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The Secret History

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The Secret History

By: Donna Tartt
Narrated by: Donna Tartt
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

THE BESTSELLER THAT DEFINED AN AGE

Penguin presents the audio edition of The Secret History, read by the author.

'Everything, somehow, fit together; some sly and benevolent Providence was revealing itself by degrees and I felt myself trembling on the brink of a fabulous discovery, as though any morning it was all going to come together---my future, my past, the whole of my life---and I was going to sit up in bed like a thunderbolt and say oh! oh! oh!'

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.

©1992 Donna Tartt (P)2010 Penguin Audio Crime Thrillers Friendship Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Crime Exciting Scary Suspense Mystery

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Critic reviews

"Haunting, compelling, brilliant." (The Times)

"Irresistible and seductive." (Guardian)

"Enthralling... Forceful, cerebral and impeccably controlled." (New York Times)
All stars
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The term "modern classic" is an understatement for this book.

Truly brilliant. I did the wise thing of listening to the audiobook which the writer narrated while reading the book and making notes. So many amazing quotes.

There is not much to say really apart from the fact that it was truly exceptional. It hunted me. And it will continue to do so.

My only slight criticism, and this is something very minor, is that greek was always mispronoucned by the narrator. I only know this because I'm greek and I wouldn't have understood the words she used had I not been also reading the book while listening to the narration.

Regardless of that though I am so in love with this book and the writing style. She is one of those talented author's whose grocery lists I would read with tremendous pleasure. And being greek and seeing these characters love my language and history is just so heartwarming. And all the amazing references to greek history and mythology were just amazing and fitting for the story.

Modern Classic

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I couldn't stop listening to this audiobook! If your have any doubt of reading this just do it! I got so attached to the characters not your typical happy ending but I couldn't imagine it any other way it's kind of miserable but almost in a good way?

Amazing and gripping!

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If you could sum up The Secret History in three words, what would they be?

Elegant, spellbinding, thought-provoking

Who was your favorite character and why?

Bunny. He possessed a certain naivety and self absorption that seemed to make the events inevitable. I found myself alternately frustrated and annoyed by him and then charmed by and sympathetic towards him.

Which character – as performed by Donna Tartt – was your favourite?

Bunny. His character traits seemed to lean towards the feminine and to be more in accord with a female narrator.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Definitely yes.

Any additional comments?

I found it a little disconcerting that the book was narrated from the point of view of a male character, by a female, even though it was beautifully done,

The Secret History

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overall great. However it is confusing having the combination of a female voice reading it and a male character in the role of narrator. I kept thinking of the main character as a woman and needing to correct myself.

Great novel

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Donna Tartt reads this in the first person but it's about a young man so it just doesn't fit. Decent story. Lovely style of description. Goldfinch was way better though.

Wring voice

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My favourite book, Donna Tartt's narration makes it even better. I've listened multiple times and will listeb again!

perfection

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I went back to this after having first read it years ago (and again, years ago). I wanted to see if it was as good as I remembered, particularly after finishing 'The Goldfinch' recently. My reservations about this novel are very like those that I have for her more recent novel. It is compelling, unput-downable, irritating, beautiful in places, cliched in others, over-explained, too long. Sometimes she gets things absolutely right, the description is perfect and the image captured could not be better done. Sometimes she doesn't. For me, the erratic nature of her writing could be totally avoided if her editor had reduced it. And yet, for a while I occupied the head of the characters and felt frustrated, enthralled and moved by the story. Good writing. The over-explaining comes at the end with the rather over-the-top explanation of what happened to everyone and the drawing of unnecessary conclusions. There are other moments too. At one point I thought, ah, Richard is just like Nick in 'The Great Gatsby', a passive social climber who gets absorbed into a nasty world. And then seconds later Tartt mentions Gatsby, not trusting that her reader might get there herself. And if she didn't get there, did it matter?

Brilliantly read and if you haven't yet read it/listened to it, then do.

Very mixed feelings!

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I am in some doubt as to whether this book really is a masterpiece, particularly after hearing the unabridged version. I greatly enjoyed a drastically shortened version read on the BBC, and by comparison found that the novel itself goes on for much too long, particularly after the murder has taken place. The endless details of the tawdry funeral, for example, could have been omitted to good effect. Post-murder, the novel just seems to slowly - very slowly - peter out.
The characters in the student group are not particularly well differentiated, to my mind. I had some trouble telling the difference between Francis and Charles, the only distinguishing features being that Charles is a twin and a drunk (but most of the students are in the latter class in any case). Henry is the only one who stands out as memorable, and this by dint of being, in a way, something of a caricature: the dark, old-fashioned clothing, the incessant reading of the classics, the constant references to his glasses. Bunny does, of course, stand out as being particularly obnoxious, but he's only there for half the book.
I very much liked Donna Tartt's narration, on the other hand. Since she, thank goodness, made no attempt to sound like a male (always irritating, in my opinion), I saw no disadvantage in her reading the part of the narrator Richard. Neither did I find her reading monotonous, just low-key, which again I appreciate: nothing worse than a narrator doing a 'dramatic' reading in my opinion.
The main point about Tartt's reading that I take issue with is her abominable pronunciation of both French and German (another reviewer says the same about the Greek, which I cannot judge). It was not even a question of getting individual words wrong - the whole thing was unrecognisable as French or German. This also made me wonder about Tartt's apparent erudition: is she simply very good at research, without having any deep understanding of the things she writes about? I wonder. Ten years is a very long time to write a novel, even one as long as this. Maybe a great deal of the time is indeed spent on research.
One last thing - all that smoking! This book must have the highest incidence of the word 'cigarette' ever. It was interesting that Tartt includes a public health warning (in the form of the police officer dying of lung cancer) right at the end of the book.

Bad foreign pronunciation and too much smoking

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I read this years ago when it came out. So glad I listened. Donna’s narrative is fantastic.

Brilliant

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I enjoyed this but not as good as the Gold Finch. Glad I listened to this I do not think I would have stuck with it if I was reading this.

Enjoyed it.

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