The Plunge (The Secret History - Donna Tartt)

Member Name: Shuyanin59

Product:	The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Date:	19/12/04 (431 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A quality Bildungsroman based on a detective plot., A young man in a disoriented, permissive and irresponsible world is its central theme., Written in good style; I did not miss out a single page.

Disadvantages: See above

This happened one summer day a year ago. I was immersed in reading a book in a half-empty subway car, when out of the corner of my eye I saw an elderly man with blood on his bearded face and shirtfront shuffle in. He was of a sturdy build, but overweight. There was not a trace on his knuckles: it was clear that he had been beaten up. I put down the book immediately as the man took a seat next to me, shoulder-to-shoulder. I was so shell-shocked and confused that I could not speak for quite a while. Finally I asked him: "May I do something for you?" He declined and thanked me for the solicitude. Facing us, there was a couple - a man and a woman in their early 30s. They were exchanging glances, whispers in each other's ear. At some point, the woman chuckled. "Take a closer look at her, - the man told me, pointing with his glance at another, less attractive, woman, who got on the train together with him, and stood now out of hearing range, - it is on people like her that the world rests upon." It turned out later that the plainer woman was a total stranger to him, too. She simply chose to behave differently. She got off with the man with the obvious intention to see him home.

"You don't feel a great deal of emotion for other people, do you?" - a murderer asks an accomplice towards the close of Donna Tartt's novel (1). He asks him to see if the accomplice's heart has become as hardened as his own. I believe it is good for everyone to put the question to oneself and try to give a sincere, truthful answer and then try and make something about it.

The Secret History illustrates very well what life in an age of moral neutrality and permissiveness is like. Evil cannot but prosper under the circumstances: the challenges it faces are few and far between. And it is true for the whole of the global village, from top to bottom.

The Secret History is the Book of the Year for me. It is one of Tartt's most obvious achievements that a reader is more than likely to perceive the story as a true-life account. The architecture of the novel has been masterfully built along the classical, time-proven lines. The narrative is coherent; there are no mind-boggling time lapses. Most of the characters look like true-life portrayals.

It was sheer luck that I came to take note of the author and her book last January when I chanced upon an interview with her in The Daily Telegraph Online. A decisive role was played by the fact that the book reportedly had made a number of American and British prominent critics reminiscent of novels by Joseph Heller, Francis S. Fitzgerald and Joseph Conrad (all of whom I admire greatly).

No less important factor was the novel's subject matter: a study into the evil. I have been doing that same study off and on, looking inside as well as outside. Almost every move we make (or they make) in our lives, to say nothing of any serious work of art worth its salt, gives us a taste of the matter. I found a wealth of noteworthy literary references in the novel (2). It was sheer luck, once more, that the book, written by an American, found its way onto the bookshelves of the Moscow office of the British Council.

Remarkably, I had to make a reservation.

The plot could be summarized as follows. Richard Pappen, the narrator, a young man and the only son of parents of moderate income, miraculously makes his way into the medicinal faculty of an exclusive Hamden College. Soon after entering, he switches faculties to join a group of five students to study Greek, Latin and Classical Ancient Literature. Each of his new colleagues has something of a fatally attractive enigma about him/ herself. And Richard comes a long and bitter way to see "the beguiling drapings" fall as both the position of the group inside the Hamden community and relations inside the group itself take a sudden turn for the worst. In fact, if I were to put the content of a 600-something pages into nine words, I would have quoted the book itself - "A bright knife of terror plunged through my heart" (3).

* * *

In conclusion, I would like to say a few words of caution, criticism and make some suggestions for further reading.

1. I would think twice before recommending the book to a teenager. I am especially concerned about possible repercussions a forthcoming Hollywood screen version will make here, in Russia. In Russia we do not have any effective barriers to bar teenagers from watching stuff like that unguided. Think of the novel in product-placement terms alone, and you will see my point (Excedrin, Nembutal and what not, all the drugs and the booze, and, to crown it all, a bloody Paul Smith shirt worth an AMERICAN student's week salary!) Tender age... I can name no other period in a man's life when you are so irresistibly inclined to thoughtlessly copy anybody and anything, but first and foremost, the bad and the evil and the negative. To this day I cannot quite free myself of a shameful memory from my boyhood, when I, together with one or two other mindless idiots, chalked my school jacket into a similarity of an SS outfit in an impulse to copy the German fascists from a war movie, to wear it every meter of my way back home.

"One likes to think there's something in it, that old platitude amor vincit omnia. But if I learned one thing in my short sad life, it is that that particular platitude is a lie. Love doesn?t conquer everything. And whoever thinks it does is a fool". (4) Are you sure that your son or daughter is mature enough not to take the words for granted?

Dr. Stuart Newton, Headteacher, Selsdon High School, Croydon, wrote: "Let us stop blaming everyone else, and face some difficult facts. Our society no longer encourages people to take responsibility for their actions, or for each other. In recent years, we have gone overboard on human rights as the key to happiness. We now have a Human Rights Act. That would be fine if we had an equally strong sense of the importance of human responsibility" (5). I side with him and hope that Donna Tartt does, too.

2. A Christian will find some excerpts in the book objectionable. In my opinion, it is not a sufficient reason in itself to put down the book. Atheism adds a somber touch to the portrayals of some characters.

3. Donna Tartt wrote a good book, more than good, perhaps, if you consider that The Secret History is a debut. But John Knowles (A Separate Peace, 1960), Robert P. Warren (All the King's Men, 1946) and Truman Capote (In Cold Blood, 1965) wrote subtler, more insightful novels. I think it will be worthwhile if you compare Tartt's novel with one of them, at least.

"Separateness is identity and the only way for God to create, truly create, man was to make him separate from God Himself, and to be separate from God is to be sinful. The creation of evil is therefore the index of God's glory and His power. That had to be so that the creation of good might be creation of man's glory and power. But by God's help. By His help and in His wisdom". (R.P. Warren, All the King's Men).

Remarks:

(1) - The Secret History, p. 556

(2) - I am grateful to the author for these, but with reservations: I draw no parallel between her and the narrator.

(3) - The Secret History, p. 560.

(4) - Ibid, p. 222.

(5) - The Times Educational Supplement (December 22, 2000), p.9. A superb essay on situation the younger generation finds itself in and on what we can do to help. The best afterword to Tartt's novel I can think of!

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Thanks for reading. I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

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