I always interpreted the title to be referring to the lives of the Ancient Greeks, along with people in general, that go recorded in history, since a "secret history" would be classified as past events that occurred, but are unknown. The characters fail to understand this history, be it the history of the Greeks that originally performed the bacchanal, (who literally had a psychotic break, but described it in the same language as their poems and epics), the history of the audience members in the ancient amphitheaters whose names are now lost, the history of the people in Vermont who were connected to Bunny, be it his family or the hundreds of people looking for them, etc. The reason Julian fled was because it was his own teachings that helped foster this philosophy. His proclamations of "living forever" imply that he wants his students to transcend humanity, which is what creates their sociopathic behavior, and why Henry, his most loyal disciple, is so disconnected from the world around him. These teachings are likely what encourage the characters to indulge in their vices, for only mortals have to be concerned with the temporality of their bodies. Whether its Charles alcoholism, Francis' promiscuity, or the rampant tobacco use among the group as a whole, Julian's teachings have made them all oblivious to the human cost of their actions, be it their lives or the lives of those around them. The title serves as a warning to remember this human cost of one's actions, and to not forget that, though their history is unknown to most, the lives of the strangers, be they alive or long dead, were just as real and ephemeral as our own.
The secret history is actually a reference to a work by Procopius about the emperor Justinian. I'm not saying that your entire analysis is wrong but it is a direct classical reference.
This suddenly made the entire book click for me. I was somewhat lost directly after finishing it, but now it resonates completely. Thanks for the thorough analysis!
The thing with Henry is he thinks he's smarter than he is. Especially when Charles was explaining how awful his interrogation was with the FBI. Him playing mind games with the police and also his original idea to poison Bunny was so out of rationality. He lived in his ancient greek world and didn't acknowledge the modern which is exactly what Julian wanted them to be. I think Richard romantices these people so much we see them from rose-tinted lens of having a cool suave aura.
Same! I remember thinking in the middle of the book: “You know Bunny kinda deserves it”. It didn’t hit me until I finished the boom that this is exactly what Richard was trying to do. It’s so disturbing especially considering Bunny was the most moral out of all of them (low bar but still)
I don’t think Henry killed himself because of Julian. Sure it pushed Henry’s mental breakdown farther. However, Henry was convinced that blood can only be washed away with blood. It was foreshadowed when he made the group kill the pig and poured its blood on them to wash away the murder of the farmer. To wash away Bunny’s death it was his blood that got spilled.
Wow.. never put those two events together. I still think Julian dying played a huge role in his death but i definitely think he did it thinking it would wash away bunny’s blood
yes!! i liked the epilogue because it’s reminding you that this is REAL LIFE not a greek tragedy, these characters were irrevocably damaged by their choices and it shows.
Finishing this book left with so much emotional and mental whiplash. it’s a really good commentary on the danger of pack mentality, wanting to fit in, the animalistic psychology human beings can have and how easy it is to get pushed into doing something you never thought you’d do. It’s almost crazy how they are all able to escape the consequences of their actions with their money and privilege until karma comes back to get them.
this exactly!! i think the book does such an amazing job in showing off class privilege, you can hardly relate to the characters but somehow you become so intrigued - it truly blows me away
I don’t know, I kind of liked the epilogue. It sets the tone for the rest of there lives, living with the ghost and memory of Henry. There’s something haunting about it. It makes you want to believe Henry isn’t entirely gone he still exists somewhere but lives rent free in their minds.
I agree with you on the Julian thing! I think he plays a bigger part in everything tha we all realise, because he was really the only person who could manipulate Henry, which ultimately caused the bacchanal and Bunny's death
@@adastraia Richard lied so much to everyone (the made up past, the fact that he was poor but pretended to be rich), sometimes I wonder if everything he "told us" was also just a lie or exaggerated, but then I remind myself it was just a book (and cry haha)
@@justme-bb6lk That is such an interesting thought, and you are totally right!!! Honestly, I could totally see him holding back on facts that would portray him in a bad light.
