Published: September 16 1992

Genre: Fiction, mystery, classics

Pages: 629

This is a cult classic by now, and I read it about 7-8 years ago but felt it was due a reread, mostly because I don’t remember a lot of it.

It starts off like I remember it, packing a punch and setting that eerie dark academia vibe and perhaps one of my favorite prologues and intro sentences to date:

“I suppose at one time in my life, I might’ve had a few number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.”

It’s so intriguing and it really sets the tone. The first 150 pages fly by, getting to know our narrator Richard and the five students that compose the Ancient Greek class, one of which we know will die soon as teased by the prologue. They walk around campus under a cloud of mystery that nobody can really get close to. But Richard sort of does and transfers into their class after several rounds of convincing their teacher Julian he’s serious about the class.

The writing is heavy, and it mixes in Greek, latin and French phrases here and there. It speaks of mythology and texts we can only dream about understanding. It’s all so above our heads that it makes me wonder if anybody truly understands this book, these characters and their path.
I certainly didn’t. But I don’t think it matters. I think it’s the fact that you’re reading the book and the proximity to their intelligence that makes it part of the allure.

Aside from the intelligent passages, I think the reason why people love this book is the vibe it gives off.
Everything is so mysterious that the characters never really feel fleshed out. I spent 600 pages with these people and I still don’t feel like I know them. Maybe it’s the fault of the narrator, who seems unreliable at best. But maybe it’s also because we don’t really need to because it’s all part of the mystery. I don’t know, but it feels like something I can’t fully grasp. It slips through my fingers at every try. “Bakcheia” Anyone? Dionysiac frenzy? No? Me neither.

After the first 150 pages it stalls. I’m in awe at how Tartt can write hundreds of pages without anything really happening. A study in human movement and expressions. Capturing the essence of just waiting around for something to hit the fan. There’s a restless feeling of moving around for the lack of managing to calm the inner demons clawing at you. It feels almost like an anxiety attack exercise. Name five things you can see, touch, smell.

Towards the end, she finds humor. Tragic and divine comedy. The pace picks up again and we feel like we’re awakening from a daze. Did we just make it though all the circles of hell? It sure feels like it.

And as the song goes, in a New York minute, everything can change. Somebody’s going to emergency, somebody’s going to jail.

Cue the credits so we can get the lowdown on where everyone ended up. It’s anticlimactic. Or it’s like having the climax at the prologue and spending 600 pages waiting for it to be over. It’s not bad, It’s just that we peaked too soon. Only dividing this into 8 “chapter” breaks is a choice authors who hate their readers make.

But the story does what it sets out to do. Create a vibe you’re desperate to recreate in every dark academia book you pick up after it. And for some reason it can never fully be recreated.
This is why I feel like the book both deserves and doesn’t deserve its high praises. While it’s definitely unique and moody, it’s also tedious. Perhaps unless you’re one of the few out there that can actually understand what they are spewing in greek.

Had this book been edited down to 300ish pages, I may have felt differently about it, it may have been more exciting, but then it wouldn’t be Donna Tartt then, would it?