Madeline
The Secret History has the scent of late 1950s or early 1960s literature. It is a bit of an epic story of a young man looking at a tricky situation and the characters who surround this situation. It gave me Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, or Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.
Before The Secret History Starts
The book starts with the death of Bunny. The reader does not know who Bunny is or why he died. After this preface, the book is split into two, before Bunny’s death and after Bunny’s death. The after is when this book takes a turn for the worse for the group who studies Greek, but the best for the reader. The story prefaces the theme of murder and Greek.
Premise of The Secret History
Richard finds himself as a freshmen at Hampton college and ready to study. His family is not wealthy but have found a way to send him there regardless of their interest in being involved in Richard’s life. As Richard starts this journey he decides what he would really like to do is study Greek. As his curiosity grows and he is accepted into the group, he realizes this is an exclusive group of only five others.
The Characters
The five others who are studying Greek include a wealthy and prestigious group. Each of these characters play a part in the story and as part of Bunny’s best friends, are also tied to his death. Although the story is told through Richard’s lens, the meat of the story is through each of these characters. Richard starts the story as an outsider and as he gets to know each one better, their character becomes more developed.
Bunny is an excentric person and a large personality. Although his family comes from blue blood money, we quickly find that who he is is not who he shows to the world including his best friends. And the buck does not stop with him. After his death we meet his family which explains why he is the way he is.
Henry is Bunny’s roommate and the best friend Bunny has, even though their relationship was more like enemies. Henry has a reasonably decent check coming his way every month, which Bunny was more than happy to use in every way possible. After a trip to Italy, Henry had had it with Bunny.
Charles and Camila are the twins. In the beginning of the book, other than being male and female, they may as well be the same character. Their differences are few. As their character development strengthens, they are very much different people who deal with the stress and grief of Bunny’s death very differently.
Francis is a minor character is the group. He is the character who many of the details of the story come out of. He explains the bits to Richard that do not make sense coming out of any of the other character’s mouths. He is more of a tool to tell the story than a character himself.
Julian is not part of the core group of characters but sits in a just as important. He is their teacher of Greek. The reason why this group is as tight as they are and have the complications they have are due to Julian’s rules. Although he is a parental figure, when he learns about the events, he chooses to abandon the group which causes another wave in the group.
Final Thoughts
The Secret History is a story of an unusual murder tied to Greek lessons. Their personalities are bland in the beginning, but as Richard gets to know them better their character development becomes wild. This book is very much a character study centered around the murder of one of the main characters of the group, Bunny. This is a big recommendation for anyone who loves a good murder story and loves strange and unusual characters.
