R.I.P. Challenge

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

[amazon_image id=”0062073486″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft” ]And Then There Were None[/amazon_image]I had to give up on Neil Gaiman’s [amazon_link id=”0060557818″ target=”_blank” ]Neverwhere[/amazon_link]. I gave it longer than I typically would, but I kept finding excuses not to read it. For whatever reason, it just wasn’t doing it for me, and I love him as a writer. I am typically unable to put his books down. One of the excuses I made to put down Neverwhere was that I wanted to read Agatha Christie’s [amazon_link id=”0062073486″ target=”_blank” ]And Then There Were None[/amazon_link] after seeing the Doctor Who episode featuring Agatha Christie.

If you are not familiar with the book, it is the story of ten strangers, all lured to Indian Island under different pretenses. Once they arrive, they find their host has been delayed. They also find a nursery rhyme “Ten Little Indians” framed in their room. After their evening meal, Mr. Rogers, the butler, plays a recording, as he has been instructed to do by his employer. The recording accuses each of the ten visitors, including Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, of murder. In each case, the accused was able to wriggle out of a murder charge. One by one, the guests are murdered in a fashion that eerily resembles the disappearance of each Indian in the nursery rhyme. Each time one of them is murdered, one of the little ceramic Indians decorating the dining room table is smashed or disappears.

First, I managed to avoid spoilers for this book, so I really didn’t know how it went and thus was completely surprised. I thought I had figured out what was going on, but I was wrong. I have to give Agatha Christie respect for a tightly plotted mystery. Where the novel falls short, however, is characterization. I didn’t feel I knew any of the characters, and in the beginning, I had trouble keeping them straight. They were not distinct enough. I would have liked the opportunity to get to know them a bit better. The lack of characterization makes the characters feel more like chess pawns than human beings. I didn’t feel anything when one of them died; rather, I kept turning pages to see who would go next and how the rhyme would be interpreted in their death.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

R.I.P. Challenge

R.I.P. Challenge

R.I.P. Challenge

R.I.P. ChallengeYay! It’s time once again for my favorite reading challenge! I have participated in the R.I.P. Challenge for several years. The idea is to choose your particular peril—details are in this post on Carl’s site—and just have fun reading. Carl also provides a linkup for reviews.

You can read whatever you like as long it fits your definition of creepy, spooky, gothic, scary, etc. The challenge runs from September 1 to October 31. I am a little late in starting it this year. I am not really sure what I’m going to read, but here are some choices:

[amazon_image id=”1435291204″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Mr. Timothy[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1402217099″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]My Cousin Rachel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0895875764″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Ghost Riders[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0312388861″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Rosewood Casket: A Ballad Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0451184726″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]She Walks These Hills[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0099541394″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]A Dead Man In Deptford[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1616201932″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]When She Woke: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0385521073″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Ghostwalk[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1416550550″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Forgotten Garden: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”1451683030″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Map of Time: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0061120057″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Little, Big[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0060557818″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Neverwhere: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”076793122X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Dracula in Love[/amazon_image]

If you have read any of these books, let me know what you thought of it/them. I am trying to make up my mind.

 

R.I.P. Challenge VII

R.I.P. Recap

I did not complete the R.I.P. Challenge this year. It’s absolutely my favorite challenge of the year, but I only managed to read one book that could be considered part of the challenge, and it wasn’t even one of the books I planned to count. By the way, I did make a soap inspired by Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season. I call it Vanilla Sugar Cane. Its ingredients are olive oil, water, coconut oil, palm oil, sodium hydroxide, sweet almond oil, cocoa butter, and castor oil, along with a vanilla sugar fragrance that is an exact duplicate of Bath & Body Works’ Warm Vanilla Sugar fragrance—one of my favorites. I can’t wait until this soap is ready.

