#203 | The Secret History: Donna Tartt’s Gripping Debut Novel of Beauty, Deceit, and Tragedy

episode SUMMARY:

Douglas Vigliotti delves into the captivating world of "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt. He explores the book's mysterious and suspenseful narrative, masterful characterization, and pitch-perfect embodiment of a Greek tragedy. With insightful takeaways on the dangers of longing for elite status and the duality of beauty, this episode is a thought-provoking exploration of a literary masterpiece, challenging you to consider what your own fatal flaw might be.

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Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week I have a fantastic book to share with you. It is a literary work of fiction by Donna Tartt called “The Secret History”. It's about 550-600 pages, so it is a larger book. It was published in 1992. But before I get into any more detail about the book or the author or the big takeaways from this work and how I think that they can apply to your life, I just want to remind you that if you are a regular listener, I hope you will consider subscribing or rating or following on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on or at the bare minimum, just sharing it with a friend. Subscribing and sharing are the two best ways that you can support the show and in return, inspire more men to read.

(01:10)

Also, I did want to remind you that there is a companion newsletter to this podcast, and you could sign up for that at BooksforMen.org. And all it is is a monthly newsletter. So one email every month that rounds up all of the episodes from that month complete with full book and author information, all the best quotes, episode summaries, and newsletter-only book recommendations. It's great for people who are short on time, maybe they want to support the podcast or they like the podcast, but they don't listen to every episode. This is a great way to pick and choose what books or episodes are for you and listen to them individually. Again, if you're interested in that, you could sign up at BooksforMen.org. Now that we've got that out of the way, let's get on with the show. And today's book, as a reminder, is “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt, who is Donna Tartt?

(02:05)

She is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of three novels. This was her debut and her last one, “The Goldfinch, she won the Pulitzer for, and I believe that was in 2014. So something interesting about her career is that she has taken a decade off in between each of her three novels. So the one that I'm sharing with you today, “The Secret History”, that was in the early nineties. The second novel was in the early 2000s. And then as I just mentioned, “The Goldfinch”, the one she won the Pulitzer for was in 2014. So I guess that means if she stays on trend, we should expect a new novel from her in the near future. I want to make a quick spoiler alert only because some of the takeaways or things that I want to talk about with this work require me to talk a little bit more in detail about the plot than I normally do.

(03:08)

Granted, this is a book that came out in the 1990s, so if you haven't read it then I don't know how long you need to go without being able to spoil a lot, but it's something that I normally don't do on this podcast though. I figured I would make a little bit of a warning just in case there's somebody who really wants to read the novel and doesn't want to know what it's about at all. So this book, sort of is the landmark novel for a whole genre or sub-genre called campus novels, meaning it's just a novel that takes place at a university. A lot of these novels are dark and have a little bit of mystery, and this hits all of those categories. But the story is about a group of mostly wealthy students at a small liberal arts college in New England said to mirror Tartt's time in the eighties at a small liberal arts college.

(04:05)

These students become disillusioned with life through studies of classic Greek texts and one enigmatic professor leading to the death of one of the group's members. So the book is about the events that lead up to this murder, and it's told in the first person through the eyes of Richard Papin, who is the protagonist obviously, and he's looking back. So it's literally him telling you the story. It gives it sort of like an omniscient feel, an approach to the narration because the narrator can know things that aren't happening in sequence. It almost feels like a detective story once you get into the actual guts of the novel, which makes it land pretty squarely in the mystery category, although it's definitely not a genre mystery. It's one of those rare literary novels that is also a page-turner in a way, as more information gets released and false theories are pontificated upon or unveiled, it is suspenseful and you want to know what happens.

(05:17)

The book has this really eerie vibe to it. Everything sort of feels normal or okay for the first, I don't know, 50, 60, 70 pages or so. And then you see one of these group members kiss this enigmatic professor Henry kisses Julian on the cheek, and you're like, okay, things are about to get a little weird here. So that sort of leads me to one of the big takeaways that I want to share with you, and that is characterization to me. Tart does such a good job of characterization in this novel, especially with Bunny who is one of the group's members. He's such a memorable character in so many ways. And when you are writing a book that has so many characters, they all can tend to feel like each other, especially if they have similarities with each other in taste and preferences and things like that.