About liking Bunny and his death: knowing he was going to die, i was reading and lowkey rooting for his death without any remorse. That is until he died. In that moment knowing he had no clue his friends wanted to murder him and he tried to hold onto his life i felt horrible and i really started to miss him. I think at that moment i also realized i too wouldn't see him again and that made me really sad. Like yeah he was awful but i think he had so much potential to be better, he was charismatic and funny and he didn't deserve to die, so then i started really mourning his death and kinda hating Henry. Especially when he told Richard the night he killed that man was the best night of his life what a psycopath! But then again i can't forget all that Bunny did so it's really a love-hate kind of feeling
I also hated Bunny in the first part but now i don’t think he actually was that horrible towards them. Pretty sure most of his bad qualities or actions were exaggerated by Richard to some way justify his murder. Bunny’s death didn’t hit me until the police said that Bunny had dirt under his nails because he desperately tried to hang onto something.
i feel a similar way, as i went from "why would they kill him? he seems so nice" to "oh yeah i get it you guys can kill him now" (i think it's valid to mention that i didn't empathize very much with any of them atp and even now i just care for like 3 of them) and then "oh my god this boy has issues with his sexuality and he's so dumb and so left out and now his aLrEaDy MuRdeRoUs friends are gonna kill him" the letter was my last straw, i was sold. as much as i DESPISE him, he's my second favorite character
Yessss I believe 100% that it was the mountain lion that killed the farmer, because that just makes it all the more tragic! That they killed Bunny and ruined their lives actually for nothing, and isn't that just so Greek or what?
It really is so Greek lol! And also, remember how (it was either Charles of Francis quite remember because it has been a minute since I read the book) but one of them had bite marks on them that were too large to be human bite marks. So it makes sense that there may have been animals trying to attack them. Also, the farmer’s body was pretty mangled and I highly doubt they would have managed to do that, especially since Camilla only had blood in her hair.
Oh shit.. the part when u said that the farmer' death might not be caused by the group is so interesting. What an irony and an atrophy.. just for a feeling of instant gratification...
Absolutely loved this analysis! Just like when you made this video, I also finished reading "The Secret History" yesterday. Your observation of Bunny's homophobic remarks being about himself is literally exactly what I was thinking! I particularly found your interpretation of the epilogue fascinating; how shocking is it to see that these exceptional students are now living mundane lives full of sorrow, and the quote-on-quote "nobody" students such as Cloke and Marion are prosperous? It just shows that mediocrity thrives in this world, and excellence is so rare and suppressed by society. And when a brilliant person makes a huge mistake, it can plunge them into darkness.
I was never on the East Coast much or in elite schools. But did have many wealthy friends at University of Arizona. One friend was actually from the McCarthy family. A couple times I went back to California with him for the Holidays. The way Donna Tartt captures rich-kid society and particularly the aloof, wealthy parents is so accurate it is mind blowing. I could say 100 different things about how good this book is but I'll just pick one. The night where Richard takes the demerol painkiller and goes to a party in a daze is one of the most beautiful depictions of youth and excess and being high and carefree in the moment. They way it's written you can literally feel his high kicking in and the softness of it. I actually took a demerol and went to a party just like in the story. We got in from the dresser of that same rich friend's mother who was on "16 kinds of dope" just like in the book. The writing intensely evokes my nostalgia and memories of youth. Sorry if this is not a fancy analysis but just my thoughts. Now I'm afraid to read the Goldfinch because I know how powerful it will be and my greatest fear is loosing my mom.
I met Donna Tartt when this book first came out. She was doing a signing in my hometown and my friends that were working in as booksellers encouraged me to come to a reading, having read an advance copy months before. I was circumspect but went anyway, my best friend telling me that the novel would remind me of ‘us’, our small group of friends since high school now starting college. He was right. I’ve read and re-read the novel eight or nine times through the years.
Totally agree about bunny. When henry came back from italy early and bunny didnt i thought the twist was going to be that something romantic happened between them & they regreted it. Even though thats not what happened i still feel like i wanted more information about that trip😂
Same here! I totally got romantic undertones from that whole trip and how jealous Bunny became when Richard became closer to Henry....I really need to know what happened on that trip!!
@@adastraia but Bunny was repulsive in many ways - very early on in the story when one could excuse his abysmal behaviour with his Southern New Money upbringing and his intellectual deficits. Henry would never have. Never.
One thing I noticed is that in the story as we know it, from Richard’s pov, bunny finds Henry’s journal and translates it from Latin. That’s what Henry tells Richard, and Henry even says he’s surprised bunny managed to translate it since he’s so bad with languages etc. but a while later Francis talks about this incident with Richard and says something like ‘…I told Henry it was a bad idea to leave the journal out for bunny to find” (I’m not sure haha I don’t have it near me). Just cool, another proof that the whole story is twisted and non objective. Thank you for this great video! I’m so thrilled to talk about this book with more people who loved it.