I did not manage to finish Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, and I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m giving up on it because it just didn’t do anything for me. I don’t know what’s wrong with me because it has all the elements I usually like in books: a creepy carnival visiting a small town in the fall; lots of imagery; a story that can be read on multiple levels. I think ultimately, I don’t care much for the characters. I have seen the movie (many years ago), and I liked it, so I can’t explain why the book is just not appealing to me. I find it is not difficult to put down, and I keep looking at it, thinking I should pick it up. At this point, I’ve maxed out my library renewals, and I just don’t have a desire to try to finish it. I feel like I’m giving the book the old, “It’s not you, it’s me,” speech. But I really feel like it is me. People love this book. I did make a soap inspired by Mr. Crosetti’s cotton candy. It was pink and cotton-candy scented. However, as the soap cured, it turned a deeper shade closer to purple. My feeling is it now looks like appropriately dark and twisted cotton candy, and Mr. Dark would approve. I will probably just gift it to the kids in my family for Christmas.

I enjoyed the challenge I set for myself of thinking of an appropriate soap inspired by the books I read for this challenge. I am not sure I’d want to do it for every challenge or every book, but it was fun, and just like the books, I was really pleased with how the Vanilla Sugar Cane Soap came out from the very start, and as it cures, it is shaping up into a very nice soap, just like the book. On the other hand, I was initially pleased with the Cotton Candy Soap, and over time, I found my enthusiasm cooled as the soap changed a funny color, which mirrors my feelings for the book on which I based it.

This year is shaping up to be a bad reading year for me all the way around. I am already feeling a pull to re-read [amazon asin=0143105434&text=Wuthering Heights]. I recognize the signs: I start Googling things related to the book and looking for film versions on Netflix. And I don’t have time. I have other books I’ve committed to read. That book is a damned siren.

So how did you do with the challenge this year? How’s your reading year shaping up as we slide into the final two months?

R.I.P. Challenge VII

R.I.P. Challenge VII: It’s That Time of Year Again

R.I.P. Challenge VIIOoooh! Time for my most favorite reading challenge, the R.I.P. Reading Challenge. No other reading challenge so perfectly matches the time of year to reading selections, in my opinion. I have not been reading as much as I usually do this year. A big move, a new job. Lots of reasons. I really want to participate in this challenge, but I am not going to commit myself to a set number of books, especially because I will be taking a Harvard course pretty soon, and I’m not sure how much time I’ll have. But technically, I’m shooting for Peril the First.

I am thinking about these choices:

I also really want to read [amazon asin=0380977273&text=Something Wicked This Way Comes] by Ray Bradbury, which strikes me as both the quintessential fall book and most perfect book for this challenge ever. I’ve already read both of the group reads for the challenge, and while I really wouldn’t mind reading [amazon asin=0060530944&text=The Graveyard Book] book again, I want to read books I haven’t read yet this time. Both of the group reads are excellent and perfect for this challenge.

To make it more interesting, I’m going to create a soap recipe for each book that reminds me of some aspect or other of the book, and if the recipes turn out well, I’ll give away a bar of each, here on this blog. So stay tuned, and encourage me to read, because otherwise no soap.

I will try to read these five books, but I’m not sure if I will get to all of them. Here’s hoping! I need to get cracking, but I need to read [amazon asin=006218850X&text=The Orchardist] first as I have a deadline very soon. More on that book later. Wish me luck!

R.I.P. Check-In

Bicycle

Some time this week, I should finish my 44th book, which puts me in a good position to meet my goal of reading 50 books this year. As Halloween draws to a close, I’m happy to say I also finished the R.I.P. Challenge. I read four books: [amazon_link id=”1594744769″ target=”_blank” ]Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children[/amazon_link] by Ransom Riggs (review), [amazon_link id=”1400031702″ target=”_blank” ]The Secret History[/amazon_link] by Donna Tartt (review), [amazon_link id=”0312558171″ target=”_blank” ]The Ballad of Tom Dooley[/amazon_link] by Sharyn McCrumb (review), [amazon_link id=”0441020674″ target=”_blank” ]Those Across the River[/amazon_link] by Christopher Buehlman (review), and [amazon_link id=”0385534639″ target=”_blank” ]The Night Circus[/amazon_link] by Erin Morgenstern (review).

