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The Secret History

The Secret History

by Donna Tartt

1992

Reviews

Finished 2025/02/03
Some of my favorite passages from this book:
I think about it quite a bit, actually, that look on his face. I think about a lot of things. I think about the first time I ever saw a birch tree; about the last time I saw Julian; about the first sentence I ever learned in Greek. Χαλεπά τά καλά. Beauty is harsh.
”Are you always up this early?” I asked him. “Almost always,” he said without looking up. “It’s beautiful here, but morning light can make the most vulgar things tolerable.”
Though not nearly so spectacular, this manifestation of grief for Bunny was in many ways a similar phenomenon— an affirmation of community, a formulaic expression of homage and dread. Learn by doing is the motto of Hampden. People experienced a sense of invulnerability and well-being by attending rap sessions, outdoor flute concerts; enjoyed having an official excuse to compare nightmares or break down in public. In a certain sense it was simply play-acting but at Hampden, where creative expression was valued above all else, play-acting was itself a kind of work, and people went about their grief as seriously as small children will sometimes play quite grimly and without pleasure in make-believe offices and stores.

Quotes

"I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."
Page 4
"'Death is the mother of beauty,' said Henry. 'And what is beauty?' 'Terror,' 'Well said,' said Julian. 'Beauty is rarely soft or consolatory. Quite the contrary. Genuine beauty is always quite alarming.' I looked at Camilla, her face bright in the sun, and thought of that line from the Iliad I love so much, about Pallas Athene and the terrible eyes shining. 'And if beauty is terror,' said Julian, 'then what is desire? We think we have many desires, but in fact we have only one. What is it?' 'To live,' said Camilla. 'To live forever,' said Bunny, chin cupped in palm. The teakettle began to whistle."
Page 39
"'Are you always up this early?' I asked him. 'Almost always,' he said without looking up. 'It's beautiful here, but morning light can make the most vulgar things tolerable.'"
Page 83
"Though not nearly so spectacular, this manifestation of grief for Bunny was in many ways a similar phenomenon – an affirmation of community, a formulaic expression of homage and dread. Learn by Doing is the motto of Hampden. People experienced a sense of invulnerability and well-being by attending rap sessions, outdoor flute concerts; enjoyed having an official excuse to compare nightmares or break down in public. In a certain sense it was simply play-acting but at Hampden, where creative expression was valued above all else, play-acting was itself a kind of work, and people went about their grief as seriously as small children will sometimes play quite grimly and without pleasure in make-believe offices and stores."
Page 379
"Quite often I had heard Bunny say this Housman aloud – seriously when drunk, more mockingly when sober – so that the lines for me were set and hardened in the cadence of his voice; perhaps that is why hearing it then, in Henry's academic monotone (he was a terrible reader) there with the guttering candles and the draft shivering in the flowers and people crying all around, enkindled in me such a brief and yet so excruciating pain, like one of those weirdly scientific Japanese tortures calibrated to extract the greatest possible misery in the smallest space of time."
Page 414
"The paramedic riding in the back wasn't much older than I was; a kid, really, with bad skin and a downy little moustache. He had never seen a gunshot wound. He kept asking what it felt like? dull or sharp? an ache or burn? My head was spinning and naturally I could give him no kind of coherent answer but I remember thinking dimly that it was sort of like the first time I got drunk, or slept with a girl; not quite what one expected, really, but once it happened one realized it couldn't be any other way."
Page 543
"I think about it quite a bit, actually, that look on his face. I think about a lot of things. I think about the first time I ever saw a birch tree; about the last time I saw Julian; about the first sentence that I ever learned in Greek. Χαλεπά τά καλά. Beauty is harsh."
Page 544