Babe, I’m sorry to deliver the news, but 1992-2022... *three* decades. I know. I’m just as shocked by this piece of information myself. Still in denial 💀
Thank you for covering this book for 2 reasons: 1: I’m absolutely obsessed with this book 2: It launched your video into my recommended so now I can watch your other videos-
this was such a cool video, i love this book so much. im so glad richard was an unreliable narrator as we get to interpret the characters and what really happened in the novel. Also your hair is so perfect you are beautiful!
Funny how you said that characters are not relatable but in the first half of the book i related to Henry so much. His cool calm , collected oddly kind persona that didn’t really fit in,felt very familiar reminded myself just few years back. Knowing what he turned out to be, scared me deeply
I really enjoyed watching this! As far as I’m aware, there aren’t many 30 minute analysis videos on this book so it was great to watch this. I also found henry to be my favourite character (he’s just so intriguing!) so it was nice to hear you talk about your feelings about him.
With regards to a potential animal attack, the motel Richard stays at is called the Catamount. That's an old name for Cat of the Mountain, which is a cougar/mountain lion. They are suspected to be currently extinct in that area of the US. However they are extremely elusive and did range there in the past. And ripped stomachs are a trait of big cat kills. Sooo...?
I have such a bad attention span for RUclips, but the this was not only enjoyable because I love your perspective, but the pictures you used were as equally visually-informative as they were hilarious. Definitely had to subscribe.
Hello! Thank you for this analysis of the novel. I've watched some by actual Classics students but I found that yours is the most intelligent one. It was a level-headed and unpretentious analysis. Just a recommendation for future analyses, I would rather have no background music as it's very distracting to what you are saying. But other than that, I enjoyed this entire video. :) Cheers!
This is me thinking out loud, I'm not done reading it but some things bug me. A lot. The way I read this story now, I don't know if that's intentional from the author or not, is that it's a representation of the way each character's reality clashes with the others. Julian is more important than the amount of words about him seem to indicate. He's fascinated with the aesthetic of it all, the beauty of classical Greeks, shown, for example, during the search for Bunny. In fact, "he only sees the best" in it all. When he brings this group together, this is what he has in mind, but these are real people, in his class. When the less than perfect things about the Greeks (the group) start showing, such as tragedy, s*xuality, *ncest, lies, death etc, he remains completely oblivious. Other people live the consequences. Richard, as is often pointed out by people, is an unreliable narrator. He writes years later, is a bit of an outsider, through the lens of someone who desperately wants to be part of something, academia as he perceives it - mysterious, superior, and separate from the world. Which is probably why I think it sounds pretentious and fails to achieve that 'flavour'. Might also be due to the author. This aesthetic is not something that can truly be attained. Not like that. He also portraits himself as being almost completely uninvolved in the story. "I observed them and admired them and - whoop they killed two people - aren't they perfectly aesthetic ? ", kind of vibe. Even tho I'm four hundred pages in, I still feel like I know so little about how he truly interacted with people. The most realistic thing portrayed so far is when he slept with that girl, Mona. Maybe also the lies, in the beginning. He may just be the perfect wallflower- but I think he mostly just paints himself that way. I feel like for most of the book, the group kinda accepts Julian's idealistic view of the Greeks and of themselves, until it all falls apart, which is after Henry dies (i haven't gotten to that part yet). Maybe that's why it seems so off. The dissonance. If you can't separate yourself from Julian's view of the world (which Richard had accepted until then), it seems off. If you can take a step back and perhaps see it from a more neutral point of view, it seems right. I guess I'll see when I get there.
i totally agree, i think richard paints HIMSELF as a wallflower. in my opinion especially by the end of the book he was clearly close with these people, especially francis and charles, he spent so much time with those two specifically, they knew each other well. i mean francis and richard literally made out and francis called richard when he was having a panic attack. i think richard felt a little disconnected because he came into the group late but he was spending like every weekend with them in the country, they were barging into eachothers rooms and houses with out notice, he had all his meals with these people, he was IN the group, especially after bunny’s death.
I have read the book 7 times and am on my eighth reading presently. I have fallen in love with these characters. They are like my best friends I believe this is because I want to be a part of the group. I love how they look how they dress how they act What they study; in essence, I love everything about them. I believe I would even have gone along with killing bunny. I suppose that makes me a follower, doesn’t it? Being a reader, I must say I am also in love with Donna Tartt’s style. Not many writers can write as well as she can. The sentences flow beautifully, and the language is graceful. You read it and just rest on it like on a soft ocean wave. how can you not love this book?