At this point, I plan to focus on writing my NaNoWriMo book, which isn’t to say I won’t be reading (I certainly will), but it may impact my choices somewhat. I don’t plan to pick up anything difficult, heavy, or long this month. Meanwhile, I’ve been tearing through Stephen King’s [amazon_link id=”1439156816″ target=”_blank” ]On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft[/amazon_link], which has some great common sense advice. I am feeling sort of grateful for my experience as an English teacher. At least grammar and conventions aren’t a hurdle. I loved King’s advice to pick up a copy of Warriner’s Grammar. Best grammar text series ever.

I am really excited to start writing tomorrow.

photo credit: Ian Sane

The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern

[amazon_image id=”0385534639″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]The Night Circus[/amazon_image]Erin Morgenstern’s novel [amazon_link id=”0385534639″ target=”_blank” ]The Night Circus[/amazon_link] has generated a great deal of buzz, and it isn’t hard to see why. It’s not precisely like anything I’ve read before. Celia Bowen and Marco Alisdair are rival magicians, entered into a competition by their teachers, Celia’s father Hector (also known as Prospero) and the mysterious Mr. Alexander H.—. No one, including the reader, really knows what the competition is about or what the stakes are until the end of the novel, but the venue for the competition is a magical black-and-white circus, filled with memorable characters and enchantments. The storyline is not chronological, but is instead told in a series of vignettes, out of order and from different points of view.

The imagery in the novel is vivid. Everything from the scent of caramel and taste of apple cider and chocolate popcorn to the vivid black-and-white striped tents and the colorful swatches of red in the Murray twins’ hair and the rêveurs‘ hallmark clothing is vividly described. The book is absolutely gorgeous with description, and it is in this area that Morgenstern excels. The sights, sounds, and smells of the circus pop right off the page. The book itself is a visual treat, from the gorgeous black, white, and red cover to the stripes on the end papers and even the fonts.

On the other hand, the plot was plodding in some areas, and the choice to tell the story out of order came off as gimmicky and confusing for me. In the end, the story did not satisfy nearly as much as the description and imagery. Some readers will enjoy the book in spite of this flaw (and, in fact, it has 4.17 stars on Goodreads after over 5,000 ratings as of this writing, and those readers are a notoriously picky lot). In many ways, it’s a beautiful book, and it’s gorgeously vivid. The story just didn’t hang together in the end. I found myself having no trouble putting the book down for days at a time, even during a month when I had a lot of time off work (to read!) because of school holidays. That’s always a danger sign to me. As beautiful as the imagery was, I never managed to become invested in the story’s plot.

Obviously, I am in the minority, and the book is receiving rave reviews, so please try it out and see what you think. If you can manage to snag one, Starbucks was giving out extended samples as their first book Pick of the Week, and perhaps you could try it on the Kindle and see if it will work for you. I can easily see Tim Burton doing something fantastic with it in film (and I believe film rights have been purchased, though who will direct, I haven’t heard). Johnny Depp would be an excellent Mr. Alexander H.— or Prospero or even Chandresh Lefèvre. A set designer and costumer will have  field day creating the images Morgenstern describes.

I really wanted to like this book because I have heard that it began life as a NaNoWriMo novel, which is always exciting for me to hear about since I would like to turn one of my own NaNoWriMo novels into a smashing success (so wouldn’t we all). Ultimately, however, I needed to have more investment in the storyline and characters than in the vivid descriptions, and the descriptions are the only thing that really kept me reading until the end. I kept waiting for another appearance of Herr Thiessen’s wonderful clock or the chocolate popcorn, and that, in the end, is just not enough.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman

[amazon_image id=”0441020674″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]Those Across the River[/amazon_image]Frank Nichols and his wife Dora move to Whitbrow, Georgia, to claim a home left to Frank by his aunt in Christopher Buehlman’s novel [amazon_link id=”0441020674″ target=”_blank” ]Those Across the River[/amazon_link]. Frank and Dora believe that moving to Georgia will give them a fresh start: Dora has left her husband for Frank, and Frank’s career as an academic has been destroyed by Dora’s powerful ex-husband. Frank believes he may be inspired to write the story of his great-grandfather, a harsh plantation owner who refused to liberate his slaves when the Yankee army came through and who died in a slave uprising as a result. Dora takes a job teaching school. The woods across the river near Whitbrow, however, hold a mysterious menace. Before long, Frank will find himself wishing he had heeded his aunt’s advice and sold the home rather than try to make a go of it too close to “those across the river.”