(06:15)

Or if they're all coming from a certain class, like most of these characters who stem from the upper class, you could run into a problem where everybody starts to look, feel, and sound the same. This novel is so good at defining personalities, but it raises the second point and takeaway that I want it to call to your attention. And that is the pros for me, tart lands into one of those categories of writer that is unattainable for most people. It's a can't-hit target. And I say that with full knowledge that that is rare air. I've reserved that same descriptor for Vladimir Nabokov when I talked about “Lolita” on this podcast. Although they are very different writers, the one thing that they have in common is that their writing is in that echelon of prose that is unattainable for most. This is not voice, although her voice is very unique.

(07:24)

I'm talking about just the usage of description and phrasing and actual word usage. It's just a very, very high bar, and perhaps that's why she comes with so much acclaim, deservedly, I'm not going to bog down this episode with quotes from the book, but I do have quite a few of them and it will be featured in the newsletter. So if you're interested, then I would definitely sign up for that. But the last thing that I wanted to share as a takeaway is probably the biggest takeaway that I have, and I usually like to save the best for last, I guess. To me, this is the perfect embodiment of a Greek tragedy, and there's a lot that we can learn from a Greek tragedy in our life. Greek tragedy relies very heavily on what's known as a fatal flaw, and Richard Papen, or Papen, I don't know how you pronounce it, the protagonist, his journey is definitely a journey that is tragic and he has a fatal flaw.

(08:27)

And that fatal flaw is he's lying and longing and idolizing being in this elite class of students and people when he is somebody who comes from the middle or lower class and he fakes his life to be part of this and all of that lying and fakery. One of the best examples of this is when they all go on student break, he stays back at the college because he can't go home because of family life. And while the other students are in Italy and on these extravagant breaks, he is living in this home in the dead of winter in Vermont. He doesn't have the money to actually stay in a nice place. So this place has no heat and he almost freezes to death. Actually, Henry comes back early and saves him, which only makes Richard glorify him even more and continue to lie about other things even further.

(09:33)

But the whole reason why I bring that up is just as an example of his lying in fakery. Ultimately all of that lying leads to him being complicit in this murder. So there are a bunch of ways that you could look at this. Obviously, on face value, the grass is not always greener. And so as Richard gets closer and more involved with this group of students, things get weirder, and stranger, and they start doing immoral activities and he gets wrapped up in all of this. But also he realizes that things aren't what they seem, right? So there's that lesson that's baked into the actual tragedy itself. But then there's also the macro lesson of what Greek tragedies have to offer. That is so often things in our life that may be perceived as strengths, if they're done to the extreme, they can become a weaknesses, and that weakness will be your downfall.

(10:33)

So you have to be cognizant. Now, obviously lying and fakery don't have any kind of strength elements to it, but being able to fit in and be a chameleon and ingratiate yourself with people is a strength in a lot of ways. Doing it to the degree that Richard did it well then it could be your downfall. This is exemplified in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different aspects of life. This is a common thread in many Greek tragedies, and it's a big lesson that we can learn to live perhaps a better life, a reminder to not create your own stress loops in your life because good could become bad and bad could become good. This is why when you read a lot of ancient thought, whether it be Eastern philosophy or much later, the Stoics who all have their take on the idea that there is no such thing as good and bad there just is knowing that anything in this life can become evil if viewed through a certain perspective or done to an extreme like we see in many Greek tragedies.

(11:47)

So I will wrap this up with a quote that is probably the most popular from the book, or most well-known I should say from the book, but it does correlate with the idea that I was just sharing with you. And the quote is, “Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” So this is almost verbatim what I was trying to articulate to you just moments ago. There is a duality in which you could view beauty, which to some would be considered a good quality, but as this quote reminds us, there is a whole other side of beauty. And if extrapolated upon in one's life or in a story, perhaps it could be the downfall of that individual. Alright, so I think that just about does it for the episode. I want to thank you so much for listening and remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to either subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to this on or share it with a friend or a family member.

(12:54)

Those are the two best ways to help more people find the show and inspire more men to read. As a reminder, if you want to connect with me, you can find me on Instagram @douglasvigliotti. It's the only social media that I have. And lastly, if you are interested in listening to my 2021 poem collection titled “mini heartbreaks (or, little poems about life)”, it's a mini-memoir. It's raw, it's unorthodox, it's about artistry, women writing growing up and moving forward. So you can listen to that on the podcast “Slightly Crooked: Good Stories, Told Well”, the link will be in the show notes. And as for this podcast, if you want more information, you could always visit BooksforMen.org.