You are such a good analyzer! you brought up points I never thought to think of! Will definitely look forward to listening to other book interpretations. Are you studying literature in college as well? you'd really be great at it.
This is the best reason for creating a RUclips channel I have come across so far. Subscribed because I have strong principles and ... this has been my favourite book for 16 years.
A very enjoyable discussion. Bravo. It's hard to say what gives a book a haunting quality, but whatever it is, this one has it in spades! Now, i have a brain teaser for all you The Secret History geeks. If the following is a sequence, what word comes next to complete it? Duck ==> Farmer ==> Boxer dog ==> Bunny ==> ???
i dont think bunny is gay, richard also says in that same section i think that to an outside eye bunny's homophobia could be projection of his own shame regarding his sexuality unto those around him but that he didnt think that it was. plus i think as you said it would be characteristic of bunny to be oblivious to his own hypocrisy
Even later but I reread it a second time. I never really hated Bunny. Being that I never believed him to be a truly a sexist, homophobic or a racist as he was trying to make the group PO’D. He was someone who was taught to use his friends as a infinite piggy bank. I don’t blame him for much. I was very much against killing him. Instead of talking to him initiating more of a dialogue they just go with Henry’s idea to kill him. I lost all faith in the group at that moment, each and everyone of them was a walking malignant tumor that go only worse by time went on, Richard included. A stupendous book but I was kind of disappointed in the end. I uh, wanted their ends to be brutal. A sense of “divine justice,” as they all forgot one of the main lessons of Greek philosophy…humility.
Hola, que tal?, como van?, Los mejores y más cordiales Saludos desde puente piedra, lima, Perú, ojalá que puedas venir en algún momento a mi país y que disfrutes mucho de todo por aquí, con la familia y los amigos; felicidades por tus vídeos..
Poor Bun, he was a product of his upbringing - and could have been redeemed. He didn’t kill or help kill anyone. His parents betrayed him and so did his friends. 😢
I always interpreted the title to be referring to the lives of the Ancient Greeks, along with people in general, that go recorded in history, since a "secret history" would be classified as past events that occurred, but are unknown. The characters fail to understand this history, be it the history of the Greeks that originally performed the bacchanal, (who literally had a psychotic break, but described it in the same language as their poems and epics), the history of the audience members in the ancient amphitheaters whose names are now lost, the history of the people in Vermont who were connected to Bunny, be it his family or the hundreds of people looking for them, etc.
The reason Julian fled was because it was his own teachings that helped foster this philosophy. His proclamations of "living forever" imply that he wants his students to transcend humanity, which is what creates their sociopathic behavior, and why Henry, his most loyal disciple, is so disconnected from the world around him. These teachings are likely what encourage the characters to indulge in their vices, for only mortals have to be concerned with the temporality of their bodies. Whether its Charles alcoholism, Francis' promiscuity, or the rampant tobacco use among the group as a whole, Julian's teachings have made them all oblivious to the human cost of their actions, be it their lives or the lives of those around them.
The title serves as a warning to remember this human cost of one's actions, and to not forget that, though their history is unknown to most, the lives of the strangers, be they alive or long dead, were just as real and ephemeral as our own.
i absolutely loved everything about your analysis. I hope it's okay if i pin this!
The secret history is actually a reference to a work by Procopius about the emperor Justinian. I'm not saying that your entire analysis is wrong but it is a direct classical reference.
This suddenly made the entire book click for me. I was somewhat lost directly after finishing it, but now it resonates completely. Thanks for the thorough analysis!
The thing with Henry is he thinks he's smarter than he is. Especially when Charles was explaining how awful his interrogation was with the FBI. Him playing mind games with the police and also his original idea to poison Bunny was so out of rationality. He lived in his ancient greek world and didn't acknowledge the modern which is exactly what Julian wanted them to be. I think Richard romantices these people so much we see them from rose-tinted lens of having a cool suave aura.
you‘re 100% correct!!!
I think it’s really messed up how I was rooting for this group to cover up two literal homicides. What the hell
no because me too!!!! i love how the author totally spun the narrative
But that is exactly the moral dilemma that Tartt so cleverly created. Quite ironically, the characters' moral dilemma also becomes OUR moral dilemma.
Same! I remember thinking in the middle of the book: “You know Bunny kinda deserves it”.