Those Across the River is a strong debut. The balance between creepy dread and outright horror is nicely struck, and that is no easy feat to accomplish. I flew through the last third or so of the book in an evening. Buehman’s pacing was deft. He lures the reader in with Whitbrow’s small-town charm and creepy atmosphere. I don’t hold with critics describing Buehlman’s prose as lyrical in the vein of Fitzgerald or Hemingway’s, but it’s a step up from your usual horror novel. It is much more a literary heir of novels like [amazon_link id=”0143106163″ target=”_blank” ]Dracula[/amazon_link] or the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.

This was a great R.I.P. read and is even set mostly in October, so grab it now so that you can more fully savor the novel with the added creepiness of reading it during the same time of year it’s set. Most of you probably can’t live near the setting like I can, and I can tell you, I did jump a little when I walked past the creepy house at the end of our street while I was finishing up a chapter of this book. This novel makes the woods seem almost as menacing and creepy as [amazon_link id=”B00001QGUM” target=”_blank” ]The Blair Witch Project[/amazon_link] before it, and I couldn’t be near trees in the dark for a long time after I saw that movie.

Rating: ★★★★½

Empty Borders

Sunday Salon—October 2, 2011

Empty Borders

The picture above is making the rounds after being posted by Reddit user Jessers25. One of the reasons I am sad that Borders is closing is that it was the closest bookstore to me, and now with no indie stores (at least none that sell new books—all used bookstores) and Barnes and Noble fairly far away, it’s extremely difficult for this reader to support brick-and-mortar bookstores.

This week I finished [amazon_link id=”0312558171″ target=”_blank” ]The Ballad of Tom Dooley[/amazon_link] by Sharyn McCrumb (review). I also thought about which books I’d like to re-read.

This weekend was a long weekend for me as I work at a Jewish high school, but I am not Jewish myself, so Rosh Hashanah became true time off for me—for my colleagues it is spent in synagogue rather than work, or at least part of it is. Saturday was cold and perfect for curling up with a cup of tea and Aunt Jane, so I dove back into [amazon_link id=”9626343613″ target=”_blank” ]Sense And Sensibility[/amazon_link] again. I listened and read along with the text with my old [amazon_link id=”0553213342″ target=”_blank” ]Bantam copy of the book[/amazon_link], which was the first copy of the book that I bought years ago and read in probably 1998 for the first time. I remember that because it was my first year teaching. I wonder if Ruben Toledo will be designing a cover for it like he did [amazon_link id=”0143105426″ target=”_blank” ]Pride and Prejudice[/amazon_link]? I just love his cover designs.

[amazon_image id=”0143105426″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Pride and Prejudice: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0143105434″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Wuthering Heights: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0143106155″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Jane Eyre: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image]

[amazon_image id=”0143105442″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Scarlet Letter: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0143106147″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Picture of Dorian Gray: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0143106163″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Dracula: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)[/amazon_image]

Did I miss any of them? Let me know in the comments.

I am also reading [amazon_link id=”0441020674″ target=”_blank” ]Those Across the River[/amazon_link] by Christopher Buehlman for the R.I.P. Challenge. Good so far, and set in my home state of Georgia. I initially suspected that the woods near the Savoyard Plantation were populated with zombies, but I understand that they are probably werewolves instead. I will find out shortly, I suppose.

