The Worst People You’ll Ever Meet – A The Secret History Reread

“The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.”

I read The Secret History by Donna Tartt in 2019. I’d read The Goldfinch in college and made it half of my personality. I started working for the studio releasing the film (I have other thoughts about that), and wondered why on earth I hadn’t read Tartt’s other work yet. So I did, and I once again became a changed person.

I felt like I had soaked up The Secret History like a sponge. I thought I remembered all the important details. I assumed I still knew deeply the lyricism of her words. I had talked about doing a reread over and over, I just had yet to dedicate the time.

Well, reader, I dedicated the time. Armed with my pencil and stickies, I dove back into a story that put me in a blender on the purée setting.

What I recalled of my first read–and the way I described it to people who had never read or heard of it–was that it was a story about an outsider who got in with the worst and most privileged kids you ever knew and murder happened. While reading the first time, I initially saw Richard as a sympathetic character, someone who loathes their simple life and longs to give it some excitement. I wanted to have a similar feeling to the other characters, too. Even Bunny. I morphed these anecdotes about them into something I could justify, and then, by the end, dislike. I wondered, with time and distance, if I’d misjudged them or misunderstood.

In some ways, I was right, and in others, I was slightly wrong. Maybe. It’s complex!!

This book, for one thing, has one of my all-time favorite opening lines (noted above). Who is Bunny? How did he die? What exactly was the gravity of the situation? Did he deserve it? Was it an accident?

I remember reading it for the first time and having this image in my head of a cold morning, whoever was involved in the “we” was driving away from the scene on a dirt road–it had already been snowy and blistering in my mind. I distinctly recall Bunny not being dead in this image, nor was he an adult. He was a child, looking after the fading car, standing in the snow. I had no context for the situation and, based on what I’d known about The Goldfinch I didn’t exactly know what to expect. This second time around, I had a better idea, and I looked at the situation a lot differently (obviously). But I’ll always think about that first mental picture.

What really struck me when I started this read was that Richard sort of is his own worst enemy. I remember seeing him as more of a bystander who got in over his head into something he didn’t really have any business being in. But he was really marked by his own self-loathing. He was an active participant in both his victimization and his villain arc. He didn’t just want to be included in the Greek students’ world, he molded himself into one of them. He romanticized them to the point that they almost became untouchable, and he thought he could be too. He lied about so much (and convinced himself he was good at it) and made himself out to be someone he could never truly embody.

Or could he? Up to you on that one, I am still going back and forth.

I felt a bit bad for Richard before, but watching him spin himself in circles changed my mind about that a bit. I suppose I still consider him in better moral standing than the others. His family, which we don’t learn more specifics about until the very end, actually is pretty shit, and I know what it feels like to feel like you don’t belong in a place that’s supposed to be your home. To feel like the mere idea of going back there suffocates and drowns you, grinds you into ash. 

Fortunately, I have a better relationship with my hometown now, but at the time of my first read, I really identified with him.

The other core aspect of this book and these characters that I sort of forgot about isn’t just the indifference about the murdering, it’s the way they saw it all like a game. So many times their actions and views were described as childlike, as if life was just an adult  version of a schoolyard playground. It comes up a few times that college and their time at Hampden is more of an obligation than a need for a degree or an opportunity for growth. They can all get by without it, thanks to money, power, and privilege. Get jobs, housing, allowances. Even when they complain or suddenly worry about the money “running out,” it’s not a real fear. They know it’ll replenish.

It’s not like over winter break when Richard, who barely has a few dollars to his name, almost dies from exposure. This certainly could be solved if he’d thrown away some of his pride, but I digress. He thought he could get by in northern Vermont, dead of winter, with barely a few blankets in a warehouse room with a hole in the roof and no bed. Henry, upon his surprise return from Italy, says that Richard could’ve asked for money. He could’ve asked any of them (save Bunny), but that would reveal that Richard is even less like the rest of them than they all allow themselves to think. It will make him stand out even more. And in a way, this could (and would) be something they’d use against him.

