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

[HarperFrannie]

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

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

I'm so pleased to hear there's at least one other person out there who also thought this was a time travel book

giddyup and Satsuki the escape from Vegas scene was one of only two times during the period of my life when I had primary school children when I thought (to my shame) ‘They are just going to have to WAIT’ and purposefully was late for pick up as I had to keep reading to find out what happened. The other was the escape in Room.

Fictional children escaping horrid places trumps collecting my own rl children on time.

Although thinking about it I think I was more invested with the safety of the dog than that of Theo.

"I think I was more invested with the safety of the dog than that of Theo"

Oh yes, me too ScribblyGum

scribbly at fictional children trumping real ones. I have unintentionally done that a few times involving an undignified race down the road. I knew I wasn’t as invested as I should be in the story when I wasn’t even bothered about what happened to the dog! Still he got back to Hogwarts ok in the end. I loved the beginning but the Vegas bit sucked the life out of it for me. I do find what they were mainly doing in Vegas very boring as a storyline in novels/movies in general, especially involving teens so that was possibly something to do with it.

It was boring (what Theo and his odd friend whose name I have forgotten were up to) but it was that horrible menacing boredom that just kept building and building and you just knew something awful was going to happen. Gave me the absolute delicious willies. Like someone sat out in my garage playing creepy minor arpeggios on a cello.

Yes i agree that it was exactly the setting that is normally so painful and boring for the old cliched teen-scene but for me she made it some how magical, sort of suspended and eerie with as scribble says that horrible sense of something nasty coming.

I agree entirely about the haunting wonderfulness/awfulness of the Vegas section. There's just such a pervasive sense of loss in the whole book - that grief, that loss, is so authentic and perfectly conveyed. And yes, I cared about the dog.

Apparently they're making a film of The Goldfinch. It'll be a damn good director who gets the mood of the Vegas bit right.

The be strong quote is actually Homer. Which makes it even more pretentious

I adore this book. I read it when I was the protagonists' age and frankly couldn't have been more up myself if I'd tried, & I just coveted everything. Amazingly I still love it 25 years later!