Today is Matthew Pearl’s birthday! He’s one of my favorite writers. Leave him a birthday wish on Twitter or on his Facebook fan page. I can’t wait for his next book, [amazon_link id=”1400066573″ target=”_blank” ]The Technologists[/amazon_link]. I have enjoyed his previous books:

[amazon_image id=”0812978021″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Last Dickens: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”0812970128″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Poe Shadow: A Novel[/amazon_image] [amazon_image id=”034549038X” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Dante Club: A Novel[/amazon_image]

The Sunday Salon

Sharyn McCrumb with Tom Dula's fiddle

The Ballad of Tom Dooley, Sharyn McCrumb

[amazon_image id=”0312558171″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]The Ballad of Tom Dooley: A Ballad Novel[/amazon_image]Sharyn McCrumb’s latest ballad novel, [amazon_link id=”0312558171″ target=”_blank” ]The Ballad of Tom Dooley[/amazon_link], concerns perhaps the most famous of the Appalachian murder ballads, the story of how Tom Dooley, or Tom Dula as he was really known, came to be hanged for the murder of Laura Foster. Tom Dula was a ne’er-do-well Civil War veteran who was involved with Ann Foster Melton, a married woman and Laura Foster’s cousin. According to the legend, Tom led Laura to believe they were eloping, but murdered her and buried her in a shallow grave on a ridge instead. The motives for the murder have varied from Tom’s blaming Laura for giving him syphilis to avoiding marrying her because she was pregnant. However, many have doubted whether or not Tom Dula really did kill Laura Foster, particularly because he wrote a confession on the eve of his execution asserting that he alone was responsible for Laura’s death, presumably to exonerate Ann Melton, who had been arrested shortly after Tom himself and was charged in Laura’s death as well. McCrumb saw parallels between the story of Tom Dula, Ann Melton, and Laura Foster and Emily Brontë’s [amazon_link id=”0143105434″ target=”_blank” ]Wuthering Heights[/amazon_link]. When I read of this connection on McCrumb’s website, I was even more excited to read The Ballad of Tom DooleyWuthering Heights is my favorite book. And McCrumb did not disappoint me on this account.

McCrumb chooses as her two narrators Zebulon Baird Vance, who served North Carolina as governor and senator and came from the Appalachian mountains of western North Carolina himself. Following the Civil War, he was unable to hold a public office for a time and practiced law until this restriction was lifted for Confederate veterans. He was appointed to defend Tom Dula and Ann Melton pro bono. He serves as the stand-in for Mr. Lockwood, the outsider who more or less frames the beginning and end of the story, although unlike Brontë’s Lockwood, he narrates some sections in the middle of the novel. McCrumb’s Nelly Dean is Pauline Foster, a cousin of Ann Melton and Laura Foster’s, who comes to Wilkes County to be treated by a doctor for her syphilis and spreads discord. McCrumb paints her as a sociopath (Nelly isn’t that bad, though I always wonder how much she is telling the truth about Catherine and Heathcliff). Pauline narrates the bulk of the story. Her motive for causing so much destruction seems to stem from envy of Ann and a sense that she has somehow been mistreated by Ann.

Ann Melton and Tom Dula serve as McCrumb’s Catherine and Heathcliff, but no Cathy Linton, Linton Heathcliff, or Hareton Earnshaw redeem the families and set things to rights in the next generation. Ann Melton is just as narcissistic and unlikeable as Catherine Earnshaw, though Tom Dula does not come off nearly as badly as Heathcliff. McCrumb even rewrites some passages from Wuthering Heights into her novel, including the famous “I am Heathcliff” speech:

“We’re just the same, Tom and me. we come from the same place, and we’re made of the same clay. And maybe the devil spit in it before God made us, but at least we belong together, him and me.”

“It seems hard lines on your husband, you feeling like that.”

“I love them both, Pauline, but not in the same way. My love for James is like that field out there that he spends half his time plowing and sowing and weeding, and all. It will change. The crops die in the winter, or dry up in a summer drought, or the soil gives out, so that you must let it lie fallow for a time and let the weeds take it. It comes and goes, that field. But Tom … Tom is like that green mountain you can see rising there in the west, holding up the sky. It never changes. It will be the same forever.” (55-56)

This story appealed to me in the same way as Wuthering Heights appeals to me: I can’t understand it. I usually have to like the characters in a book, or I can’t really enjoy the book much. This book, however, offers no one to really root for, not even Laura Foster herself, no one to care for, and no one to sympathize with, just like Wuthering Heights. Even the setting in western North Carolina calls to mind the moors of Yorkshire in the way that both are wild places untamed by men. The cover is just gorgeous. It’s a composite of a design commissioned by the publishers and a real photograph of the area where Laura Foster died taken by McCrumb herself. McCrumb’s novel is a fine achievement built upon solid research and historical basis that still manages to read like literary fiction. The gothic elements of the murder and connection to Wuthering Heights made it a perfect read for the R.I.P. Challenge.