It didn’t hit me until I finished the boom that this is exactly what Richard was trying to do. It’s so disturbing especially considering Bunny was the most moral out of all of them (low bar but still)
real
I think there was only one homicide. The was first death was caused by a catamount.
I don’t think Henry killed himself because of Julian. Sure it pushed Henry’s mental breakdown farther. However, Henry was convinced that blood can only be washed away with blood. It was foreshadowed when he made the group kill the pig and poured its blood on them to wash away the murder of the farmer. To wash away Bunny’s death it was his blood that got spilled.
wow
Those are both theories. I would like to know from tartt what she was thinking, or if she thinks it should be clear from the book why he did it.
@@anactualcloud art is in the eye of the beholder. But I wonder what she intended too
@@lizasaakadze5411 I definitely agree that Tartt's interpretation of her own work is not authoritative.
Wow.. never put those two events together. I still think Julian dying played a huge role in his death but i definitely think he did it thinking it would wash away bunny’s blood
yes!! i liked the epilogue because it’s reminding you that this is REAL LIFE not a greek tragedy, these characters were irrevocably damaged by their choices and it shows.
Exactly!! :)
Finishing this book left with so much emotional and mental whiplash. it’s a really good commentary on the danger of pack mentality, wanting to fit in, the animalistic psychology human beings can have and how easy it is to get pushed into doing something you never thought you’d do. It’s almost crazy how they are all able to escape the consequences of their actions with their money and privilege until karma comes back to get them.
this exactly!! i think the book does such an amazing job in showing off class privilege, you can hardly relate to the characters but somehow you become so intrigued - it truly blows me away
I don’t know, I kind of liked the epilogue. It sets the tone for the rest of there lives, living with the ghost and memory of Henry. There’s something haunting about it. It makes you want to believe Henry isn’t entirely gone he still exists somewhere but lives rent free in their minds.
Henry wanted to die as a tragic hero, almost like Oedipus (destroyed by his own mistakes)
I agree with you on the Julian thing! I think he plays a bigger part in everything tha we all realise, because he was really the only person who could manipulate Henry, which ultimately caused the bacchanal and Bunny's death
totally agree!! it‘s actually so interesting and i wish we could see it through henry‘s eyes!!
@@adastraia Yes! Or just anyone that isn't unreliable little Richard tbh haha
@@adastraia Richard lied so much to everyone (the made up past, the fact that he was poor but pretended to be rich), sometimes I wonder if everything he "told us" was also just a lie or exaggerated, but then I remind myself it was just a book (and cry haha)
@@justme-bb6lk That is such an interesting thought, and you are totally right!!! Honestly, I could totally see him holding back on facts that would portray him in a bad light.
@@adastraia yes exactly!!
About liking Bunny and his death: knowing he was going to die, i was reading and lowkey rooting for his death without any remorse. That is until he died. In that moment knowing he had no clue his friends wanted to murder him and he tried to hold onto his life i felt horrible and i really started to miss him. I think at that moment i also realized i too wouldn't see him again and that made me really sad. Like yeah he was awful but i think he had so much potential to be better, he was charismatic and funny and he didn't deserve to die, so then i started really mourning his death and kinda hating Henry. Especially when he told Richard the night he killed that man was the best night of his life what a psycopath! But then again i can't forget all that Bunny did so it's really a love-hate kind of feeling
I felt the same
I also hated Bunny in the first part but now i don’t think he actually was that horrible towards them. Pretty sure most of his bad qualities or actions were exaggerated by Richard to some way justify his murder.
Bunny’s death didn’t hit me until
the police said that Bunny had dirt under his nails because he desperately tried to hang onto something.
@@lizasaakadze5411 omg yes the dirt thing was heartbreaking
i feel a similar way, as i went from "why would they kill him? he seems so nice" to "oh yeah i get it you guys can kill him now" (i think it's valid to mention that i didn't empathize very much with any of them atp and even now i just care for like 3 of them) and then "oh my god this boy has issues with his sexuality and he's so dumb and so left out and now his aLrEaDy MuRdeRoUs friends are gonna kill him"
the letter was my last straw, i was sold. as much as i DESPISE him, he's my second favorite character
@@nix2739 he's my favorite too! Like for me he's number 1. I hate him with all my heart like i would punch him in the face and i still adore him
Yessss I believe 100% that it was the mountain lion that killed the farmer, because that just makes it all the more tragic! That they killed Bunny and ruined their lives actually for nothing, and isn't that just so Greek or what?