Besides the Classics group, Richard only has a handful of other relationships, all superficial.. He needs Henry, Bunny, Francis, Charles, and Camilla  to survive (metaphorically, sometimes literally), but they could easily drop him and move on. They’re constantly operating without him, leaving him out of things. Occasionally, it’s for the sake of “protecting him” or a lack of initial trust, but the bottom line is, they don’t need him.

Going back to Richard’s winter dilemma, quickly: despite the absolute terror that this section of the book is about, it is one of my favorites. Tartt’s lyricism is magic, but here especially, it rouses the clearest of mental images. I shivered when reading. I could feel the cold setting into my bones, the hard ground Richard was sleeping on every night, the way no blankets could keep out the chill, the utmost misery he felt. It was bleak to say the very least. Copying a passage I really love here:

“–bone-cracking cold that made my joints ache, cold so relentless I felt it in my dreams: ice floes, lost expeditions, the lights of search planes swinging over whitecaps as I floundered alone in black Arctic seas.”

Like… shit! You can just feel how desolate it is. So hopeless and dark. I have so many things like this underlined and starred and tabbed in my copy. Her writing is tangible, I feel like I can hold the words in my hands, really know them and live them. So freaking good.

Okay, sidebar over.

I found myself much more cynical about Henry this time around. I saw him as somewhat of a villain. Certainly antagonistic, and in many ways, a foil to Richard. Bunny, too. He always felt like the leader of the pack. I still think that, but I’m looking at it a little differently now.

Henry certainly has sociopathic tendencies, but it’s more than that. He doesn’t just have more grace or authority over the others in the group, they really believe him to be something greater–even if they don’t always realize it. He speaks with such calm and assurance that it’s impossible not to believe him. He’s the first person they’ll turn to because he’s the one who sounds the most relaxed about all the batshit stuff they do. He’s a soothing presence. He’s been the one to solve their minor problems: money, drinking, Greek, and so on, so why not all the big stuff too? It’s like he’s conditioned them into this unwavering trust.

Part of it may be genuine, I’m not sure where I stand on that yet. I think, to some degree, on some level, he does care about every person in the group, but not more than himself. And I do think he truly believes what he’s doing is right and just and necessary. He’s not stupid, and he’s maybe not actively manipulating everyone into being his henchpeople, but he’s certainly not going to present himself as lesser. He won’t be a scapegoat, and he won’t be caught holding the knife. He’s smart enough to know that. I think it’s partly that I am alllll over The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes right now, but he is very Coriolaneus Snow. 

Toward the end of the book, when things are really falling apart (for everyone else), there’s an exchange between Henry and Richard that I keep replaying.

“It was the most important night of my life,” he said calmly. “It enabled me to do what I’ve always wanted most.”

“Which is?”

“To live without thinking.”

They are speaking of Bunny here (as they are often), and it reminded me again of this childlike nature. The games. Children, you could say, live without thinking. They’re invincible. They’re not so jaded by life and trauma. Henry, despite not realizing it, does live his life this way. He is thinking, plotting, planning, but he’s going to follow through on those plans. He will do exactly what he wants to do, what he feels is right.

What he thinks he can do now, what he really wants, is to live with innocence. With freedom. To know that he can’t be touched by darkness.

I think maybe he always knew something like this might happen to him. He is, ultimately, kind of boring. Rich guy studying the Classics, no real responsibilities but having the expectations of responsibilities. He wanted to know that he could touch something so deep and dark and come out unscathed. And truly, I think that once he’s done it, he’s reached that “nirvana,” and he doesn’t really have anything left to accomplish. He just has a further boring life ahead of him. Diminishing returns on the high of the danger, or something like that. 

That, to me, is what leads him to…ya know…at the end.

I feel like I haven’t even cracked the surface of how I feel about this book. Sure, it is long and a bit arduous, but that’s what I love about it. Sometimes you ask yourself why a scene is important, what does it give to the narrative? On the surface, quite a few parts of this book could be thrown out in favor of a faster paced thriller. But then you lose the character study aspect. This is not a plot-driven novel, and cutting out those moments would be a disservice. Every word is deliberate. It tells you something about the characters, Richard himself, their bubble.

I can understand why people don’t like this book, but I simply can’t relate.