I wrote about the book before, the time as I was still reading it. I was
drawn into the story from the fist pages. This is what Donna Tartt’s books are
like. It is easy to make such a generalization as she has written only three
books and I already have read two of the three. The author promises the next book
in 10 years time, I am glad that I still have one more unread. The pleasure,
reflections and fun of reading The Little Friend are still ahead of me. I think,
I will make a break from Donna Tartt and delay the pleasure as well as balance
my reading a bit. David Copperfield, Cixi and a couple of books by Adam Phillip
are in reading right now and I am still choosing my number one of the current
books. The one I intend to read in one go.
Back to Donna Tartt… The Secret History is another elegant book, just
right for my Year of Elegance that actually has not been so elegant after all.
It is a book about being cultured and this appeals to some of the readers. It
is also about beauty of things, art, nature… And it says that unless beauty is
wed to something more meaningful is always superficial. Hmm… something to think
about. Florentine museums, churches and galleries say that adoration of God
makes art meaningful. This is fine with me. But beautiful objects one just likes
to look at and hold do not seem to be wed to anything meaningful except for
giving pleasure to the observer. Hmm…. again.
The Secret History is a multilayer story and one of the layers is Donna’s
version of Crime and Punishment. Comparing a writer to Dostoyevsky is a big if
not arrogant statement, but I am not doing it lightly. I read Crime and
Punishment many years ago and still remember the sticky, oppressive feeling the
book left me with. The feeling is still there when I think about some of the
fragments that stuck to my mind for good. The same happened to me while reading
the second part of The Secret History. I did not enjoy the reading and yet I
could not put the book away. The
unpleasant feeling is still with me. It may stay for a while, it seems.
One statement by Julian, the teacher, one of the characters of the book,
made me ponder: “ a Hindu saint being able to slay a thousand on the
battlefield and it not being a sin unless he felt remorse”. It that true in
general sense? There is a lot of remorse that the characters felt and this creates
a really Dostoyevsky’s atmosphere. It is so easy to kill and so difficult to
live. But perhaps only if one feels remorse.
The story is also about friendship. Can it be real or is it an illusion
we want to create out of desire to share some events of life with someone caring
and trustworthy? As the story develops we see that most of the situations taken
by the narrator as acts of friendship were really dictated by self interest of
his friends. Were there really friends or was it just a projected need of
Richard. The idealistic part of me cries realizing that this is often true in
life. This is a dramatic statement but formulated with tongue-in-cheek and with
acceptance of life realities.
The main character, Henry, fascinates and puzzles me. Liking him to
Mycroft Holmes? I wish I could talk to someone about complexities of his nature
and coming up with justification for his decisions and acts. Comments and
discussion on the subject would be most welcome. She hopes...
P.S. Writing about the book in my first review, I felt
that I did not give it justice. I felt it but could not put my finger on what
actually bothers me in what I had written. I published the post anyway and got
a comment from my very faithful reader and commenter saying that he will give
the book a miss. This is absolutely understandable, we like different things
and I was not hurt by it as I was not trying to convince anyone to read The Secret
History, even if I thought that the book is definitely worth while reading.
What bothered me however when I wrote about the book that it was coming across
as a very trivial story. On reflection, it is a very trivial in many ways. Like
one of those books to read fast to kill time. This is deceiving. One reads the
book fast, of course, but this is a deep, wise book, written elegantly, with
great knowledge of various aspects of art, culture and human nature. It
investigates our motives actions and ways of dealing with consequences. It is a
universal book about human conditions and issues. A great book for people who
like philosophy and psychology.
The author is likened to Dickens and I am starting to
understand why Donna Tartt’s name is often mentioned together with the great
XIX century writer. The same attention to detail, wonderful narratives, written
in the first person (like David Copperfield, I am just reading). There are, no
doubt, more similarities but I am only half way trough my first Dickens’s book. (4/1/2016)