It really is so Greek lol! And also, remember how (it was either Charles of Francis quite remember because it has been a minute since I read the book) but one of them had bite marks on them that were too large to be human bite marks. So it makes sense that there may have been animals trying to attack them. Also, the farmer’s body was pretty mangled and I highly doubt they would have managed to do that, especially since Camilla only had blood in her hair.
Oh shit.. the part when u said that the farmer' death might not be caused by the group is so interesting. What an irony and an atrophy.. just for a feeling of instant gratification...
exactly, truly it would fit the theme of the novel beautifully
Absolutely loved this analysis! Just like when you made this video, I also finished reading "The Secret History" yesterday. Your observation of Bunny's homophobic remarks being about himself is literally exactly what I was thinking! I particularly found your interpretation of the epilogue fascinating; how shocking is it to see that these exceptional students are now living mundane lives full of sorrow, and the quote-on-quote "nobody" students such as Cloke and Marion are prosperous? It just shows that mediocrity thrives in this world, and excellence is so rare and suppressed by society. And when a brilliant person makes a huge mistake, it can plunge them into darkness.
I was never on the East Coast much or in elite schools. But did have many wealthy friends at University of Arizona. One friend was actually from the McCarthy family. A couple times I went back to California with him for the Holidays. The way Donna Tartt captures rich-kid society and particularly the aloof, wealthy parents is so accurate it is mind blowing. I could say 100 different things about how good this book is but I'll just pick one. The night where Richard takes the demerol painkiller and goes to a party in a daze is one of the most beautiful depictions of youth and excess and being high and carefree in the moment. They way it's written you can literally feel his high kicking in and the softness of it. I actually took a demerol and went to a party just like in the story. We got in from the dresser of that same rich friend's mother who was on "16 kinds of dope" just like in the book. The writing intensely evokes my nostalgia and memories of youth. Sorry if this is not a fancy analysis but just my thoughts. Now I'm afraid to read the Goldfinch because I know how powerful it will be and my greatest fear is loosing my mom.
I met Donna Tartt when this book first came out. She was doing a signing in my hometown and my friends that were working in as booksellers encouraged me to come to a reading, having read an advance copy months before. I was circumspect but went anyway, my best friend telling me that the novel would remind me of ‘us’, our small group of friends since high school now starting college. He was right. I’ve read and re-read the novel eight or nine times through the years.
That is such an extraordinary story, thank you so much for sharing it with us!
Totally agree about bunny. When henry came back from italy early and bunny didnt i thought the twist was going to be that something romantic happened between them & they regreted it. Even though thats not what happened i still feel like i wanted more information about that trip😂
Same here! I totally got romantic undertones from that whole trip and how jealous Bunny became when Richard became closer to Henry....I really need to know what happened on that trip!!
@@adastraia but Bunny was repulsive in many ways - very early on in the story when one could excuse his abysmal behaviour with his Southern New Money upbringing and his intellectual deficits. Henry would never have. Never.
Idk Bunny was very homophobic ( it could obviously come from his insecurities but still) and Henry clearly dislikes Bunny deeply
One thing I noticed is that in the story as we know it, from Richard’s pov, bunny finds Henry’s journal and translates it from Latin. That’s what Henry tells Richard, and Henry even says he’s surprised bunny managed to translate it since he’s so bad with languages etc. but a while later Francis talks about this incident with Richard and says something like ‘…I told Henry it was a bad idea to leave the journal out for bunny to find” (I’m not sure haha I don’t have it near me).
Just cool, another proof that the whole story is twisted and non objective. Thank you for this great video! I’m so thrilled to talk about this book with more people who loved it.
Babe, I’m sorry to deliver the news, but 1992-2022... *three* decades. I know. I’m just as shocked by this piece of information myself. Still in denial 💀
oh my god you're so right :') HELP
No because this isn't the first time I've wanted some murderer to get away with a crime and start fresh
so sad this book is over i am consuming all content i possibly can to relive it
Just keep reading it over and over. That’s what I did and you will see that others have done the same you will only learn more.
Thank you for covering this book for 2 reasons:
1: I’m absolutely obsessed with this book
2: It launched your video into my recommended so now I can watch your other videos-
Ahh, I'm so glad you enjoyed it! :) Also, it makes me so happy that I showed up in your recommended!!
this was such a cool video, i love this book so much. im so glad richard was an unreliable narrator as we get to interpret the characters and what really happened in the novel. Also your hair is so perfect you are beautiful!
ahh i‘m so glad you enjoyed the video!! and i agree i‘m so glad richard was unreliable :‘) and thank you so much for the compliment
Funny how you said that characters are not relatable but in the first half of the book i related to Henry so much. His cool calm , collected oddly kind persona that didn’t really fit in,felt very familiar reminded myself just few years back.
