Book Review 04: The Secret History.
La langue est pour les amoureux, La langue est pour moi, La langue est pour vous.
Dear Reader and Non-readers alike,
I have come to deliver a grievous news. Just 16 hours ago I finished reading the Secret History.
Love,
Subha
A book that relates is a book that matters. A book that brings joy is a book that matters. A book that plays a film in your mind is a book that matters. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is a book that matters, a book i have enjoyed through and through.
The story is about 5 friends and their Classics teacher. This is all i can give you. Oh and Murder. You’ll be told about the murder at the very beginning of the story. but you can only just follow afterwards and experience the unfolding of a story that’s rich in both literature and life. Each character is most dynamic than the next yet still equal in all of it’s dominion and beauty. To quote Julian, “Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.”
Donna Tartt takes the word beauty and entwines it with the concept of murder. A fascinating read, an intriguing world of Greek, French and English set in the gothic village of Vermont. It has always been in my bucket list to visit Vermont in autumn, the book has increased my interest to a whole new level.
Now, let’s talk about the characters. One as beautiful as the other, one as important as the other and one just as much complex than the other one who is not. the mystery behind each character is very vampirish, it’s human and not human at the same time. It’s something extremely unreal but real. I have an urge to call it Schrodinger’s characters XD but that would be well, to be honest, another world of metaphors im dying to dive into but that’s for another day. For today, all i am going to say is if you love the languages and Classics you have to read this book. It shows the face of humanity that we often overlook. Reading people by learning books is a luxury i have attained though accidentally but oh man oh man am i glad.
Truth be told, i am learning French so that i can enter another world of stories, learn the facades of human beings that they create to protect themselves. This book proved my point of learning a new language. As much as i am not interested in learning Greek, my love for French and Latin has moved into the membrane of the stories, characters and life itself. Donna Tartt, you amaze me. I can’t wait to dive into the “Goldfinch” that i am so desperately seeking to read.
Thank you for tuning in, I’ll post another excerpt of my thoughts of this book. I am not done talking about this. Not now, not ever. Ne pas de tout.
Love,
Subha.