Sharyn McCrumb with Tom Dula's fiddle
Sharyn McCrumb with Tom Dula's fiddle

Read more about this novel at McCrumb’s website.

If you have Spotify, you can listen to the Kingston Trio’s famous rendition of “Tom Dooley.”

Rating: ★★★★★

The Secret History, Donna Tartt

[amazon_image id=”1400031702″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” class=”alignleft”]The Secret History[/amazon_image]Critic A. O. Scott has called Donna Tartt’s novel [amazon_link id=”1400031702″ target=”_blank” ]The Secret History[/amazon_link] “a murder mystery in reverse.” In the first few pages of the novel, narrated by Richard Papen, a student in a small group of classics majors taught by charismatic and myterious Julian Morrow and which includes cold, enigmatic Henry Winter, twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay, foppish (he wears a pince-nez, I kid you not) Francis Abernathy, and Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran, the reader learns that the group has evidently conspired to murder Bunny and make it look like an accident. What the reader does not know is why. Richard slowly reveals the motive for the murder, as well as the ways in which it reverberates among the members of the group.

After recounting the murder, Richard tells the story more or less chronologically. At the beginning, he transfers to Hampden College in Vermont seemingly to get as far away from his parents in Plano, California, as he can. He becomes intrigued by the classics students, and having studied Greek previously, seeks entry into their exclusive courses. Julian initially denies Richard, and Richard becomes somewhat obsessed with the classics students. One day, he helps some of them with a Greek grammar question, and he is offered a place in their exclusive course of study. Initially, he is somewhat of an outsider in the group, who go on cliquish excursions to Francis’s house in the country and are oddly close-lipped around Richard. Over time, Richard is allowed into the group’s circle of friendship and he discovers a horrible secret about a wild night in the woods near Francis’s country house.

The Secret History is an intriguing thriller. Knowing from the outset that the group will murder one of their friends did nothing to diminish the mystery: quite the reverse, in fact. Initially, the group seem like such logical intellects and scholars that one can hardly imagine what will lead to Bunny’s murder, but as the book progresses, even events that seem outlandish on the surface are rendered in such a plausible way, that the reader hardly questions. (Of course a bunch of highly intelligent classics majors, seeking to get closer to the ancient Greeks they study, would stage a bacchanal. That’s perfectly logical!) Tartt offers an interesting character study into what prompts a murder and how it affects each member of the group differently. The Secret History is as much a character study as anything else, and I think the reader will be surprised by the ending (which did not go where I thought it would, for sure).

Tartt has a gift for description, choosing for her narrator a man who describes his own fatal flaw early in the novel:

Does such a thing as “the fatal flaw,” that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs. (7)

And Richard describes everything he sees with this rapt beauty, from the run-down room with the hole in the roof in a house owned by an aging hippie where he spends his winter (and nearly dies of pneumonia) to Bunny’s descent into the ravine, windmilling and grasping for something, anything, to prevent his fall. Richard struggles to see things as they really are and renders events as he seems to wish they had occurred. He even admits this flaw near the end, as he tells the reader how he would have liked to have described an event—his description would have rendered it more romantic.

Jenny has a great review of this book (in fact, it was her review that put the book on my radar). She says,

[A]s a classics geek, I love it that this book makes Latin students seem super dangerous and dark and edgy. This is not necessarily the typical portrayal of Latin students, but it appeals to me: Watch out for us classics people. We are loose cannons and might push you off a cliff if you cross us. Or we might not. YOU JUST DO NOT KNOW.

Point taken, Jenny. I’m not sure I’ll be able to turn my back on a classics major ever again. Awesome read, Jenny. Thanks for for recommending it.

Rating: ★★★★★

This Sunday review shared as part of the Sunday Salon.

The Sunday Salon

Full disclosure: I obtained this book from PaperBackSwap.