Knowing what he turned out to be, scared me deeply
I really enjoyed watching this! As far as I’m aware, there aren’t many 30 minute analysis videos on this book so it was great to watch this. I also found henry to be my favourite character (he’s just so intriguing!) so it was nice to hear you talk about your feelings about him.
thank you so much - i‘m so glad you enjoyed the video!! and yes henry is just….well… HENRY!!
With regards to a potential animal attack, the motel Richard stays at is called the Catamount. That's an old name for Cat of the Mountain, which is a cougar/mountain lion. They are suspected to be currently extinct in that area of the US. However they are extremely elusive and did range there in the past. And ripped stomachs are a trait of big cat kills.
Sooo...?
god i love this book and the way you talk abt it is even more amazing!!
I have such a bad attention span for RUclips, but the this was not only enjoyable because I love your perspective, but the pictures you used were as equally visually-informative as they were hilarious. Definitely had to subscribe.
what a lovely comment! you just made my day thank you!!
Yes what you said about the epilogue!! True!!!
glad you agree!!! :D
love that you made a whole section about sexuality haha
haha i had to lmao😭😭
How come you have only 526 subscribers when you have such an aptitude for literary analysis? I really enjoyed it. Thank you!
oh my, you're too lovely. thank you so much for the compliment and for watching my video!
Hello! Thank you for this analysis of the novel. I've watched some by actual Classics students but I found that yours is the most intelligent one. It was a level-headed and unpretentious analysis. Just a recommendation for future analyses, I would rather have no background music as it's very distracting to what you are saying. But other than that, I enjoyed this entire video. :) Cheers!
Thank you so much, what a lovely comment! I truly appreciate the feedback and will definitely lower the volume in my future videos :)
This is me thinking out loud, I'm not done reading it but some things bug me. A lot.
The way I read this story now, I don't know if that's intentional from the author or not, is that it's a representation of the way each character's reality clashes with the others. Julian is more important than the amount of words about him seem to indicate. He's fascinated with the aesthetic of it all, the beauty of classical Greeks, shown, for example, during the search for Bunny. In fact, "he only sees the best" in it all. When he brings this group together, this is what he has in mind, but these are real people, in his class. When the less than perfect things about the Greeks (the group) start showing, such as tragedy, s*xuality, *ncest, lies, death etc, he remains completely oblivious. Other people live the consequences.
Richard, as is often pointed out by people, is an unreliable narrator. He writes years later, is a bit of an outsider, through the lens of someone who desperately wants to be part of something, academia as he perceives it - mysterious, superior, and separate from the world. Which is probably why I think it sounds pretentious and fails to achieve that 'flavour'. Might also be due to the author. This aesthetic is not something that can truly be attained. Not like that. He also portraits himself as being almost completely uninvolved in the story. "I observed them and admired them and - whoop they killed two people - aren't they perfectly aesthetic ? ", kind of vibe. Even tho I'm four hundred pages in, I still feel like I know so little about how he truly interacted with people. The most realistic thing portrayed so far is when he slept with that girl, Mona. Maybe also the lies, in the beginning. He may just be the perfect wallflower- but I think he mostly just paints himself that way.
I feel like for most of the book, the group kinda accepts Julian's idealistic view of the Greeks and of themselves, until it all falls apart, which is after Henry dies (i haven't gotten to that part yet). Maybe that's why it seems so off. The dissonance. If you can't separate yourself from Julian's view of the world (which Richard had accepted until then), it seems off. If you can take a step back and perhaps see it from a more neutral point of view, it seems right. I guess I'll see when I get there.
i totally agree, i think richard paints HIMSELF as a wallflower. in my opinion especially by the end of the book he was clearly close with these people, especially francis and charles, he spent so much time with those two specifically, they knew each other well. i mean francis and richard literally made out and francis called richard when he was having a panic attack. i think richard felt a little disconnected because he came into the group late but he was spending like every weekend with them in the country, they were barging into eachothers rooms and houses with out notice, he had all his meals with these people, he was IN the group, especially after bunny’s death.
i love your analysis so much and the whole atmosphere of the video!! the video feels like i’m sitting with the friend and we discuss the book :)
what a lovely thing to say, I'm so glad you enjoyed my video!
