Leonard Cohen.. you want it darker?!
It’s a brilliant book. Enjoy!

codswallopandbalderdash · 31/01/2018 21:53

It was a complete and utter waste of my life. I kept thinking it would get better. It didn't. pretentious twaddle with a completely predicable plot. Grr. This thread has brought back bad memories

Hassled · 31/01/2018 21:58

I adore the Secret History. Richard isn't a particularly likeable, or even reliable, narrator though, is he? I think that's why some people struggle with it.

And then The Goldfinch is even better. That's my Desert Island book, right there.

giddyupnow · 01/02/2018 11:40

This is such a funny thread, it is one of my favourite books evaaaaa and I have read it at least five times! I also made my husband go and tour Bennington and am obsessed with her in general. It literally grabbed me from the first sentence / paragraph / page and I consider it almost a perfect book. I love how it is sort of so audacious in its unashamed pretentiousness! She’s just like, fuck you guys, I’m 25 and if I want to write about high culture and a bunch of knobbish students, I will, and earn millions doing it.

I hasten to add I love lots of commercial fiction, it’s not the snob factor that appeals, but isn’t it so funny about books how what for one person is completely spell-binding for the next is just utter bilge? I remember wanting to throw Kate Mosse’s Labyrinth across the room.

giddyupnow · 01/02/2018 11:40

hassled, I’m not sure if the goldfinch is better for me, but that whole Vegas sequence is one of the most memorable and haunting I’ve ever read.

BusterTheBulldog · 01/02/2018 11:41

One of my favs too! Though not read for a while... may give an audio book a go now I think about it?!

Fournickate · 01/02/2018 11:42
Grin

I also thought it was about time travel. I read it. It wasn't about time travel. I even scoured the internet to see if I'd missed some subtle plot where it actually was about time travel but I'd been too thick to recognise that.

Nope, it wasn't.

It was still a very good book. But, not about time travel.

SatsukiKusakabe · 01/02/2018 11:47

giddyup that Vegas sequence was one of the dullest things I’ve ever read, it would have gone across the room if it hadn’t been on Kindle. Then again perhaps I was just disappointed it wasn’t about birdwatching...

ScribblyGum · 01/02/2018 11:58

I think The Secret History has one of the best descriptions of feeling very cold I have ever read. It’s the first thing I think of when anyone mentions that book, Richard being very cold in his crappy loft.

I'm with you giddyup I loved the Vegas section in The Goldfinch, and the leaving Vegas on the bus bit, dear Lord, I had the sweaty armpits of tension.

ladyvimes · 01/02/2018 12:01

I literally just read it after wanting to read it for ages. I hated it! It’s so slow!!

SatsukiKusakabe · 01/02/2018 12:06

It is so weird how things affect different people differently, the bus bit was when I nearly gave up because I didn’t care any more! I quite liked it overall, that all being said Smile

PrivateParkin · 01/02/2018 12:12

One of my favourite books of all time - I read it in the 90s also. I've never re-read it - I think the suspense she creates is amazing and that's the strength of the book, IMHO - but you could never recreate that feeling during a re-read. However, if you've not been grabbed by it so far I'd probably ditch it - life's too short!

YogaDrone · 01/02/2018 12:15

I loved this book - one of my top 10. I wasn't disappointed by the lack of time travel, but that's probably because I didn't expect any Grin . Although I may now have to read it again on the pretext of looking for where the time travel theme should have been included Wink

I loved The Goldfinch too but not as much as The Secret History.

I may be able to finally persuade DP to read it if I tell him it involves time travel! He loves Margaret Atwood because I sold him on the sci-fi themes of Oryx & Crake. He read it, loved it and now he's read almost all of them.

HappytoLurk · 01/02/2018 12:20

I read this recently after reading rave reviews on here. I regularly wondered if I was reading the same book as everyone else. I found it slow going, tedious, pretentious and it was a relief to get to the end!
I didn't care about any of the characters, what they had done. I expected the professor to be somehow involved and that there would be a twist - yawn.
I read A LOT of books and very happy to pay for them. Biggest waste of £7 in a long time!

giddyupnow · 01/02/2018 12:53

satsuki that’s exactly what I mean about how odd reading is, I can totally get why people don’t like her (I think), but that Vegas bit is one of the only bits I have read in years that put me into that weird trance-like state where I couldn’t have cared less about what happened to anyone in real world and was all shivery with tension. Why does different writing affect different people in different ways so dramatically?! It’s so weird.

giddyupnow · 01/02/2018 12:57

Haha, and I’m also always all ‘omg, such perfect, suspenseful plotting and delivery with secret history, how could any writer ever follow her’ and it is tickling me greatly that others at same point were like ‘yawn, god, when will it END, oh and she should’ve totally put in the time travel and Julian should’ve done it.’

In my stalking of DT I’m sure I read that there was a lot more of Julian in the original draft - maybe she just took out a chunk where he shot them all and then jumped in a capsule and whisked off to Ancient Greece. #alternateendings

Mammysin · 01/02/2018 12:57

I adore this book - but then I can't deal with time travel! 😊😁

PrivateParkin · 01/02/2018 13:19

giddyupnow lol at your alternate ending Grin