Thank you so much. Have just finished reading the book and your video was right in time for me
I forgot to add that I enjoyed your analysis and thought you did a good job. I enjoyed it very much.
I have read the book 7 times and am on my eighth reading presently. I have fallen in love with these characters. They are like my best friends I believe this is because I want to be a part of the group. I love how they look how they dress how they act What they study; in essence, I love everything about them. I believe I would even have gone along with killing bunny. I suppose that makes me a follower, doesn’t it? Being a reader, I must say I am also in love with Donna Tartt’s style. Not many writers can write as well as she can. The sentences flow beautifully, and the language is graceful. You read it and just rest on it like on a soft ocean wave. how can you not love this book?
i just found your youtube n i absolutely love ur aesthetic! video structure and the thumbnails!! i just bought the secret history too!!
ahhh thank you so much i‘m glad you do!! thank you for checking out my channel!!
Well-said! A true representation of detachment
thank you :)
You are such a good analyzer! you brought up points I never thought to think of! Will definitely look forward to listening to other book interpretations. Are you studying literature in college as well? you'd really be great at it.
Hey there, thank you so much for your lovely comment!
@@adastraia wishing you all the best in your studies and youtube ❤
I need more dark academia review books
Ahh, I promise I'll do more in the future :D
the epilogue is a *snap back to reality*, if you will
This is the best reason for creating a RUclips channel I have come across so far. Subscribed because I have strong principles and ... this has been my favourite book for 16 years.
Ahh, thank you so much! :) And that's absolutely fascinating, it truly is such an amazing book.
so glad this video came into my recommended! can’t wait to watch ur other couple of videos - seems like we have very similar taste hahahah!!!
awww i'm so glad! :') this makes me so happy
I'm subscribing, I love how you discuss novels
thank you so much :)
@@adastraia btw there is another novel, a little similar to secret history. It's called the likeness by Tana French. Y might like it~
A very enjoyable discussion. Bravo. It's hard to say what gives a book a haunting quality, but whatever it is, this one has it in spades!
Now, i have a brain teaser for all you The Secret History geeks. If the following is a sequence, what word comes next to complete it?
Duck ==> Farmer ==> Boxer dog ==> Bunny ==> ???
Self ?
@@kl82973 To you the glory!
I will subcribe! I loved hoş neuanced your review is!
thank you so much :)
Also I really love your hair :))
aww thank you!! :)
i dont think bunny is gay, richard also says in that same section i think that to an outside eye bunny's homophobia could be projection of his own shame regarding his sexuality unto those around him but that he didnt think that it was. plus i think as you said it would be characteristic of bunny to be oblivious to his own hypocrisy
“how can this still be people’s favourite after two decades?” because two decades ago i was seven. 😭
Even later but I reread it a second time.
I never really hated Bunny. Being that I never believed him to be a truly a sexist, homophobic or a racist as he was trying to make the group PO’D.
He was someone who was taught to use his friends as a infinite piggy bank. I don’t blame him for much. I was very much against killing him. Instead of talking to him initiating more of a dialogue they just go with Henry’s idea to kill him. I lost all faith in the group at that moment, each and everyone of them was a walking malignant tumor that go only worse by time went on, Richard included.
A stupendous book but I was kind of disappointed in the end. I uh, wanted their ends to be brutal. A sense of “divine justice,” as they all forgot one of the main lessons of Greek philosophy…humility.
ahhhh I loved this so much!
ahhh thank you
8:39 at that point... She said it all!
Amazing video
21:49 i was drinking water and had to refrain from spitting it out so i literally started choking😭😭😭😭
Fell in love with Camilla.
Can anyone tell me what henry meant by the term "a redistribution of matter" i dont really understand?
great video and interesting discussion
thank you thank you, glad you enjoyed it!
Hola, que tal?,
como van?, Los mejores y más cordiales Saludos desde puente piedra, lima, Perú, ojalá que puedas venir en algún momento a mi país y que disfrutes mucho de todo por aquí, con la familia y los amigos;
felicidades por tus vídeos..
Poor Bun, he was a product of his upbringing - and could have been redeemed. He didn’t kill or help kill anyone. His parents betrayed him and so did his friends. 😢
awwww bestie 🥺🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
:')
10:20 I thought he asked that in latin?
Greetings from libya
greetings back :)
Heyy! Have u read if we were villians? If you have pls drop some reviews??!!
Your video triggered me. I demand an apology!